creek day with unschoolers, tomatoes, pigeons

Tuesday was a glorious day and we were thrilled that the Brisbane unschoolers group was coming to OUR creek for the day! For the first time ever, we were able to ride our bikes to a gathering. Summer and AJ played in the water all day and would have stayed until dark but Nicholas was having a bit of a struggle. He was maxed out and ready to go by about 4pm. It was probably a year since we had seen most of that group and Nicholas had forgotten them so he wasn't as comfortable with me chatting to people he couldn't remember. So I didn't get to chat as much as I would have liked, but we still had a lovely time.

Nicholas swimming - he taught himself to swim freestyle (crawl).

AJ & Nicholas


Summer on a surfboard

Looking out to the mouth of the creek where it meets the ocean. AJ in the middle, Summer to the right of him.

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We moved our tomato plants to try and encourage more growth. As we did, we noticed the roots coming through the bottom of the boxes. Definitely not deep enough. Could be why they stopped growing. After moving them a little more into the sun and rain, we did seem to get a few more tiny tomatoes, though the leaves died off. Just as I was about to go out and check the toms, Cary noticed a magpie sitting on the stake, eating all the tomatoes! We had already gotten about a dozen, but were looking forward to more. Oh well.

When we moved into this house, we noticed a couple of pigeons hanging out near the front door as though they were used to being fed by the previous occupant. So we started feeding them. Now one of them will actually come right up to the front door and peck on the door. If we don't take any food out right away, it will walk it's way up the fly screen and perch on the door handle. So funny!

Some photos

AJ, aka birdman, still in his PJ's, feeding bread to the rainbow lorikeets. He wakes up so excited to see the birds that he rushes over to them as soon as he's out of bed.


I forgot to mention yesterday that Sami had designed this black shirt for herself. She took a pair of scissors to a pair of track pants, cut out the crotch and rolled up the legs, um, sleeves. She often modifies her clothes in some way. It's a good thing that a lot of them come from the thrift store! Sami also spent a bit of time yesterday drawing rather complex designs. She's very critical of her drawings though and tears them up if they are not 'right' in her mind.


Sami hanging out, front of our annexe & camper. It's a good little camper for now. A newer and larger one will be nice one day though. Cary is looking into sending one over for us when he goes back to the US next week. Next week - argh, I'm going to miss him like crazy. I know the kids will too.


The back of our little home. That's Nicholas in the red shirt and our Toyota Landcruiser to the right.
Another reason we chose to start with a smaller camper is the high price of petrol here. Our 4x4 has dual fuel capacity. It takes unleaded petrol (called gas in the US) and also LPG (liquid petroleum gas, called gas here). Petrol is currently AU$5.20 / gallon and gas AU$2.40 / gallon.

I'll get some photos of inside the camper another time.

Hope you're all having a great day. The sun has been out most of today here - ahh, lovely!