Well I know I said I would have these posted early than this, however I got side tracked making my squidoo pages. Most importantly, I wanted to publish my squidoo page (lens) concerning the devistating effects the Victorian bushfires have had on our wildlife.

Now that I have achieved posting my completed squidoo lens

http://www.squidoo.com/Australian-Wildlife-Need-Help

I can now concentrate my time back here. Ok, well this time I thought I would give painting a try, I haven't painted anything, apart from my house walls and fences, for years. So please excuse the amateur painting, but hey I gave it a try! My daughters drawing was done without looking at the photos but by remembering what the whole plant looked like. I think she did a great job of remembering what it looks like.

Some interesting facts about SUNFLOWERS

The SUNFLOWER, Helianthus Annus, is native to North America but was first commercialized in Russia, however it was the American Indians that domesticated the plant into a single headed plant. There are over 2000 varieties of sunflowers from all around the world ranging in colour of yellows, oranges, russets, ivory and bi colour.

In the past sunflowers have been used for

• flour to make cakes & breads
• to thicken stews and soups
• roasted and boiled in water to make a coffee like beverage
• crushed into oil to make bread
• as a snack food

Medicinally the sunflower is known to protect against cardiovascular & other diseases, as well as an antioxidants & anticarcinogens. It has also been used in the past for

• snake bites
• wart removal
• sunstroke
• hair and body ointments

Other uses of the sunflower include

• as a purple dye for textiles & body painting
• the stalk was dried and used for building material
• plus birds love eating them!

Come on we need some volunteers! put your hand up as well as your kids and give it a go. A sunflower is the perfect drawing/painting to start with. Join us and post your artwork.

Plus we are still waiting for people to submit their photos of creatures that are from their neck of the woods. We would love for you to get involved

Here is our first flower spotlight. My daughter and I planted several sunflower seeds and have been watching in anticipation for the end result. It gave us something to admire during this heatwave. We werent disappointed, it was a magnificent looking flower. It was also the "guess this flower" from the previous post. Todays plan is to paint this flower and do some research, so keep an eye out for tommorrows post.

Come on join in and post your drawing or painting of this magnificent large flower.

Guess What? ......it is still HOT here. Very, Very Hot 40 degrees celcius. We havent been able to spend ANY time outside for two weeks as temperature have been above 38 the whole time. If we do venture out in the evenings we either get covered in ants, walk through spider webs or get attacked by mosquitos. All of these result in screaming kids...not fun. Plus they are so bored of being inside.

However this HOT weather has produced a beautiful flower in our garden.....can you guess what flower it is from the hint below?

If you can guess correctly and be the first one to post the answer you will get your drawing, of this flower, posted here on my blog. So come on give it a go and help me get my blog up and running with som readers.

The photo of the whole flower will be posted within the next 2 days.

G'day from Australia! We are still in the grips of our extreme heatwave!I think its around day 9 of temperatures being above 38 degrees celcius. There is a possibility it will cool down over the upcoming weekend but that is still 4 days away.

Now for our drawings. The story is I started drawing my echidna and only got the faint outline done when my daughter discovered it while I was busy. So she decided to finish it for me. She did a great job for a five year old.

Now please remember ....I am NO artist. Just having fun drawing, learning and exploring with my children. You dont need to be good at drawing .....just give it a go....rediscover the joy you had when you were a child and enjoyed colouring in!!!

Now some facts about this gorgeous creature...

Echidnas (sometimes referred to as spiny ant eaters) are Australian mammals that lay eggs! There are only two species of mammals that lay eggs with the other being the Australian Platypus. Echidnas fully grown weigh 2-5 kgs and grow 30-45 cm in length. They are covered in cream coloured spines (5cm in length) which are very sharp and are actually made out of hair. Between these spines they are covered in honey, reddish brown to black fur.

Echidnas are solitary creatures that are shy and move slowly. If disturbed or are in danger they will lower their heads and dig vigorously leaving only their spines sticking out from the hole. Their predators are humans, cars, tasmanian devils and eagles. Male echidnas do have a spur on their hind legs however they are blunt and the venom gland is not functional.

Echidnas are common & widespread. They can live in a range of habitats, forrests, grasslands and deserts. They live in old, hollow logs, tree stumps, bushes and in burrows. In hotter regions echidnas are mainly nocturnal however in southern Australia they are active during the day. They eat mainly ants & termites as well as grubs and worms. Their tongue reaches around 15cm and they have no teeth, instead they use the hard pads in their mouth to crush the food. The females lay their eggs directly into a rear facing pouch. 10 days later they hatch and remain in the mothers pouch for 2-3 months. They continue to drink milk from their mothers until around the age of 6 months.

I hope you enjoyed these interesting facts about the gorgeous echidnas we have here in Australia. I have seen a few of these in the wild....only if I have been walking very slowly and quietly. In the zoos & conservation parks here in Australia you can often see them acting quite friendly and curious. One even tried to climb in our childs pram. Luckily we saw it before it did get into the pram as it would have been a big surprise to open the car boot when we got home!

Now its your turn......go on....have a go at drawing an Australian Echidna!!!

Due to the heatwave here in Adelaide we have decided to choose our next creature from our photo archive. Our third "Creature Feature" has been chosen because he/she is the mascot for our header here at "Family Nature Explorers" and I thought it may be interesting to find out some facts on this gorgeous creature. The below photo was taken in April 2008 at Steve Irwins "Australia zoo".

Well seeing it is over 40 degrees celcius outside and has been for the past week we haven't had much of a chance to go outside exploring. For one its dangerous to stand out in the sun and risk getting sunburnt (which would only take 1 minute here at the moment!) plus when its been this hot for a week you just don't seem to have any energy or concentration. Thirdly I dont want to disturb any creature living outside at the moment as I would hate to disturb their place of refuge from the heat. Adelaide reached 45.7 this week the hottest day since 1939!

My wife has placed numerous bowls of water outside and in our local reserve for the birds to drink from. (plus I can tell you the ants are having their fair share of the drinking water. Must be hot for an ant too!) So I guess if you are an echidna you should head for the local watering hole as there are sure to be plenty of ants there to make a meal of.

So today we will research the Australian Echidna and complete our drawings. We will include all this info (hopefully by the end of today) in our next post.

Well here are our drawings of the Painted Lizard that we featured as our "creature feature" #2

My little ones drawing includes two examples. The first was using my suggestion of using the same colours as in the photo which she didnt want to do and took about 2 minutes. The second one was done more carefully as she used the exact colours she wanted too. So it taught me to just let her go and even though they arent the same colours as the photo, the actual drawing looks great and realistic.

Show us your interpretation of the painted dragon..... 

So for our second "creature feature" I decided to do it on a lizard we discovered in the sand dunes at Port Hughes in South Australia. I had never seen one before and had to be quick to take the photo. Within a blink of an eye he was gone, with fast zipping feet! I was very happy that I captured him on film as I can now take time and look at all his little features. Here take a look....

its great when you take a photo of a wild creature and are able to get such a close up....don't you think so! My observations of this lizard are as follows:

• He has a very prominent jaw line

• A tail longer than his body and very straight lined

• His gorgeous yellow coloured head

• He has back legs that look very frog like

• A very dominent raised yellow marking around his eyes

After searching on the net for a while comparing photos I discovered who this little fellow was...

a Painted Dragon

Painted Dragons are found in inland Australia (covering all states) and South Australia . They live in sandy habitats and feed on small insects, especially ants and some vegetation.Their name is ctenophorus pictus which refers to the comb like scales that surround the eyes. Their body length varies between 7 - 10cm. Males are more colourful than females ranging in colour from blues, yellows and reds. Males are very territorial and most breeding adults die after breeding season, hence they usually only live for one year but have been known to last for 3 years.

Here are my childs and my drawings of our slater friend. My child commented that "no way I can draw that" and less than 5 minutes later we had a great result. Well I think it looks like a slater ........now how about yours.........why not have a go and share your slater drawing with us.