I can't wait to hook into these

Prickly Pear are invasive weeds in Australia

with a really interesting history.

It was introduced to Australia 

 by governor Arthur Philip because Joseph banks 

wanted to establish a crop and cochineal dying industry. 

The cochineal make a red dye 

and they used it for the "Red Coats" the marines wore.

When we go walking in the Pilliga 

it is everywhere

 and I noticed all of those juicy looking fruit so I wanted to try some.

We went cactus picking with a bucket, gloves and tong's,

 and got loads of cactus fruit's
 they are very prickly but taste great so it's worth it.

It was dusk when we were out picking

 and when we where walking home a little micobats flew

 over us we thought it was a bird until we saw its wing's closely .

                                       

Some friend's across the road use to pick them

so I took over some and they liked that:-).     

                                                                      

The fruits are quite beautiful, red on the out side and yellow on the inside,
they have so many seeds though
 and they grow easily from cutting
so it is easy to see how they can become such a problem.

The cactus fruit can be eaten and so can the fleshy pads

I have been looking at recipes and the Ballarat Cactus and Succulent Society

have loads of information on eating all sorts of cactus.

I think   Cooks.com  cactus are good sites as well.

Sculptures in the Scrub

We went on amazing walk in the Pilliga Scrub
called " Sculptures in the Scrub "
it had nice flowers along the track and trees
the flowers out there are in the national park and
  the plants that grow there are very different
 to the plants that grow in the scrub near our house,

       

   The sculptures were nice,

 some are made from metals and some from stone, 

and the newest ones out there are bright coloured mosaics. 

 and the walk was good too, 

it had some really amazing views across the gully.

 Even though I wasn't in the mood for it, it was still great.

Walking can make a bad mood into a good mood.   

                           

I think it would be a good walk for everyone, it is not too long
  only 2km all around on a loop and it is easy walking
 with really good steps and the cliffs have guard rails.
It would also be good for someone
 who was getting a job as a forester
 because it has good and bad trees in the surrounding forest ,
my dad is a forester and he has taught me what trees are good.

                                                                       and bad
       

Book Review Nanberry-Jackie French

Nanberry-Jackie French

This is a book review on a story by Jackie French called Nanberry it is based on real people and real events. It is set to the time of the first fleet and the first twenty years of the small colony

Surgeon White came to the new colony as doctor with a convict girl Maria, he was a gentleman who adopted Nanberry and an opossum . This story is set around the family Surgeon White builds around himself to help him as he was so lonely in the colony

Maria was a convict girl who had been starved most of her life. She became surgeon Whites housekeeper when she came to the new colony and it was she who had to care for the opossum.

Nanberry was a boy,  A native boy out swimming and trying to find mud oysters when he saw a great big canoe he was truly amazed for he thought he had become one with the sea but he had never been able to conquer the waves like the canoes could.  His uncle Colbee yelled out “get back, run to the trees” but he stayed even though you never disobeyed when a warrior called, especially if it was your uncle he called again Nanberry ran to the bushes and hid with the others but watched as the warriors shook their spears and yelled go away, go away, but the white ghosts in the canoe didn’t listen then it came close enough and they landed on the sandy beach. The warriors turned and ran back to the main party and they left for their camp, the white ghosts stayed.

One night when he was sleeping his Auntie started to moan and clutch her chest and was soon dead

They quickly buried her and left the camp as you don’t stay where the ghosts are. As they were moving to a different camp more of the tribe went to there knees and started to moan, the warriors decided to save the tribe they needed to leave behind the sick and dying. Nanberry could not leave his family even if he died. The rest of the party went on, Nanberry stayed behind and he got his family to the beach and poured water on them. He went to get food and he saw  a tree with possum claw marks, so he thought there would be a possum and he needed food for his sick family. He quickly scaled the tree and grabbed the possum and before it could do anything he whacked its head against the tree and killed it and ran back to his family and made a cooking fire. The next day when he woke up he felt like a jelly fish he could hardly move he looked at himself he was covered in the spots and welts he looked around him and walked to the water and lay in it and bathed in it he felt a bit better.

Mean while over in the small colony the dying natives had been noticed and Surgeon White went out to see what he could do, they found Nanberry and his family, they took the living people back to the colonies hospital and they buried the dead. Surgeon White healed Nanberry and one other girl but he thought all the rest had died of smallpox, it amazed Surgeon White that so many natives died and none of the settlers died.

Surgeon White was very impressed with Nanberry. He was smart and he learned quickly, he also felt a sense of responsibility for him as all of his people had died so he took him home to have better care with Maria looking after him and he eventually adopted him as his son.

Rachel Turner was another convict girl who came on the second fleet. Maria was married then so surgeon White got her as a house keeper to take Maria’s place. They fell in love and had a baby but later on the surgeon had to go back to England and married another lady. Rachel went on to marry Mr Moore.

Andrew was the baby born to Rachel and he and he had a friend called Garudi they had there own secret cove where they went fishing he was also brother to Nanberry . When he was seven he had to go to England to live with his father. When he grew up he trained as an engineer then served in the battle of Waterloo, anyone that survived the battle of Waterloo was a hero and would get a free drink from any tavern for saving most of England and all of Europe from Napoleon.

I thought it was quite an enjoyable book it had a small part of the history of Australia and it was very entertaining  we did this as a read aloud and I liked so much I’m going to read it by my self. I also think it would for good someone learning the history of Australia

Kids Book Review is a great site for reading about great books to read.

                                                                                                                                                           

Clarence River

The mighty mighty river
The Clarence River
is our favorite river.

We enjoy walking our dogs there.

  It is where our home is. 

This is a bend on the river at Copmanhurst 

and my family spend a lot of time here

walking, swimming, relaxing and having fun.

The Clarence River is 394 km long

and it travels through Copmanhurst, Grafton, Ulmarra, Cowper, Brushgrove, Maclean and Harwood and then it flows into the Pacific Ocean at the river mouth between Iluka and Yamba.

 it's a  wonderful place.     

                                                               

Witchety Grubs

We were at our home at Copmanhurst the weekend and found some massive witchetty grubs!

My Dad found this one and we kept on finding little ones then
 I found a massively big one 

 Sadly I forgot to get photos of  any I found :-(
I found about four witchity grubs, or widjiti's.

Here you can the size of the one Dad found
 beside his phone it is little compared to the one I found
 but is still massive :-).

We found them because Mum and Dad pushed over a rotting tree that was about to fall onto the tool shed and it was full of witchety grubs. They had been eating the rotten wood and that's what made them so big and then I started to look for them I found lots of them.

 I even found a poor dead micro bat :-( in the tree.


   They are the lava of
some large wood eating moths
 including the ghost moth and the cosidd moth.


They are traditonal bush tucker
or can be eaten fresh off an Aussie bbq.
They are even available from caterers for special occasions.

I might try them one day
but I am not that keen about them now.

Mystery Tree

There is a beautiful  tree in our backyard

and it is blossoming

We think it might be an apricot tree

well, we hope it might be an apricot tree

we don't really know what it is.

Its a nice tree

The bees love it so much they are knocking the flowers off and we can hear them buzzing away happily when we are working in the garden,

 its a nice sound.

This tree of mystery is in our vegie garden

right near the back fence and the compost.

Do you know what type of tree this is?

Our Dogs

This our Doberman his name is Jerry,

 he is a nice dog and will do anything for a pat.

We rescued Jerry as an adult dog because his owner had died and gave Jerry 

to his friends who said they would look after him but they hated him

and were going to shoot him so we got him, they lied that he ate chooks, but he has shared his food bowl with our chooks and

 he is the most gentle and nice dog

I am glad we have him in family.

This our poodle Indigo Blue 

we called him this because he is a blue poodle

 Poodles can come in many different colors 

follow these links to find out more

He is very playful :) 

so he is having a run now 

Here's Indi again.

Now he's going inside he is a tired pup

so he needs a rest :)

I took these pics my self  and did the editing.

Our Baradine Garden

There was an old pumpkin patch down the back when we moved here. It was good because we got lots of pumpkins. We wanted to grow more vegies though so we dug up 2 more beds, my brother and I did lots of digging to make them so we could grow our winter vegies.

We looked at lots of seeds on the internet and we like The Lost Seed, Eden seeds and Greenpatch we like these old varieties because there open pollinated which is good because it saves old varieties and they are strong varieties that have been grown by lots of people who have saved the best seeds year after year.

I am growing radishes in our garden :) they are very nice but pretty hot which is good, I like them with a plowman's lunch. We are growing garlic,celery,spring onions, rainbow chard, beetroots, cauliflower, lettuce, coriander, kale, fennel ,spinach, rocket, carrots and broccoli.

We need to do weeding and watering to look after our garden and we are thinking about what to put in when it gets warmer and the frosts stop. We had a really big frost this morning.

When we were away our dad dug over the pumpkin patch and turned it into 2 more garden beds and he built a big fence around it to keep the dogs out, in spring we are going to grow rock melons,snow peas , purple climbing beans and cucumbers on the fence.