Category: Where We Used to Live (Australia posts)

A parrot skeleton and some lizards that have beenpreserved.

When birds are nearly done he wraps them in wool orbatting to help keep the feathers down, otherwise thefeathers stick up in all different directions. Below are the freezers where he has lots of specimansready to be worked on. In there were birds, lizards,snakes and all kinds of various animals.

Before the weather becomes unbearably hot, I’ve beentrying to take the kids out a bit. We had an especiallyintense homeschooling day on Monday so I felt great aboutgetting out the next day. On Tuesday I took the kidshiking at Standley Chasm. The hike is gorgeous. The “fern”type plants you see are called cycads and have been aroundfor millions of years. They survive here in the Outbackin the cooler gaps and...

Today after ED’s dance class we went to our local culturalprecinct (with various museums). The kids really enjoyedthe new airline exhibit and especially liked going into theairplane and watching a bit of the video on how camelscame to be in the Outback. Camels were brought overby Afghan trainers for use in the desert here. Now thereare lots of wild camels and interestingly enough, camelsare exported to the Middle East because...

The kids always enjoy going into the little science museum.Each time they seem to find something else that piquestheir interest. The first picture is of a dingo, a feral cat eating a galaand a perrente. The second picture is a skeleton of one of the world’s largestducks. The fossils were uncovered north of here. The last two are of various snakes, birds and mammalscommon to Australia. I’ve had it in...

Here’s a picture of a bull ant that was on displayat the science museum (see the story aboutDD getting bit by these in the post below). Thisant is over an inch long! Here are some of the other displays — skeletons,mammals, snakes and lizards.

This was one of the last opportunities we’d have to gocamping for the weekend as the weather will soon betoo hot. Even as it was, temperatures ranged from 9 to 34Celsius (or 48 to 95Fahrenheit). It was COOOooooldat night (especially compared to our afternoon)! In the first picture you can see our campsite across on theother side of the dry river bed. (Click on the picture toenlarge it.) One little...

The kids enjoyed this little photo project a lot. Grandmaand Grandpa sent us this “Nature Print sun sensitivephoto paper” from Oriental Trading ($6.00US, for 12photo sheets). Here’s what we did: 1) The kids collected small nature items. 2) I used a cereal box and covered the photo paper overwith the other side of the box whenever they wereselecting their items. They arranged their nature objectsjust so. 3) Then we took...

Yesterday we had a nice day out and about. UnfortunatelyI lost a lot of pictures. The area we went to is a giant, flatarea of hard packed clay. It’s perfect for the kids to ridetheir bikes and for our dog to get some exercise.

Over the weekend, we enjoyed some time outbush withour friends. We got a chance to ride our friends’ quad onsome of the dirt roads and had a campfire in the dryriver bed.

We had a two week holiday in Sydney and Canberra. OnSunday (Sept 13) we all went to Luna Park, but the nextweek Daddy had a class in Sydney so the kids and I didthings on our own.