Tuesday 22 May 2012

A.A. Milne

I'm reading the poetry of A.A. Milne from a large hardback edition of Winnie the Pooh: The Complete Collection of Stories & Poems ( illustrated by E.H. Shepard) to my youngest. She loves his poems & I love reading them. We have many favourites but Teddy Bear would probably be at the top of her list. You can find a copy here.

Forgiven (Alexander Beetle) was put to music years ago and recorded by Melanie Safka.




The BBC Radio Collection has The House at Pooh Corner & other stories from Winnie the Pooh delightfully  narrated by Alan Bennett. We listened to hours of these on a trip interstate a couple of years ago & even the older kids thought they were funny (well the first time around anyway).

 The Red House Mystery, published in 1922, was A.A. Milne's only mystery novel. It has been published by BJU Press but a free version is here: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1872. Suitable for around age 12 & up.

Monday 21 May 2012

Nature Study


"If the love of Nature be frozen or crushed out, the character can hardly fail to suffer from the loss.
To look is much less easy than to overlook; and to be able to see what we do see is a great gift.
Many of us walk throught the world like ghosts, as if we were in it but not of it. We have 'eyes
and see not, ears and hear not.'" - Sir John Lubbock.



Litoria phyllochroa - otherwise known as Green Stream Frog, Green Leaf Tree Frog or Leaf Green Tree Frog.
Very cute little beastie that came inside clinging to the hydrangea I'd just cut.

For information on Aussie frogs:

http://frogsaustralia.net.au/ 
http://frogs.org.au/frogs/species/Litoria/phyllochroa/


A Visitor for Lunch

Sulphur-crested cockatoo (Cacatua galerita - 'cockatoo with a crest'). Beautiful large & very raucous birds. Very common where we live but we don't often have them land on our verandah, thankfully. They can be very destructive and make an ear-splitting racket. We have bush around us and they tend to stay up in the big old hollowed out gum trees.





"Above all, it is hoped that the habit of open-air study will make life more satisfying to many. We have to forget ourselves in order find ourselves; and an interest in Nature, aroused in youth, will not only save a man from much useless fretting, but will do much to awaken powers that adds to the worth and dignity of life."

"The exercise of the faculty of admiration does more for a child than perhaps anything else. For many centuries the great minds of the race have been telling man that he who has not learned to love has not learned to live. Now, love is based on admiration. It is vain merely to tell a child to love God, or to reverence God, as if by some effort of will this could be done. But let the child learn the joy of sudden wonder and delight at the Creator's work, and then reverence will rise without effort." (William Gillies, "First Studies in Insect Life in Australasia")