Christmas Nature Craft

 Christmas sparkly dragonflies made using sticks, paint, glitter, beads and maple keys (seeds)

 Christmas Santas and Gnomes made from whittled sticks

 Stick Stars

  

 Nature Bracelets with some added Christmas Sparkle

Winter

I've had a touch of blogitis, here is a look at what we've been up to.

At school there has been a complete rejuvenation of the extensive vegie patches, with new manure enriched compost and brick steps to stop the children compacting the soil. We planted lots of garlic, peas, spinach, cauliflower, broccoli... each class now has a vegie patch space to care for and a crop rotation system was devised. The place has never looked so organised thanks to some very dedicated volunteers.  A couple of the prep dads put together this wonderful tin man with mint hair, he is the envy of all of the other grades.

  There was a magnificent winter solstice with stories, soup, wood fired pizzas and a huge bonfire. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture in the daylight but a huge tee-pee stood proudly over the fire.  Each stick had been lovingly decorated by the students with bits of old fabric.

 There has been much crafting indoors and some quality time with teddy.  He even joined in on the June birthdays and had a party of his own.

 Our Schleich animal collection is one of the most played with toys in our house, and a peacock proudly joined the gang. 

 There has been lots of colourful soup, pink cauliflower soup, orange pumpkin soup and yellow corn soup have all been on the menu.

 The middle child is now obsessed with Harry Potter, great to see him passionate about books, although its quite obsessive.

The bread-maker has been getting a renewed workout, these cinnamon scrolls were one of our favourite creations.

 Mr Bowerbird had a sticky date pudding cake for his birthday and we had a beautiful day celebrating at a Kyneton winery.

 For my party there were Trentham spuds baked in the Coonara and a mushroom cake decorated with marshmallows and slices of apple. I shared a party with a good friend and was humbled by the generosity of food and gifts people brought along.

http://www.themuckymacbook.com/2012/06/party-marshrooms-how-to.html

For wonderful detailed instructions on how to make this cake see the link above.  The chocolate cake recipe seems very weird but is actually very tasty and generous in size.

Junior Landcare, Tales, Stories and Winter Solstice Lanterns

There are some new volunteer mums helping out with our school's Junior Landcare program with lots of ideas and enthusiasm.  Last week I just came and helped out with Landcare rather than having to coordinate the activities,  it was lovely. This week I'm having a week off. So good to know it is valued, and that others will help to keep it going if I step back.

First there was a story from one of our wonderful local story tellers. She told an African tale, but made it local by including the Pobblebonk frog, the theme of the story was that everything is connected. I am amazed how much Kate can put to memory, she weaved a wonderful tale and had the children mesmerised.

Then the classes split into two groups.

One group went on a nature walk and talked about deciduous plants and what was happening this time of year in the garden.

The second group made winter solstice lanterns.

Students chose a few Autumn leaves

They stuck these onto recycled glass jars with PVA, the less crunchy ones were best.

Some kids didn't like the feel of the glue and struggled with keeping their leaves on, so having a couple of parent helpers was definitely handy. It was a great problem solving activity.

After the leaves were stuck down tissue paper was placed over the whole jar and also glued with PVA.  The jars will wait in our ecoshed until the evening of the Winter Solstice when we will have a bonfire to celebrate.

They look much prettier lit up.

Last year we made these CD flowers, finally we got around to putting them up. First they were spray painted and the children had fun etching designs into them with nails. Finally they were glued together with liquid nails. They send beautiful rainbows out when the sun hits them.

It is proving to be the most magical Autumn. 

Edible Flowers and Elderberry Flower Cordial

I'm missing Junior Landcare tomorrow, we're getting ready for a camping music festival adventure. Camping is great but the getting ready bit is not my favourite part, I'm procrastinating.  Junior Landcare this term has been all about edible flowers. These are some of the flowers I put together to display and taste. Every time I research a new topic I learn something. This time I discovered my favourite tea (Lady Grey) contains cornflowers, and I just happen to be growing them at the moment, it's the blue one on the right, but they come in many beautiful colours.

There's a beautiful poster in this magazine for anyone interested in edible flowers, it is a really fascinating topic, you would be surprised how many flowers are edible.  The pineapple sage flowers were hugely popular with the school children.  My favourite is the cucumber zing of borage. It was hilarious to watch the children sample nasturtium flowers and screw up their noses at the peppery taste.  They also had a great time making magical beads of water roll around on nasturtium leaves, the drops glimmering and pooling like mercury. Children were sipping water from cupped leaves like little fairy folk. A perfect hot afternoon activity. The flower theme really struck a chord with the kids, they were madly exploring the garden for edible flowers, and took a little reminding that some flowers are poisonous. Most edible plants have edible flowers and it was interesting to try the flowers of radish, broccoli, sage, chives and rosemary, whose flowers all taste a little like the leaves, bulbs and florets.  My youngest daughter is currently very taken with the small juicy seed pods on broccoli.

photo source

 I have made two batches of elder flower cordial this fortnight, from my own elderberry bushes.  I really love the flavour, it is unlike anything else, summery, and somewhat reminiscent of an alcoholic drink. The idea to make it came as a great suggestion from an English friend, it's good for you, and so simple to make. Gather around 20 umbels of elderberry flowers (we have two varieties), shake off any bugs, peel 3 lemons and one orange then cut the peeled fruit into quarters, throw all of it  in bowl. I added a couple of tablespoons of citric acid to the second batch but the flavour difference wasn't really discernible from the first batch, perhaps it helps it last longer.

Make a syrup using 1kg sugar and 1.5 litres of water - heat them together in a saucepan until simmering and all sugar is dissolved.

  Pour syrup over flowers and fruit.

 Cover with muslin and leave to steep overnight or for 24 hours. 

Strain through a muslin lined colander (you can buy muslin baby wraps from the op-shop very cheaply).

Ahem, not the prettiest of jars (a touch reminiscent of something you might take to the doctors) but the contents are heady floral deliciousness. I'm storing mine in the fridge and it is being consumed at a vast rate, but I imagine if you wanted to keep it in the cupboard you would need to reheat it then place it in sterile bottles. I don't think going off will be a problem for us.

 It was the perfect drink to serve to my vegie gardening friends after they had helped complete this list.

 They certainly earned it.

They didn't receive any of this banana cake, or "cake disaster" as my kids dubbed it, they even made up a rap song about it. I went to turn it out from the pan and it started oozing mixture, I then shoved it all back in the tin and put it back in the oven, it came out with the texture of cauliflower and was actually the cause of much laughter in the house. Fortunately I had made plenty of other cakes so this one was saved for private family eating. I hope you get a chuckle too.

Over summer think about putting out a drink for your feathered friends, this old fry pan (bottom right) is frequented by Eastern Spinebills, Grey Fantails (pictured), Blackbirds, Blue Wrens, Ravens and Magpies.  I just unscrewed the handle and gave it a quick coat of spray paint. It's under a tap where it catches any drips and is easily refilled. I do love to watch a bird frolic and bathe.