John Kaldor Family Collection

Today Tom, Nick and I went to the NSW Art Gallery. We visited the new contemporary art housed in the John Kaldor Family Collection, which has seen the creation of new gallery space. Tom and Nick looked at everything with great interest. In some ways the modern art is more accessible by kids who see just what is there without seeking to interpret. It is a vast collection of photography, sculpture, installation, drawings, film, paintings and what is beyond art. If you haven't been in for a while go and see it. It promises to be an ever changing canvas to walk through and meet in. Images online do not convey modern art, so walk through it and see what you think.

Wintering

Tradscantia fluminensis
Trad leaves are glossy and fast growing along stem pieces

A bush care site showing infestation of Trad

Of all of the bush care tasks I have set myself so far I admit that this is the one that has me quaking in my gumboots. The eradication and removal of Trad infestation. For the last five years our bush care group of around nine members has mainly cleared Trad. This has resulted in the germination of native species and seen parts of our forest floor returned to soft ferns. The problem of removing this weed is sysiphean and we are against the slope of the site and water born Trad. Maybe sometimes it is even transported by us when we move bags or under foot in mud. A trad infestation requires huge amounts of time and effort to control it. However it is important to move forward and not watch gained ground reclaimed by it. So my winter task is to remove Trad on our bush block from the street down to the leaf litter of the Reserve. Yes, I can move faster than the weed grows. And there are ways that I can effectively remove it. I did some research on the Weeds of Blue Mountains Bushland blog and they recommend using a portable chook pen as hens love to eat this plant and are not affected adversely by this. The other left centre idea the blog puts forward is to herd ducks along bush forest gullies who will similarly eat the Trad. It would be a revolutionary idea in the Crag if I started up my duck drove and took a herd of ducks with me on walks to eat Trad.

There are alternate plantings for the areas cleared of Trad. Arthritis plant - now who names a plant this I have no idea - and whether it cures or causes? Gotu Kola (Centella asiatica), Kidney Weed (Dichondra repens), Native violet (Viola hederacea).

Basically Trad is bad and it must go, nevertheless it is profuse and entering the Reserve from its top to its bottom. Where there is sunlight, water and soil Trad is there. What to do with the Trad when you have collected it is another problem. Bag it. Turn it into liquid fertiliser. Compost it. Feed it to chooks and ducks. Pull up, lift out, knife out, roll, and remove. There is also a native Trad (Commelina cyanea) with fleshy roots and blue flowers. Yet it is work that is timely and needs strategising. Barriers are important too. Rocks, trunks, are useful fencelines are not. Slopes are not. Water ways are not. Bush care intelligence and smarts are. It will be the making of me.

Last Lights

As the evening closes in in Winter, the sky illuminates in saphire lights for a few minutes and the day breathes out. It's always my favourite time of day.

Tom is Fourteen

14 Things You Didn't know about Tom

1. When he was six weeks old he was dipped into the waters of Avalon Beach

2. Tom is a fantastic swimmer

3. He enjoys sailing

4. He has become a good enough fisherman to feed a family

5. He is quite a good cook

6. English is not his favourite subject

7. Food Technology is his favourite subject

8. Alex has more accidents in Tom's company than at any other time

9. Tom has great balance

10. Much better than his brothers

11. Tom likes to eat porridge for breakfast

12. Tom is on Facebook

13. Tom likes to go for bushwalks for sometimes two hours in the Crag

14. Tom is happiest when he is skateboarding

Castlecrag Early Days

Castlecrag Amphitheatre lit for a performance
Road in Castlecrag

Panorama shot looking south

Surveyors working

The past leads to the present.

Retreat Reserve May 2011

View down creek to Sailors Bay shoreline

Back at school again

We are all back at school, bar migraines and the occasional injury at a skate park requiring a six hour visit to the emergency paedeatrics department at our local hospital. Thanks Alex, it was a useful and interesting Mother's Day activity. And as it turned out I could have done the first aid myself, but we would never have had the x-rays or the tetanus shot.
My school work is going well. I just wish that there was a High School attendance fairy that would sprinkle some school dust over my senior students so they made it to school on time everyday. I have started dropping into their second lesson home room to say hello and eyeball them, just so they know that their teacher for period one classes does exist. It is moving on to June, in Sydney and the days are turning windy and cold with the sun setting at ten past five. Even when the days start to get longer again from the end of June Sydney will still be cold all the way up to September. It takes a long time for the sun to return to the Bulwark. Everyone cheers when it does and daylight savings starts again, but that's not till October.
Getting to school sees me either commute by walk - bus - walk - train - walk, which takes just as long as driving to school. Or driving and leaving a little later and taking twenty right hand turns through inner city streets. The walking commute is the way to go health wise, and I have taken to wearing Tom's wind jacket everyday. This keeps the wind chill factor out of the layers of woollies underneath. The kids have warm tops for school and have already started leaving them in their classrooms instead of popping them into the school bag to bring home again. The cold is a great teacher though.