Forest friday

We always visit the horse farm on Fridays with all our home schooling friends and head into the forest to explore. So I thought I'd start sharing our Friday forest walk pictures each week. These photos are from the last couple of weeks.

 

Can you see Isla disappearing into the bushes?

The kids have claimed an old shed as their club house. It's amazing to watch the way they work together and make plans, so organised and industrious! They have great plans and dreams for this space! they have already spent hours clearing it of moss and leaves and spider webs.

 

Liam repairing the roof.

We saw two wood pigeons! I love these birds! It's very rare to get to see them. The photo isn't so good as I was zooming in on my phone.

Free plants

When I go on walks I like to pick pieces off plants and put them in my pocket. Does anyone else do this? I've got some really cool houseplants now from pieces that I've collected from here and there. I can't confess to be a propagating expert, I have no idea if what I'm picking at the time will actually grow new roots or whether it will just shrivel up and die. But that's actually kind of part of the appeal in a way - will it work? Will it make a baby plant? And I get such a kick out of it when it does work!

I also like to transplant baby plants that randomly pop up in my garden, and see if they will grow indoors. I figure it's worth a try, it's free after all, and if it doesn't work I can always plant it back outside (if it's still alive!).

 

I'm not exactly sure what this plant is, but it pops up all over the place in our back yard. So I thought I'd dig one out and give it a go at being an indoors plant for a bit. I've put it in a bathroom that doesn't get a lot of natural light so I'm kind of not holding my breath - but it's been three weeks already and it still looks really happy! I wonder how long it will last?

 

These are two plants that have taken very well to living inside, the one in the terrarium grew from a piece that I picked off a climber on a walk to the beach one day. It's very happily growing in Liam's room. And the other one in the wooden bowl I dug out of my garden - this one is quite cool as it's been in here for about three years, and being confined to the pot has kept it small, it has multiplied but has not grown huge like it does in my garden. - It's an Arum Lily and it's considered a pest, which I can attest to! But indoors it's quite sweet, I might just have to dig out some more to bring inside.

 

 

And these ones below are newer editions to the indoor plant family. Two baby Monstera plants which I dug out of my sister's lawn which are just getting settled in, a fern from under my house, and some baby aloes picked off a massive mamma plant which I came across on our forest walk last week. The jury is still out on whether these ones will survive and flourish.

Below are my latest pickings. Sometimes I put them straight into soil and sometimes I leave them in a glass of water for a while to see if they will grow roots first. I like to keep them in my kitchen on the windowsill so I can monitor them (and not forget about watering them!). I will let you know how they go. Fingers crossed!

 

 

 

Friday forest walk

 

Are you ready for a forest walk?

He always knows when he's going somewhere because we put his collar on.

My camera is still not fixed, but I'm trying to embrace the photography-with-iphone. It just feel weird not having something substantial in my hands. But I'm kind of getting the hang of it and starting to see the world framed up as photos again like I used to. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was one amazing autumn coloured tree amongst a forest of green!

 

 

 

Mister Kingfisher

Wintery morning. Hello mister Kingfisher.

 

'Survival' theme birthday party

Liam is into bush craft and survival stuff. Big time. He's never happier than when he's outside building fires and shelters and practising his skills. Or inside creating survival kits or organising and re-organising his pack and gear. 

He had a Man vs Wild birthday party last year and wanted the same sort of thing again this year. 

So I got my thinking cap on and tried to come up with some activities that would push them a bit and make them work as a team. It was actually trickier than I thought to come up with a plan!

 

 

Here is what I ended up with..

 

1. The first thing they had to do was fill a pack with essential items. I hid a whole lot of things that they took turns to try and find, once they had found something they had to take it back to the team and decide if it needed to go into the pack or not. They were only allowed 10 items so there were a few tough decisions to make as to what to leave out.

 

2. Collecting water - they had to transfer water from the bucket down the line to the container using only their hands. They had to really concentrate and work as a team to make sure they didn't loose it all on the way. Once the container was full it had to be carried during the next activities, if the container touched the ground I told them I would tip it out and they would have to start again!

 

3. Keeping a flame going and target practise - They had to hit down targets using whatever they could find lying around whilst keeping a candle alight. If the candle went out they had to stop and relight the candle before carrying on with the targets. (They had chosen matches as one of their pack items).

I was amazed at their ingenious idea of holding the tealight - they wrapped a piece of bamboo bark tightly into a roll and sat the tealight in the top. Apparently something they had seen on youtube :).

 

4. They had to find a hidden bottle and then they could transfer their water into it. It still was not allowed to touch the ground so they had to tie the water bottle to their pack... but they were only allowed to use one hand each! It was hilarious, their two hands kept sneaking in there without them even realising. It took major brain focus and team work to get it done.

 

5. One of the team members (Liam) injured his foot so they had to bandage it (fortunately they had chosen a bandage to include in their pack) and they had to support him through the next challenges so that his foot stayed off the ground.

 

6. Collecting food - there were bags of food hidden around the place that they had to collect up as they did their activities and put into their backpack. They also had to try and pick up popcorn kernels while wearing giant leather gloves. (They had chosen and empty container as one of their backpack items so they used it to hold the popcorn). When they lit their fire they would have to cook the popcorn over the fire.

 

 

The food items they ended up with:

Salami sticks - (giant worms)

Potato chips - (pigs ears)

Cheese - (pig fat)

Raisins - (rabbit poo)

Marshmallows - (fungus)

Biltong - (dried camel)

Oranges with grated chocolate - (dirty oranges)

Bananas - (found growing on a 'banana' tree)

Chocolate pieces (dirt - to put with the bananas)

Apple juice in jars - (urine)

 

 

 

Then they had to get a fire going and cook all the food using only items that they had chosen to put in their backpack and sticks and wood from their surroundings. They cooked the bananas with chocolate stuffed inside. Cooked the popcorn in a pot they had in their pack. Melted the pieces of cheese in tinfoil and roasted the marshmallows on sticks. It was quite a feast in the end! And they did an awesome job of getting a good fire going.

 

 

They were rewarded with chocolate birthday cake to finish. (Same recipe as last year which is grain free and refined sugar free - I make only half a recipe and replace the honey with less maple syrup/coconut sugar. And I make up my own frosting recipe).

 

And then to make sure that they were well and truly worn out we finished the day with some speedy downhill luge racing!