Nature Study in Australia: The Christmas Bush & a Lakeside Holiday

Christmas Bush (Ceratopetalum gummiferum) - is an Australian native that flowers in spring. It's not the petals or 'flowers' that stand out, though. This native bush or small tree is unique in that its sepals turn a brilliant red colour after flowering. Just in time for Christmas, hence the name, Christmas bush. I took some photos at different stages over the space of about a month. A couple are magnified to better show the flowers, which are quite small.

Magnified photo of the flowers

They are quite delicate and from a distance look bushy, like the first photo I posted above

A non-magnified view

And the sepals put on their show in summer

Our pre-Christmas lakeside holiday. We took the opportunity to have an extended family holiday while everyone could get time off work etc. 16 of us & it was great.

The going down of the sun

A jog along the beach - there are magnificent beaches all around Australia & lots of empty space to enjoy

Motor boat rides and kayaking - we took our two grandchildren out on the boat. I went in the double kayak with my daughter-in-law who is 8 months pregnant & very fit! She did the steering...I also went out with my daughter, who is very swim fit & kept telling me to put a bit more effort into my paddling!  I didn't do too badly with the jogging along the beach - my son was a bit more diplomatic and told me not to worry about keeping up with him.

Aunty & Uncle on beach duty

'I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.'

John Masefield

Notebooks in a Charlotte Mason Education - Year 6

Moon Jelly Aurelia aurita - common ocean animal often washed up on beaches. There's a video about them here.

Science Notebook 

This year Moozle has recorded experiments from some of her science books e.g. Archimedes and the Door of Science; The Sea Around Us; The Elements and The Mystery of the Periodic Table. The experiment below was one she watched via video on the Periodic Table:

Archimedes and the Door of Science

 The Sea Around Us

We had a severe storm with large hailstones about a week ago so we did a study on what causes hail and watched the short video below which explains it reasonably well. The hailstones were the largest we've experienced and made a tremendous racket as they hit the roof. They were about the size of eggs and we ended up with a smashed skylight and damaged pergola.

Nature Notebook

We've been using this series of videos on basic water colour techniques by John Muir and also some by Alphonso Dunn on using ink & watercolours to get some direction and help in this area. Moozle has also been inspired by the watercolouring in A Country Diary of an Edwardian Woman. I wrote a little about that here.

The Portuguese Man O' War or Bluebottle was mentioned in the fourth chapter of The Sea Around Us and around the same time as we were reading through that chapter, we went to the beach and there were heaps of them washed up on the sand. Moozle managed to get stung twice but fortunately, the bluebottles we get here are not the tropical nasties. The stings hurt but what hurt more was the bull ant bite she got a few days later out the back! I know because I got one on the under part of my foot and it was awful!
For an introductory video on recognising bluebottles and treating their sting see here. A marine-stinger fact sheet is here.

The Portuguese Man O' War is an interesting creature. It's not a true jellyfish but a colony of four different types of animals. My nature journal entry:

Bull Ant

We started a tree study earlier this month. So, of course, the best way to do that is to get up in the tree and have a good look.

Poetry Notebook

'Nature will not give up her secrets to the man in a hurry.'

We have this tree at the bottom of our long driveway. I pass it at least once a day when I check the mailbox and I've noticed it had some deep pink/crimson flowers on it from time to time and that it was evergreen. And that was it.
Not long ago Moozle was looking around the garden and cut off a small section from it to draw in her nature notebook. She asked me if I knew what it was but I didn't have a clue. That wasn't good enough so I went searching and to cut a long story short, I found out that it was a Port Wine Magnolia. I was a bit disgusted with myself because I'd seen this plant before and should have recognised it. It's position on our driveway obscures it a little and keeps it in shade but it has flowers that I didn't think to smell. Port Wine Magnolia flowers smell like a fruity chewing gum or banana paddlepops. So there are many different ways to help identify plants if you're not always hurrying past them.

Moozle's drawing of a Wedge-tailed Eagle. We saw one standing by the edge of the road on a trip we did inland a few years ago. I think the word 'awesome' is so often misused but it fits the description of this Australian bird. It certainly takes your breath away to see it in real life in the open. It has such iconic legs but Moozle decided to concentrate on the head with this drawing...

My Husband and I had our 32nd Wedding Anniversary  nearly 2 weeks ago so we went out for breakfast together and then had a walk through some gardens nearby where some beautiful Australian natives were in flower.

Grevillea - Australian native as is the yellow grevillea below but I think both are cultivars

My neglected nature notebook... I decided after looking through some student's work at the Armitt Museum last month that I'd make a regular effort to journal my nature sightings and thoughts but leave drawing/painting until I get the opportunity and time. Today I drew the brown cuckoo dove that flew up to our verandah a couple of weeks ago to visit me when I was having a quiet moment all on my ownsome.

A Superb Lyrebird next to our house - I'd heard what I thought was numerous birds carrying on in the bush but it wasn't until I caught sight of this one that I realised I'd been duped. I'm not sure if this is a female lyrebird because we saw it later (unless there's another one) displaying its long filmy tail and dancing around so presumed it was the male. I wish we'd caught it on video!

Grevillea

In Nature Studies in Australia, William Gillies gives us this advice: 'To enable the student who has been absorbed with the investigation of a corner of Nature to bring his pet subjects into relation with other parts of Nature, and all the parts into relation with the whole, the poets who deal with nature should be read and re-read.'

He uses an example from Botany where a student might study the details of a dandelion. He suggests that afterwards the student reads a poem such as James Russell Lowell's To the Dandelion. Here is the last verse of the poem, which I think contains a powerful image:

How like a prodigal doth nature seem
When thou, for all thy gold, so common art!
Thou teachest me to deem
More sacredly of every human heart,
Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam
Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show,
Did we but pay the love we owe,
And with a child’s undoubting wisdom look
On all these living pages of God’s book.

Flannel Flowers

Inspiration from Ambleside

Although the main purpose of our overseas trip was for me to return to Scotland, each of us had some specific ideas of what wanted to do and places we wanted to visit while we were in that part of the world. My son was keen to see his favourite football (soccer) team, Chelsea, playing in London and he ended up booking tickets to three different matches, one on Glasgow & two in London. We all went to the Glasgow Celtic game which was on while we were there and it was just how I remembered Scottish football - fanatical & noisy with plenty of police on duty!
The Chelsea game was on at the time we'd planned to be in Ambleside so we dropped him at the station in Carlisle so he could take the train to Stamford Bridge in London for the game and we continued on to the Lakes District.

Obviously, having an interest in Charlotte Mason's ideas and practice was one of my main reasons for wanting to visit the area, but I was also intrigued by a place that appeared to have been a mecca for some very influential, intelligent, and gifted people - Beatrix Potter, William Wordsworth and John Ruskin being notable examples besides Charlotte Mason.

In 1891 Charlotte Mason (1842-1923) started a training institute for governesses, which became the House of Education at Ambleside in 1892. After her death it became known as the Charlotte Mason College and was managed by the county until the 1990’s when it became part of Lancaster University. St. Martin’s College took over its management in the late 1990s (Charlotte Mason/St. Martins College in Ambleside).The site of the Charlotte Mason college in Ambleside is now occupied by the University of Cumbria which was formed in 2007.
In 2017 The University of Cumbria signed an agreement with the Armitt Library and Museum Centre, one of the UK’s rarest small museums. The Armitt is in the same location as the university (to the right of the sign pictured below) and first opened in 1912 as a museum, library and gallery 'devoted to preserving and sharing the cultural heritage of the Lake District.'
Founded in memory of sisters Mary Louisa and Sophia Armitt, Beatrix Potter was one of its early supporters and its greatest benefactor. It is now being established as the national centre for all Charlotte Mason archives.




What was it about this little spot in England? Well, it was obvious as we drove down from the north that the Lakes District is very beautiful and the town of Ambleside itself is very quaint, but there are plenty of delightful little places all over Britain.
Although the second half of the 19th Century was a time of rapid innovation and technological advancement for Britain, Ambleside remained isolated from the general hubbub. It had no electricity until 1930, and it was some distance from the trainline so its comparative tranquillity made it a sought after retreat for intellectuals - artists, writers, and academics. They in turn had ties to numerous other poets, artists & novelists who also spent time in the area.
Surprisingly, there has also always been industry in the Lakes District with quarrying, a gunpowder factory, watermills, and copper mining. Up until the 1970's bobbin mills were operating there also.
We arrived at the end of the peak season and the centre of the town was a busy little place but it was peaceful & quiet in the Armitt. There are lovely little tea shops everywhere and there was a gentle intermittent drizzle of rain - perfect!

The Armitt Library

The Armitt building also hosts a gift shop and sells a wide variety of secondhand books that I thought were very reasonably priced.

The Bridge House, said to have been built on an arch over the Stock (? Stream) Beck so the owner could avoid land tax, was built in the 17th Century:

Moozle pays a visit...

Although samples of Charlotte Mason's students' Nature Notebooks and other material may be viewed online via The Charlotte Mason Digital Collection at Redeemer College, I was so pleased to see and handle some original work at The Armitt. Photographs aren't permitted in the library but I was told I could photograph the samples I looked through so here are some of them. The library has a Charlotte Mason 'sample' box and I looked through this and also a couple of Nature Notebooks (pictured below).

I was asked by a fellow home educator if the nature notebooks looked at all 'like the intensive sort of things we sometimes see in CM curriculum these days' and I would have to say that I thought they were quite simple and seemed to reflect the different personalities and inclinations of the owners. One I looked at was predominantly a journal with more text than actual brush drawing or sketching. Another concentrated more on drawing with less writing but observations were clearly labelled.

Dated 1929

A close up view

Frontispiece of a Nature Notebook

Record of Plants

Moozle expressed her surprise that the notebooks weren't as artistic or professional as she thought they would be. Maybe that's because that's what she often sees when we look at nature notebooks online.
This was a positive aspect for me - seeing what the students of Charlotte Mason's schools actually did rather than 'making them the intensive things we sometimes see.'

Poetry quotations were used as well as diagrams

I think this one was dated ? 1938

These look relaxed and do-able

Amongst the items in the sample box was a  more recent PNEU programme for Years 9 & 10 which was just up my alley as Moozle is finishing year 9 this year. This schedule was included too:

Free or Leisure Reading - this book list reflects a more British audience (except for the O'Dell book):

And so do the novels

Ambleside, United Kingdom

Some websites of interest:

Charlotte Mason College, Ambleside: memories from the 60's

Charlotte Mason Digital Collection (CMDC)

Charlotte Mason - Armitt

Ambleside's History

Images from Ambleside's History

Pictures of Old Ambleside

Bridge House