Exploring hands-on science, enjoying real food, immersing ourselves in urban agriculture and nature play, teaching free permaculture workshops and sharing hundreds of cuttings – all in all, a great weekend!
Watching our son leap excitedly from display to display at the science centre, seeing our daughter engrossed in water vortices at the World Science Festival and our little one find independence with a tribe of community garden kids has been part of our wonderfully exciting and inspiring weekend. We all learnt so much.
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| Enjoying a great weekend in Brisbane – immersed in science and community food |
We headed to Brisbane for the weekend. I was leading two free community workshops on Saturday about creating an Abundant Subtropical Garden, and the kids wanted to explore the World Science Festival – the first time in Brisbane, the first time actually out of New York.
One of my Saturday workshops was at Rocks Community Garden. This community garden is a real inspiration and I will write more about it soon. I loved that the local kids and ours all formed a magnificent tribe and created a great cubby area in the food forest.
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| Exploring ways with the community gardeners to add diversity to the food forest area at Rocks Community Garden |
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| I loved the playful sculptural elements in the Rocks Community Garden. |
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| The tribe of kids at the gardens making cubbies, exploring the gardens and tumbling in piles of compost! |
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| The kids’ cubby in the making. The floor is going in. |
Our country kids get up early, I mean really early – before the sun comes up and they usually speak at a volume which I refer to as their ‘paddock voices’. Not great for a quiet inner urban street on a Sunday morning!
Thankfully the Farmers Market at Northey Street City Farm, the only certified organic market in Brisbane, opens at 6am. We spent hours down there roaming the markets and the gardens before the Science Festival re-opened. Maia and Hugh went off on a photographic expedition and took some great shots. Monty was mostly impressed with the playground, and the fresh sourdough!
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| I picked up some more beeswax at the farmers market to make some more beeswax cloths and comfrey lotion. I loved the rich colour of this beeswax from Mt Mee. |
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| Hugh’s pictures of the farmers market were of the bananas and carrots – his two favourite things. |
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| Maia’s photographs at Northey Street City Farm included bee houses, plants, chooks, worm farms, art installations…. |
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| Upcycled bathtub worm farm in the city farm |
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| Mine! |
I wish we could have spent all week at the World Science Festival. Everyone was so engaged. We were delighted to find too that the Science Centre had free entry.
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| There were so many hands on experiments at the Science Street Fair that simply engrossed the kids. |
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| The mobile solar powered flower for the live music. |
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| Body mechanics at the Science Centre |
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| Perception and illusion – the walls of this tunnel moved, but I was sure the bridge was. Like Hugh, I held tightly too the railing! |
Finally back home to Crystal Waters on Sunday afternoon – happy, but tired. We watched this BBC documentary together as a family. It’s about my friend and mentor Satish Kumar, and his ecological view of the world. Satish is founder of Schumacher College and the Small School, and Editor of Resurgence Magazine. The children were engrossed. He talked of values and ideas, and deep connection to nature – of there being no separation between humans and nature. We are nature. When we harm nature we also harm ourselves. I think I will organise a community screening of this film soon.
What a great weekend. You have covered so much. Brisbane is a great place to live with so much happening.
I love the photograph of Monty "mine". But who can resist biting the end of a stick of wonderful bread?
I would love to watch that DVD!