Nature Notebook - July

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus funereus)

Our yearly visitor arrived with the usual unmistakable screeching and weird wailing. This is the first time we've had any success getting a photo and unfortunately we haven't been able to take one when in flight. Their wingspan is about 2 feet (63-68cm) and they look quite spectacular with their yellow tail feathers.

A portion of the tail feathers can be seen here

Here is one of them glowering at us with the air of a pirate. He is feeding on a banksia (named after Sir Joseph Banks, a naturalist who travelled with Captain Cook). Our very first encounter with these birds came one wet day when we went to see what was causing a regular thud overhead. We found a couple of them eating the banksias from an overhanging tree and the leftover heavy, woody cones were falling on our roof.

 If you leave me, can I come too?

Some More Thoughts on 'Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child' by Anthony Esolen

Anthony Esolen suggests (in Screwtape style) that you Keep Children Away from Machines and Machinists if you want to destroy their imaginations.

I've been teaching my eight year old how to use the sewing machine. My general rule has been that as soon as they can reach the pedal and concentrate enough so they don't sew their fingers together they can start learning but one day, years ago, I'd been sewing and left the room briefly and came back to find my two year old son kneeling on the chair in front of the sewing machine. He'd put a piece of material under the needle and was waiting there, mesmerised - fortunately, I'd automatically turned off the power before I'd left the room. The look he had on his little face as he sat waiting for something to happen was priceless. He had the same look a few years later when he walked in front of his dad while they pushed the lawn mower together, and again when he lit a fire and used an axe for first time, and later when he was finally entrusted with the chainsaw.

'Or think of the mischief a good shovel, an axe or chainsaw, and a mattock can do. If you teach your kids how to use them, they might – use them………….That would show the dangerous virtue of initiative.’

'We can stress to such an extraordinary degree the safeguarding of Johnny's knee or pate, that we can leave his imagination wholly undeveloped.'

My husband's uncle is a toolmaker by background and wherever he goes, he fixes things or invents stuff. He keeps me supplied with good sharp little scissors and other handy gadgets, and it was his influence, encouragement and projects that triggered my husband’s interest in pursuing a career in electrical engineering.

'The quickest way to prevent children from developing their ingenuity is to keep them away from adults who know how to do things. We can do this the more readily by repeating to ourselves the truism that Safety Kills. Michelangelo did not sculpt the David in a padded cell. In fact, he had to hang around with the rough stone quarriers in Carrara to learn what marble was really like, from inside, so to speak, when men cut it out of the mountain. Had he been told to wear a helmet all his life, he would never have gone to Carrara in the first place.'

Reading this section of the book reminded me of an article another uncle sent us a couple of years ago To All the Kids Who Survived the 1940's, 50's, 60's and 70's!!

Linking this to Wednesday with Words  

A Sentimental Journey

Over the past year I've been slowly working my way through Anthony Esolen's book, Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child. In a similar style to C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, he points out the current trends in child rearing and education which snuff out the imaginations of our children.

I was about twenty-six pages into the book when I came to the section, Keep Your Children Indoors as Much as Possible, where the author reminisces about growing up in a small mining town in Pennsylvania. It sounded so similar to my own childhood growing up in Whyalla, a mining town in South Australia. My dad, his brother and a few of my cousins still live there but my sisters, brother and I moved away many years ago and we all have joked at times about what a dump it was - it's fairly isolated and it's not a place you just pass through on the way to somewhere else. 

Then I came to the next section of his book, Never Leave Children to Themselves, and I thought back to the hours and days we spent as children roaming around the outskirts of the town with no adult watching us. They knew where we were and the place is so flat that all an adult had to do was scan the horizon or look up at the 'mount' where we used to have our adventures to reassure themselves if necessary. Hunger would always bring us home at some point anyhow.

I'd always suspected that my time in this town had given me room to develop in ways life in a well appointed city would never have afforded me, but it took a visit back there to cement this idea. I had an opportunity recently to revisit my old playground and share some of my memories with my three youngest children. My dad has been unwell and I felt I needed to see him sooner rather than later so I made plans to drive the 1625 kilometres interstate and give my 16 year old son, Nougat, an opportunity to clock up some driving hours.
In our family my cool, calm, rational husband does the driving lessons and I don't go anywhere with them until they've done at least 50 hours or preferrably, when they've actually passed their driving test. Nougat only had 12 hours of driving experience but BB insisted that I shared the driving with him so I wouldn't get tired (and had a little talk to him about looking after mum & the younger kids on the trip as he gave him a few emergency tools just in case we had a breakdown). I wasn't keen but acquiesced and was pleasantly surprised at his driving skill. So it was a little adventure for the four of us - a journey of two days to get there and an overnight stop at a caravan park on the way.

Saltbush, barely a tree, miles between toilet stops!! and no decent size tree nearby for cover.....

Four emus, a superb wedge-tailed eagle (one of the largest eagles in the world), hawks and the ever present crow were some of the wildlife we saw on our trip. No live kangaroos, which was unusual but a few of their carcassas were to be seen on the edges of the roads.

Long drop dunnies were another experience - they didn't have these out in the sticks when we were kids!

An unexpected oasis - quite a large lake in the middle of a vast plain. There had been a fair bit of rain in previous months

A stop for a cup of tea

At the closing of day in our drive westward

Lovely blue skies decorated with cumulostratus & cirrus formations

Here we are at my old town lookout near the ship building area where my dad used to work

Looking out near the Spencer Gulf - the nicer part of town where we didn't live

And up they go to explore Mount Laura where I used to play for hours on end

Red dirt that permanently stains your clothes 

Looking down at our van; beyond is the railway line - unfenced, but I don't remember any accidents - it was used to carry the iron ore which was mined when I lived here

'One way to neutralize this fascination with the natural world is to cordon it off in parks and zoos, and then to act as if only the parks and zoos were worth seeing. Persuade a child that a giraffe he sees once every couple of years is really impressive, but the wren on the fencepost is only a drab little bird....' (Pg. 37)

'We talk a great deal about independence, but we loathe it as much as we loathe the blessed freedom of nothing to do. Children no longer play because we have taken from them the opportunity and, I'll insist, even the capacity to play. And this, if we want to kill the imagination, is an altogether healthy thing.' (Pg. 49)

How do you help your child develop his imagination?

How can we prevent our children's imaginations from being destroyed?

What do you do to fight the current trends of raising children?

Do your children ever get the opportunity to be bored or have nothing to do?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Handicraft - Wheat Pack

We had one wheat pack for our household of nine so I asked our 13 year old to make a new one. 

It's a very easy project which took him under an hour all up with the help of a sewing machine.

You'll need:

A rectangular piece of cotton (soft corduroy is a good choice) or linen material  about  24 inches x 16 inches, depending on what size you want the pack to be.

About 2 pounds/900 grams of wheat - I paid $1.60 for a kilo at a Lebanese grocer.

What to do:

Fold the material in half lengthwise, right sides together and sew both of the long sides

Then sew the end but leave about a 2 or 3 inch gap so you can turn the it the right way round and also so the wheat can be poured in. (Use a funnel or a jug with a spout to make pouring easier)
It's better not to overstuff them so they can be moulded to fit wherever you are going to place them.

Once the wheat is inside, sew up the gap you left.

To use, put the pack on a plate in the microwave with a 1/2 cup of water beside it (helps the wheat not to dry out) and heat for 2 minutes.

This one was put to immediate use as an aid to piano practice.

They can also be used as cool packs - wrap them in plastic and place in freezer until needed.

They are helpful to relieve stomach cramps, aching muscles and putting on the spot over a migraine (just make sure it's cooled a little first) - this works a treat for a member of the family who gets these from time to time.

We just used material we had on hand but they make a neat gift done up in some attractive fabric with a little card attached with instructions on its use.

There are some precautions with their use:

Don't overheat - they can ignite, like lots of other things, if you zap them for 20 minutes instead of 2!

Overheating is more likely with a wheat bag that is old and has been over-used.

Picture Study - Hans Heysen

Hans Heysen (1877-1968) is said to have been the first Australian painter to have recognised the beauty of the Australian eucalypts, or gum trees and has been called 'the portrait painter of the Australian gum tree.'

Heysen was born in Germany and came to Australia when he was six years old. He eventually made his home at Hahndorf in the Mount Lofty Ranges of South Australia, an area which inspired many of his paintings.

An Early Summer Morning Ambleside

The Art Gallery of South Australia has an excellent guide for families for a study of Hans Heysen's paintings:

'Look at how Heysen has used layers of watercolour to paint this landscape.

What weather report would you give after looking at this painting?

 How has Heysen created a sense of mood and atmosphere in this painting?' 

The Wet Road 

The Hillside, Glen Osmond

Summer

 Flinder's Ranges Landscape

 Edge of the Clearing

 Drought Sheep

Colin Thiele said of him, 'Hans Heysen was one of the great landscape painters of Australia. His superb draughtsmanship, his wonderful control of medium – especially watercolour and charcoal – his handling of light, his power of composition and his intense awareness of natural form and texture, combined to make him unique among the representational painter of this country. Nobody in Australia had studied the gum tree as he had, or analysed its singular character.......His, indeed, was one of the longest and most distinguished careers in the history of Australian art.'

Sewing  (The Artist's Wife)

A Lord of the Bush