Wreaths for the Birds

 

Junior Landcare has had a late start back at school this term. Given the awful weather this was fortuitous, Landcare indoors isn't quite the same. Of course the first day back was really awful, snowing on nearby Mountains, raining, and bitterly cold. The seedlings and plants I had brought along to put in the fairy garden were placed aside. Definitely an indoor day.

We had two Prep classes and the Junior Landcare theme for this term is recycling. I have placed a note in the newsletter asking for donations of materials and some great things are coming in.  Part of the problem with planning the activity is not knowing what you are going to get each week.  Hopefully we will be able to build up a good stockpile of goods.

The idea I have had is that we can make lots of cool recycled artwork to place around our vegie patch and gardens. Of course sometimes the logistics don't quite occur to me properly until I am mid activity.  The first session involved pouring out lots of recycled materials on a bench and asking the kids to have a go at designing recycled flowers. I had some heavy duty outdoor glue and thought I could have a parent helper work on sticking them together. Unfortunately it wasn't a great day for helpers, so the glue didn't get opened.  

credit  Photo by Michelle Stitzlein. Polka Flower Garden from recycled bottlecaps.

The preps were a little disappointed that they couldn't put the things together straight away,  they really just wanted to play with the bits and pieces and make crazy stuff to take home.  Possibly a better idea. I did have some great creations though, just have to glue them together when the kids aren't there.

What did work well was creating nesting wreaths for the birds.  Wreaths were made out of natural materials gathered quickly at school - I have found most kids and mums and dads love making these.  There is something very satisfying about the twisting of soft green wood into a circle. Into the wreaths we inserted bits of cloth, string and wool for the birds to pluck and add to their nests. We used lots of wattle, which made them look particularly bright and cheerful on a grey day.  The wreaths also fitted the olympic theme well. I brought a nest along to show the kids how clever the birds were and how they sometimes used man made materials. We covered a dead tree with festive rings.  The wind is blowing a gale out there tonight so they may not be holding on to well, I imagine the children will have fun playing with them.  I wonder if any birds have plucked some materials from them.

I have seen magpies and ravens gathering bits for their nests around our house of late, they are very partial to our dogs fluffy coat.

The Olympics may be over but a new interest has been born in our house.

An Old Fashioned School Fete

After much anticipation, the school fete finally arrived. The vegie group ladies had said they would manage a plant stall, create a craft stand, make wood fired pizzas, and do face painting.  I got a little carried away and even put up a photo booth and created a Wishing Tree.  We also got into decorating with bunting and hand made signs. There was also a mini garden stand with things to buy on it including hand made bath bombs and pot pourri. Do your great ideas ever get the better of you? Not everything was busy but I was proud to highlight the sort of activities we do as part of our Landcare program.  Across the road was trash and treasure, a cake stall, performances, books, an auction, raffle, and lots of rides.

Making a Xmas tree, crepe paper screwed in balls made great coloured baubles and silver wool served as tinsel, finally a little bit of glitter and some eucalyptus seed caps (operculums) complete the creation.

 The amazing Christine at Slow Living Essentials put this stand together. Visit her blog here  to see our delicious pizzas and more fete pictures.  The pizzas were a huge hit, we sold out at 150 pizzas but could have sold more, they were so delicious.  Plans are afoot to make a bit more use of our wonderful pizza oven.  

 The huge and very popular plant stall.

 The vegie group ladies relaxing at the end of a long day.

 The school vegie patch, mulched and freshly planted with summer crops.

 Paper snow flake garlands made by Preps and sewn together by me.  They really glowed in the sunlight.

  

The wreath making became popular with little and big girls, it was wonderful to see the flowery creations bobbing about the fete.

A seriously cute Michael Jackson performance.

Thank goodness the fete only comes around once every two years.  A beautiful but very long day, felt like I took all weekend to recover. Now to get planting all those plants I brought home.