kuringai wildflower garden + "a nice lady"

a nature activity
yesterday, i took the bean to a 'bush kids' program at the ku-ring-gai wildflower garden (kwg), which is a lovely bush setting. one of the kwg officers read the 16 children a graeme base book - uno's garden - before leading them to kwg's vegetable garden where they had to search for some of the creatures from the story and then do a craft project*. the kids were also shown a real blue-tongued lizard that was about a year old.

apparently the garden breeds these critters and releases them in suitable home gardens. (they survey the gardens of potential lizard adopters before giving the green light.) it's an initiative** to reintroduce more native animals into the suburban environment, whilst also introducing a 'novel' non-pesticide way to reduce snail populations in gardens: the blue-tongued lizard's favourite meal is snail.

at the end of the session the bean was very reluctant to leave ("i don't want to go home!" she wailed), so on the suggestion from the kwg officer we went down one of the trails that led to the garden's picnic area. some playground equipment there kept the bean happily occupied for a bit, but only after she had some snacks was she happy to leave with me.

kwg is a lovely bushland that is relatively civilised: there are loos, picnic areas, and stroller-friendly tracks besides a couple of more challenging ones for better walkers. we heard the tweeting of fairy-wrens as well as the croaking of frogs in the pond - all surrounded by banksias and gum trees.

however, evidence of civilisation is not far away: we can hear the roar of the traffic nearly all the time as the garden is just beside a major road. but still, it was a delightful way to spend a morning. i just wished that i had done this with the bean sooner.


the nice lady
after lunch that same day, we headed to a fabrics shop to get some haberdashery items. whilst walking down a step to the boardwalk outside the shopping centre, the bean stumbled and fell forward. i caught her in time but an elderly lady coming round the corner was quite concerned. she made a bit of fuss over the bean and then said, "isn't she beautiful!" to me.

naturally, the bean lapped it all up and when she heard the compliment, she said to me, "this is a nice lady."

the 2 of them had a short chat. the bean volunteering most of the information: we were going to buy ribbons, mummy doesn't like the colour pink, mummy likes red. then the bean did a dance - spinning round and round - in the middle of the walkway, becoming a minor obstruction for pedestrian traffic. when she finished dancing, she bowed deeply twice (because the "nice lady" didn't see her bow the first time).

when we finally said our goodbyes to the "nice lady" and walked away, the bean said, "she's old. she's a nice old lady. i did a dance for her."


* i almost forgot: the kids had slices of watermelon that was grown from one of the patches in the veg garden itself. very refreshing...i had a slice too!

** the kwg only releases lizards that are a year old or older because young ones are easy prey for magpies.