Brandenburdett: at home with the Brandenburdetts

We have been in Australia for more than six months! It's time we updated this little old blog.

home life

First day of school in the new school year! Wardrobe choices are easy when one wears a school uniform.

At the school bus stop on a chilly morning (with Juke). We all enjoy our walk or bike ride to the bus stop in the morning and afternoons. We listen to the birds, scope out the river, and keep our eye open for snakes.

Barracking for Collingwood in the AFL Grand Final.
When they lost, Imogen cried. Carn the Pies!


The SAC (Science-Art Cottage). This is where stuff gets DONE! The house looks a little creepy from this perspective. Good thing there are flowers to off-set that!

The interior of the SAC is much nicer than the outside. Here is the studio.

Here is half of the lab, the other half is behind me!

YUM!

Dear sweet Paloma Dove.

Dear sweet Imme Vivi.

Happy birthday Paloma!

farm adventures

Exploring the canola crop.

Howard is getting to know farm life. This is the air seeder. We are planting out the 40 acres with hemp here.

Fun with sheep! Ayesha always gets quite animated when we are working with the sheep. She makes a lot of whoops and calls and pretends she is a wedge-tail eagle swooping down on the unsuspecting sheep.

More views of the canola. The sky is really big!

More fun with sheep!

This is the hemp after sowing. It did not take long to germinate and grows like a ....weed!

Imogen confidently opens and closes gates for us.

Even MORE fun with sheep!

into the wild

A visit to Warrnambool on a cold and windy day...

A hike into the bowels of Mount Elephant.

A windy day on Mt Elephant.

Some random weird kid, hiking to the top of Mt Sturgeon.


Canoeing down the Hopkins. We made it about 800m before getting stuck in cumbungi.

We had a much longer uninterrupted trip (four days) down the Glenelg River. There was a lot of paddling to be done as the river seemed to flow upstream verse down!

Brolgas dancing on the hills across the river from our house.

fishy stuff

Howard has been fortunate to go out on a few fish surveys with some biologists working in the area. These are a few of the natives in the nearby Wannon River: The River Blackfish.

The Southern Pygmy Perch...

...and a rendering of the Little Galaxias (female and male). These 'little beauties' only grow to be about 4 cm long.

We installed a staff gauge to keep track of changes in the river....

...the Hopkins river

Happy holidays to you all! We hope you have had a wonderful year and a warm holiday season. We have missed giving you updates on the blog this year, so here are a few highlights.

A walk to celebrate the new year in the mountains yielded a big snowman surprise!

Although our little brown dog (Semilla) is no longer hiking with us on earth, we have found some furry substitutes. This little animal doesn't run after wild animals or chase balls, but occasionally needs to go in the washing machine.

Paloma entered her second science fair. Here she is, taking photos of the algae that she had grown (three different treatments plus a control; four replicates of each).


The girls thought they were brave enough to camp out in the back yard by themselves. They lasted less time than it took to set up the tent.

Aussie Grandma and Grandpa came to visit - we toured the Four Corners, including a visit to Mesa Verde (petroglyphs behind us!).

Thinking thoughts....


This little ballerina performed for the last time with her daycare buddies - Imogen started elementary school this year!

Big sister supervises the boat inflation. We now have two canoes!

Paloma instructs Mama how to paddle (we're learning together).

For Howard's birthday, we headed to Laguna Larga for a couple of nights camping.

Laguna Larga was full! What a great opportunity for a lesson on benthic macroinvertebrates and community ecology!

We made it to The Box! During our annual Brandenburg family vacation to Corkin's Lodge, Howard and Ayesha left the kids behind and hiked up the Rio Brazos to The Box. We were pretty pleased with ourselves.