You can never have too many 😀
A while back, Hubby was speaking to a friend with a son who is a reluctant reader. He suggested a parent reading out loud before bedtime as a way of fostering interest in books… seems son now can’t wait for the latest chapter, and is on the edge of his seat waiting to see what comes next – even if he’s seen the movie based from that book 😀
I don’t think books will ever go out of fashion…
…. a wild duckling appears.
Went to have a chat with the neighbour this morning (the same one with the tomato guttering. It’s all excitement over there.) She’d rescued a baby duckling, but didn’t know what to do with it next… We offered to ring round, and found someone who takes in random wildlife. Little Duckling is now sharing a home with a baby dove, a blue tongue lizard, a canary, and a dog who raises ducklings and lets them follow him round the garden…
He’s a feisty little thing. Tried to get out of the box whenever possible, but didn’t really show any signs of distress until we started the car to take him to his new home… I had to hold him and stroke that little head the whole way in.
Littlest bean took time, before we worked out where to take him, to try to figure out what sort of duckling we had. He pored over his bird book – didn’t get it quite right, but didn’t do too badly. Seems it’s a “woody” duck.
Little bean chatted as he researched. Little duckling chatted back.
…and so our quiet morning became a little more exciting.. 😀
Snuck up on my littlest bean today.. this is what he looked like..
Â
Why? I’m not really sure..
We homeschool our two boys, which is wonderful, or frustrating, or all points in between…
They are both such individuals – something we want to nurture in them. Of course, there are some things that they need to learn – being able to use numbers, and the English language; knowing at least some of how the world works; knowing what happened in this world before us… these are important things to know…
… but if that should involve marching around the house, speaking in an interesting accent, or pretending to be the Cyber Controller (possibly the inspiration for the dome hat) – then – why not? It’s rarely dull in our house.
Â
Cheeky little bean 😀
One more visit to Dicky Beach on Friday morning..
..where littlest bean honed his stone skimming skills..
Then we were off to Kings Beach in Caloundra.
The boys had a swim for a bit, then were asked to get out of the water to allow a group of fishermen to bring in a school of mullet.
The net was attached to a truck at one end of the beach, and the other end was taken out by boat to attach to another truck.. they were drawn together and then pulled in by hand..
It was only a small school – the first of the season.
It was quite exciting to watch, but also confronting to see the fish trying to escape. We don’t eat fish much, but we do have some in the freezer.. I do think that if we are going to eat meat/fish, we should be willing to  look at how it gets to our plate..
The seagulls flocked, but were ultimately disappointed, even though they were thrown a few fish.
The fish were separated into male/female containers – the females would still have the roe inside, so could be sold for more.
A bit more swimming before we went up the mountain… a typical crowded Queensland beach in May 🙂
Little bean spent the next night in a tent out past Maleny with his friend and another four boys. It was freezing, and I’m not sure how much sleep was had.. there was some tension and “overwhelm” happening over the 24 hours of the party, but they had fun overall!
The adults at least got to sleep inside – still cold. It was a house full of Whovians – this was behind one of the chairs in the lounge.
I didn’t sit there.
It was a school project, made by the eldest daughter of the family… there was a lot of random art dotted throughout the house.
We sat out next to a small barbeque fire that evening, toasting marshmallows and chatting. You know when you meet people and it’s like you’ve just known each other for ages? It was like that… It was the first time we’ve met half the family, and we’ve only caught up with the other half a couple of times… we felt comfortable there, though.
They run a flower farm, native trees and flowers, by the look of it, grown by biological farming. It’s the off season, so there’s not much by way of crops at the moment.
This was our view over morning tea (with extra marshmallows)
Obviously, there’s much more to a farm than toasting marshmallows over a fire… I could get used to this as down time, though 🙂
The other fields..
… and the view from the back verandah.
We had a busy time, but fun..
We’ll be back! 😀
We spent the part of the weekend away.. left here Thursday morning, came back Saturday night (yesterday)
Littlest bean was invited to a birthday party sleepover just past Maleny, and we wanted to visit another friend in Maleny, as well as spending some time at the beach..
We went to have a look at Montville first.. it was a tad disappointing..
Still beautiful – gorgeous views.. the quirky little shops I remember from past years seem to be upmarket brand name shops now..
Still – gorgeous views.
Littlest bean was fascinated by the big water wheel. It’s not functional now, but we discussed what it would have been in its previous life..
The footpath is lower than the entrance to the shops, in most places, and they’re bordered by various flower gardens.
Littlest bean wanted to be in the shot..
There he is again! 😀
😀
Great views… you could see right down to the coast, which is where we were headed after a stop in Maleny to see our friend. He makes (amazing!) sausages, and we got to watch the process from getting the sausage meat into the casing, to the final packaging. We had sausages down at the local park… we discovered that we’d forgotten to bring any barbeque utensils, so had to make do with a plastic fork to turn the sausages, and some water, tissues and the remains of the fork to clean the barbeque after – I think we did quite well!
We spent Thursday night at Dicky Beach, where the remains of the wreck  of the S.S.Dicky still lie on the beach. Our unit was about the size of a shoebox, but it was just a short stroll to the beach, and comfortable enough for a night. We got there before dark and went down the beach.
The S.S.Dicky.
An evening stroll/run…
The boys were trying to touch the pole in the water just in front of them, while still dodging the waves. They didn’t succeed… there were wet, sandy pant legs to be dried before morning..
There was a woman filming in and under the water.. I’m not sure why..
…and so to bed..
After years of trying, and not quite seeing it happen, Hubby has finally published his first e-book –
😀
Yesterday we had a day out in Brisbane. It was nice to just enjoy a day with all my boys…
We went mainly to spend time at the Sciencentre, but had a look at the Gallery of Modern Art, and the main Art Gallery, and checked out the gaming exhibition at the State Library. I even became a library member! 😀 It was a long day, there was some whingeing going on in the end, but overall we had fun..
The Sciencentre had a display on different forms of light (and sound), and how it works…
This is what we went in through…
You could stand inside a kaleidoscope..
There was a screen that “captured” shadows, and a white screen that you could walk and stand in front of… as you watch your shadow, and move your hands etc about, little coloured flowers/stars (not sure what they were..) spray across the screen.
Here’s a video – there were some other features, as well..
The rest of the place seemed to be a permanent display, with a few minor differences.. biggest boy played the pipe organ..
(Sorry about making you twist your neck to one side.. I’m not sure why it ended up like that…
We didn’t spend too long at the Modern Gallery… pleased to make the acquaintance of a large garbage bag dog..
..not so pleased to meet a hungry – looking snake skeleton at the other gallery..
We were going to swim at South Bank, but ran out of time (and energy!)
Looks like we’ll have to go back 😀
My boys went “back to school” last week, but it was a bit of a fractured week.. I thought I’d take this as their real first week back, and post a “first day of school” photo..
Here they are in their summer uniform..
Happy New School Year! 😀
Hello, all! 😀
Here’s a quick post to show off my biggest boy’s creativity… he loves doing stop motion animation, and can spend hours on it..
This one is not one of his longest (and it uses some video recording as well) but it’s for a competition he’s entered…
Enjoy! 😀
a bit of creativity, a bit of eco consciousness, a bit of inspiration.... hopefully not a lot of pompousness and blathering :D
i'm not entirely sure what's going on here... let's travel along and see...
1000 Fields of Roses 