Science festival

Last week, apart for birthdays and rabbits, was the Science Festival.  It is on every 2 years in Dunedin, and there are loads of activities, mostly free.  We went to as many as I thought I could cope with, which meant a busy week.
Saturday the 9th was the opening day at the University so we went along early to get a decent park and because Hannah and Daniel were booked into an Orokonui workshop, "Forest Forensics".  That was the best Orokonui one we went to, as they had to compare hair samples and footprints and DNA to work out that it was a Jack Russell terrier which killed the kiwi.  While they were doing that the rest of us looked at the various displays, which were mostly very interesting/fun.

Food Science Dept: How much fat in various takeaways

Inflatable walkthrough brain

Tank of sea life - Marine Research - they gave us 2 excellent identification brochures
on the Rocky Shore and the Sandy/Muddy Shore

Anatomy Dept

Electronic Neuron

Make a drone fly using your brainwaves

Struck-by-lightning simulation

Some of us had a go at the Psychology Dept.'s Stroop test, which was tricky.  The Stroop test shows you words in different colours and you have the type in which colour the word is (red, blue or green).  This sounds straightforward until you find out that some of the words are "red", "blue" and "green", but in the wrong colours.  So when "red" comes up on the screen, it's really hard to press "B" for blue when your brain perceives "red".
There was also a machine which could tell you your weight, fat% and muscle% and a few virtual reality games, DNA testing machines, anatomical models, craft for the younger kids (decorating a blown-up latex glove, and colouring-in), reflex testing and many other amazing things.  We'll be back next time!

Birthdays, hens and rabbits

It was Renee's birthday last week, with chocolate cake and pav.  We had a small birthday tea, with us and Grandma Anderson.  

 It was also David's birthday a few days later, so another chocolate cake and tea with Grandma Anderson.

Yesterday our hens arrived.  We've been planning to get hens ever since we arrived here, that was one of the reasons we looked for a larger section.  I found these 2 on Freecycle, very tame girls called Henny Penny and Half Penny (although we're not sure which is which), and they even came with a wee henhouse and a big bag of pellets.

This is not a hen.  This is a big Flemish Giant rabbit who has decided she likes our rabbits.  She showed up last month in our back yard, so we caught her and put her in our spare cage.  I managed to find her owner via facebook, and 3-4 weeks later she came and picked her up.  Three days later the rabbit reappeared in our back yard.  That was a couple of weeks ago and she still hasn't been picked up...  I decided not to catch her this time as she demolished the lawn, which we need for our own rabbits, so she's living on weeds and things and bits of apple/carrot the kids give her.  She's fairly tame and good-natured; Daniel got her to sit on his knee yesterday, and if you pat her she goes all floppy.

Beach run

This morning we headed down to St Clair/ St Kilda beach for a run.

Usually when we decide to go to the beach I check the tides and find it is high tide so we postpone until the next week, then forget to go.  But today I checked the tides and found that low tide was only 5 minutes away so we jumped into the van and headed down.  It is a lovely day today, calm and mild, and not many people on the beach.  We hauled a whole lot of kelp up the hill for the vege garden (that was a bit of an effort).  Washed up on the beach were quite a few small plastic-looking barrel-shaped things, some of which had a creepy-crawly inside that looked like it could be a baby crayfish or something.

When we got home we looked it up and found it was a creature called Phronima.  It is a parasitoid which finds a salp (something else we'd never heard of, apparently a "barrel-shaped, planktonic tunicate") and eats its insides out then lives in the clear plastic-like shell, where it also lays its eggs.

The kids also found a spiny centipede-ish sort of thing which we haven't been able to identify at all.

Orokonui Ecosanctuary

On the 1st of June we went to Orokonui Ecosanctuary

                                   

and saw takahe

holes made by kiwi beaks

a gecko and a southern bell frog if you can spot it (below)

a bird feeder with bellbirds

takahe footprints

fungi

and facepaint (above butterfly, below 1 kaka, below 2 huhu beetle.)

by Daniel (above)

Model planes

Daniel is onto something new.  The last thing was the camera obscura, which I will write about in more depth someday, but he was given a model plane for his birthday and had so much fun making and painting it, then building a background diorama that he saved up and bought some more bits and pieces.

He used my paper crimper to make the corrugated iron then painted it silver, and designed the sheds himself, from old photos.  The hangar even has a light inside it (LED plus battery).

Bryony's Birthday

Bryony turned 16 in March and we had a bit of a party and Grandma and Grandad's place.  Bryony spent a lot of time baking beforehand.

Bryony's favourite...

Most of the non-baking time of the week before was spent frantically trying to finish this dress. Bryony found a huge piece of purple satin for $2 at the op shop, which was probably used for shop-dressing because there were quite a few staple-holes in it.  She made it up using a pattern for the Snow White dress from the Mirror Mirror movie and Grandad made some hoops.  Hoops are pretty awkward for getting through doorways or standing in a group but they looked impressive.

 Hats were compulsory.