"Always keep your eyes open. Keep watching. Because whatever you see can inspire you"

Grace Coddington, Vogue Creative Director

This week's nature // street vision celebrates nature in the midst of  cityscapes: intriguing unions of man-made materials and the natural world. Inspiration abounds.

  

  

 

  

   

Source: Santoriniblog (via v-o-g-u-e-i-s-a-r-t), Blood and Champagne, Unknown (via Pinterest), 

Nicole Franzen Photography, chickalookate, Dwell; Guen-K; Erwan Fichou (via Kawaiigirl79), 

A Well Travelled Woman, unknown (via Pinterest)

  

Hummingbirds, pyramids and poetry

...'cause here our hands are for gripping not clicking

at keyboards

and boredom can be tied tight in ropes and in knots 

and our kids eyes can stop 

from computers and screens and we can all get lost making sticks into dreams...

Extract from Hidden Woods by Hollie McNish, UK poet and spoken word artist

Social media feeds are really delivering the goods on the nature play front. There's three things in particular I can't get out of my head: hummingbirds, pyramids and some super fresh poetry. They resonate as individual items, and together create a powerful, inspiring and achievable framework to bring more nature, simplicity and play into my family's modern urban lifestyle.

Hummingbirds first. World renowned nature play advocate Richard Louv recently wrote this article for The Children and Nature Network, an organisation supporting the international movement to connect children, their families and communities to the natural world (of which Louv is Co-Founder and Chair Emeritus). The article draws on writing by Michele Whitaker, guest blogger for The Grass Stain Guru, and discusses caregiver's fear of real and assumed dangers in kid's outdoor play (e.g. lurking strangers, liability, noxious weeds, snakes etc).

The article offers seven ways to manage these fears and reduce risks to ensure kids get outside. Number two on the list is to adopt hummingbird parenting, an analogy that describes a parenting approach landing somewhere between the "helicopter" and "free range" parenting styles. The approach is described as follows: 

Source: Children and Nature Network 

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dream / inspire / do

Welcome to the first post of a new regular series on nature // street

 dream / inspire / do 

enchanting visual stories celebrating all things nature, simplicity and play

First up is my most favourite of day-dreams, mountain escapes...

***

Let's run away together,

Away from the city lights,

Where no-one knows our names yet,

And we'll camp out in the open,

Warming cold skin by the fire,

Tell each other hopes and dreams,

And all of our desires,

We'll own nothing more than we need,

Watch sunrises colour the sky...

~ e.h.

autumn adventures

"It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living".

David Attenborough, aka The Man

There's something about the change in seasons that resonates with me on a fundamental level: it starts with a deep craving for the change, and follows with excitement and semi-ritualistic basking as the new season announces it's settling in. 

I find the change always brings a kind of a contagious thrill; an invigoration of senses, the welcome return of a suite of simple pleasures, and a promise of new adventures.  

The weekend past delivered on all of the above - heralding our first cool, wet weekend of Autumn after a summer of extreme heat. Those few days, although somewhat burdened by fatigue and responsibilities, were full of small celebrations brought about by the much-awaited physical arrival of the new season.

Friday night brought us a crisp clear night with the neighbourhood's first wood fires tantalizingly drifting smoke on the wind. Ordinarily the kids would go to bed after a later dinner but instead we excitedly donned trackies and jumpers to explore the garden after a few days absence. The kids seemed to pick up on the changes in the air, eagerly investigating the vegie patch, bouncing on the trampoline, and finally lying back on the lawn to yell goodnight to the moon and single star in the emerging night sky.

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default mode: hustle

"once she stopped rushing through life, she was amazed how 

much more life she had time for"

                                                                                                              Unknown

The summer past was definitely a game changer. It marked the end of a year distinguished by rolling sets of challenges: where I'd give my all to reach the crest, snatch a glimpse of the horizon, and have the next set on top of me again. Keep going, keep going, push through I'd think. You're resilient, you work best on adrenalin, you can run on a staple diet of double-shot flat whites and no sleep [btw: you've got no choice here anyway!]. 

Of course it wasn't sustainable. During a few weeks off over the summer holidays I realised I was burnt out. I felt tired and old beyond my years, unfulfilled in spite of all the great things in my life, and unsure of how to properly relax in the limited windows of time I'd get to do so. 

As I was processing this burnout, I experienced a moment that crystalised how much I was caught in the pace of modern living. It was down at our local beach one day: my dad, daughter and I had been kayaking as part of my effort to start to slow down and get active outdoors again. 

As we prepared to make our way home, I was given responsibility for looking after the kayaks and our belongings while Dad went to collect the car.

nature // street vision

"Optimistic design is about daring to be different, about breaking the mould of mainstream design"

Amanda Talbot, author of rethink:the way you live

Today's nature // street vision celebrates the optimism and individuality of vertical gardens: creative, upbeat vistas in the modern urban landscape. 

  

RIP Rover

Hurrah! It's been another slow Saturday to soothe the soul.

It's been a hectic week again, characterised by changes in the air, a toddler with a recurrent bout of bronchiolitis (requiring mid-week grommet surgery to be postponed), and ultra busy days at work. By the end of this week, and with only one full night's sleep in three weeks, I'm run down and trying to stave of a head cold. 

Thankfully this morning saw the dawn of a long weekend here, and I was granted a rare sleep in with the toddler - who had attempted to rise at 4.30 a.m. but eventually surrendered to come and snuggle in bed for a few more hours.

Despite initial plans to head in to the city to enjoy all Adelaide has to offer in the month of Mad March, we ended up spending a quiet day outdoors at home. The kids helped their Dad with home improvements, and me with the gardening.

Today's gardening was all about vegie patch maintenance. We've had a crazy run of weather over the past summer including a spate of heatwaves of over 40 degrees. In addition to warping trainlines and inducing mental meltdowns, the heat's left the vegie patch having to fend for itself and looking worse for wear at the end of the season. 

I again enlisted my two trusty little helpers and we set about to water, clear dead bean stalks from the teepees, trim and re-stake the tomatoes, and give the compost some TLC. Some of our discoveries included eggplants hiding behind luscious leaves, self-seeded cos lettuce germinating, and lots of bugs doing-their-thing in the compost, showing us some rich soil forming much to the kids' equal disgust and delight. 

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