About three months with no posts..

It is hard to believe that it is about three (3) months since my last post.  I am not going to make any excuses  - all I have to say is that we needed a break.

Our journey toward sustainable living as a family of five has in no way stopped or been put on hold - below is a snapshot of some of our activities over the past three months.

We have started a local wholesale buying group.....

We have been making our own sourdough bread from home milled grain for nearly 6 months now and have preserved about half of a 5 kg box of garlic grown by my uncle.  We have enough great Australian garlic to use for a year and some to get planted in the garden soon. 

Our work at the ELF Community Garden continues (visit our Facebook page for more information and photos)

Our home garden has been producing lots of fruit, picking greens and vegetable over summer...

And, of course we found some time to connect with nature and enjoy the outdoors. These are some snapped of the kids enjoying time at Ganguddy Camping Ground (Dunn's Swamp) Wollemi National Park.

And that's just a taste of what has been happening.... I am looking forward to sharing our continuing journey to sustainability.

Winter's just around the corner

I think this photo really signals that winter is just around the corner.

Finding ways to cool down as it warms up

With the holidays drawing to a close and the weather warming up we have been spending time in and around water - a lifestyle I think the kids would be happy to continue with.

First we met up with Tricia and Little Eco up at Myall Lakes National Park - pop across to Tricia's page for some wonderful pictures. No TV, no computer and no MP3 players for 4 days - it was great to sit back and watch the kids just play and explore.

Of course we did do a lot of swimming....

There was lots of quiet time... here the kids were making the most of Grandma time - drawing and playing hangman....

We took the opportunity to take in the natural environment through a couple of short walks...

Once back home in Orange we spent the evenings at Lake Canobolas.. the kids tested their skills in a kayaks and can't wait to get back out again.

Sadly it is the last day of the holidays... and school goes back tomorrow and we all go back to work in earnest.  It has been great to get out and enjoy a range of activities over the summer break - so much of it was outdoors, non-technological and overall very refreshing. 

Taking the opportunity to explore

Recently we made the trip into the Blue Mountains to pick up Dad from an afternoon train from Sydney - we took the opportunity to head across to the mountains early and do a walk. We did the Grand Canyon walk near Blackheath in the Blue Mountains National Park.

Apparently the track was first opened in 1907. On talking to my Mum she walked it on her honeymoon forty plus years ago. It was a great walk with a lot of the track cut into the side of the cliffs of the canyon and although it is fairly short - about five kilometres you get to climb up and down lots of steps. With the kids we took about 4 hours to do the walk - our littlest walked the whole distance without being carried and was that determined to be the first to finish the walk she nearly ran up all the steps out of the canyon.

Here the kids are descending into the canyon.

Walking along the bottom of the gorge just before getting to the steep edged canyon.

Lots of the creek crossings have been recently upgraded ... a fantastic job by the National Parks.

Stopping at one of the many waterfalls along the way.

Descending into more dark, wet forests.

The track along the valley floor.

Rock-hopping along the creek.

Dad was very jealous that he was commuting instead of doing the walk with us.

Grassy box gum woodlands to end a year of work

I decided to spend the last day of work for the year out in the field... as the kids were already on school holidays they came too.  We went out on an excursion to an on-farm grassy box gum woodland - here are some photos from our day. I think the pictures speak for themselves.

We were exploring some of the wildflowers - spring is late here as we were at about 900m ASL.

Here's a Blue Pincushion - Brunonia australis.

The kids got into recording the plants they saw.....

Our youngest boy ended up with a list of over 15 local wildflowers for the day (as a botanist I got a rough list of 45 species so I think that's great effort for a seven year old)

This is a close up of the flowers of the Blue Devil - Eryngium ovinum

The Blue Devil - flowers in bud

The star-like arrangement of the flowers on the Blue Devil

The kids found lots of snake skins... there must be lots of shiny snakes getting around

Exploring animal habitats in a grassland - the kids found a small scorpion here.

 A Fringe Lily - Thysanotus tuberosus - I love the fringes on the edge of the petals in this species. 

All in all we all had a great morning out exploring nature and it was a great way to finish work for the year. 

Thanks John for being the caretaker of such a great grassy box gum woodland.

It's snowing

We have just had another week of wet cold weather in Orange... but today it all seems to be worthwhile... it's snowing...  After dropping the boys at school I took our littlest to a picnic ground up near Mount Canobolas and here are some snaps...  it is a little higher and hence the snow is settling better than at home... but given that we have an outside temp of 2oC and it's snowing wet snow at the moment we may soon have a white back yard..

Our Get Outdoors Challenge finishes with a psst....

We were going so well as a family getting outdoors daily in April until the last week..... I had a huge workload... running workshops and teaching... I had help from Grandma... and the kids were getting outdoors a bit... then the first colds for the year started to keep the kids indoors and in bed.

some outdoors time with Dad earlier in April...

While I was working Grandma managed to fit in some walks with the kids, the boys started their outdoor soccer and the kids spent time building their cubby in the back yard.

We have found that getting outdoors as a family daily is a hard task to achieve... even though the kids manage to play outdoors most days.  I would like to now think that I could use at least one outdoor time on weekly basis to get the kids closer to nature.

We started today by having a picnic and bushwalk up at the Pinnacle Reserve amongst the tall Manna Gums and Snow Gums. 

We even managed to get sick kids up to the lookout to enjoy the views over Orange

- although we were all horrified to see a bulldozer clearing the lovely bush below! (that's the tiny yellow spot in the middle of the photo)

Getting the kids outdoors with bushwalking...

We have bushwalking genes in all lines of our family with three out of our four Grandparents (parents) still being active bushwalkers as they go into their retirement.  As a family we love to head out to the bush and do a walk or two.  Now that the kids are getting older our walks are getting longer and more rewarding .... our oldest is now asking about overnight hiking... and on our last holiday to Gunderbooka National Park our littlest (just turned 4 years old) climbed her first mountain independentally.... she was so proud and should have been... here it is...

The track up to Mt Gunderbooka

Just look at the view we got from near the top... our littlest starting the walk down with Grandma

We find bushwalking a great opportunity for the kids (and ourselves) to get out and be closer to nature... we stop and look at all sorts of things when we are walking... observing patterns in nature, spotting different plants - crushing their leaves for smell and texture, looking at their flowers, comparing their leaf shapes, etc. 

...running through Mulga shrublands...

...snack time before the return walk back to camp...

Many walking tracks have information on Aboriginal culture and we often explore the traditional uses of plants and read the dreamtime stories about the places we are visiting.

..the boys heading into to see the Aboriginal artwork sites at Mount Grenfell near Cobar......