Today’s activity with the wildings: A trip in Nature! In this case, a walk around the local, newly created (well at least 6 years ago, still new to us as we haven’t been before) BOTANICAL GARDENS.
We live in Australia, along the eastern coast. At the moment, we are exploring the southern part of the east coast. Australia’s flora and fauna are absolutely jaw dropping, eye-rubbing, would you look at the colours of that plant kind! No matter how many times we have seen a certain flower, a tree, a shrub, even seed pods on the ground, we cannot believe the form and the colour it is. We are so spoiled here with the beauty of the natural environment. The indigenous people here call their creation stories ‘Dreamtime’. And it does feel very dreamy when you go on a walk about in the bush.
Our senses today sure did take a wild trip in nature. The colours of the flowers, the seeds, even the leaves are just beyond words. Nature has its way to mix colours. The contrasts between a deep jade shade of the leaves and sprinkles of bright purple flowers... who thinks of that? Nature does!
As we take a walk through the gardens around the botanical gardens, the children are in such awe of the plants they see... and they could not help but take a few flowers in full bloom. We also collected various types of seed pods which are so fun to do crafts with, play with. My children are homeschooled so our “learning” takes place anytime, anywhere, every time and everywhere. The seed pods we collected could end up as characters in a theatre production that the children come up with. Or they could be “food” in their game play. They most likely would receive names as well.
We walk through the food gardens section where it tells us the medicinal properties of each plant, how they are prepared and when harvest time is. We read through the signage. It is so comforting to watch the children take interest in plant medicine. This is one area that I always get excited about. Food as medicine. Or rather, food is medicine. We are always conscious of what we are feeding ourselves and our children too.
Because we were so excited when we left the house in the morning, we did not pack the camera. Whoops. We will attempt to go to the botanical gardens again over the next few days and take some shots of the plants for all you out there!
For now, here are some shots we took of flowers and seed pods we collected. Enjoy!
