Little eco footprints

Our natural outdoor play space

Remember that natural playground we started planning late last year? Inspired by the recent four part series on Ideas for adding natural elements to your outdoor play space over at Let the Children Play, I thought i'd share how our play space is progressing.

One of the most popular parts of the new play space has been the sand play wine barrel. We cut an old wine barrel into 1/3 and 2/3, using the 1/3 for the sand pit and the other 2/3 as a container for loose parts. We added some shells for texture and a few pretty stones as treasure.

The sand pit really only fits one, but when there's more, they simply sit around the outside and lean in.

Our salvaged timber table and chairs are regularly used for tea parties, craft activities, and imaginative play.

{Little Eco and Lillian}

I sometimes bring out an old umbrella. It's actually the very same umbrella I used to sit under when I wasn't much older than Little Eco.

We've used gravel in the play space. Due to the lead contamination in our soil, we have to ensure that soil isn't exposed in any areas where children play (or chooks browse, or vegetables grow and so on). Given this play space is partly shaded and has high traffic, maintaining grass would have been hard. So we decided to use gravel instead.

Thankfully, we were able to source local gravel (Maitland Red) rather than buy something that was trucked half way across the country. That said, river gravel is not exactly a sustainable resource, with it's extraction potentially causing riverbed and bank erosion, loss of fish habitat, vegetation loss, and decreased water quality. Thankfully we have a policy in NSW that ensures (hopefully) that gravel extraction is only undertaken on a sustainable use basis.

We've planted a few plants within the gravel and added a few bits and pieces that inevitably end up being used in imaginative play, like banksia cones....

..a kangaroo skull....

...a very pre-loved Tonka truck and a few op-shop sourced ornaments.

And then we have the not-so-natural element of the play space - the trampoline. At least it's Australian made.

Speaking of play spaces, the theme over at Childhood 101 for July is 'House or Home.' I'll be sharing a few of our new indoor play spaces. If you have a wonderful family or kids space at your house (inside or out) that you would like to share, send photos and details to burnettmc [at] gmail [dot] com.

And don't forget to enter the Biome Giveaway if you haven't already. Entries close at midnight on Monday (4th July).

How am I going to resist this green beauty?

I visited the garden this morning to check the chooks still have plenty of food and water and that the worms are not starving. Since discovering the lead contamination in our backyard, the vegetable garden and chickens have literally been left to take care of themselves….and they have. Maybe even better than if I was fussing over them??!?

The chooks have been left to run rampant all day - every day. They initially couldn’t believe their luck and devoured all my kale seedlings in the first day. They then gobbled up half my cabbage and lettuce seedlings ….and have since let the rest be.

I have sadly been buying all our vegetables and can now really appreciate how much money we were saving by growing our own. So this morning, I was very tempted by some gorgeous broccoli ready to harvest.  Vegetables absorb lead from soil, with some absorbing more than others. Generally leafy and root vegetables absorb more than those where we consume the fruit. So Broccoli being a flower should contain very little lead…..Hmmm??? To eat or not to eat???

I haven’t provided an update on our lead since we had the further sampling done – because the results were not good and I have been in denial mode. I’m continuing to gather information on how best to make our backyard safe and hope that in the weeks to come we will have the energy to tackle the problem.

Backyard lead article in today's paper

 A quick note to say the article was in todays paper (thanks for letting me know Kez).

Further testing of backyard soil (and I hope the media are kind to me)

Last weekend I did further sampling of our backyard soil to determine how widespread the lead contamination is in our backyard. I bought an economical do-it-yourself lead testing kit from the Global Lead Advice and Support Service that allowed me to take eight further soil samples. They also sell kits of two tests for only $100 for those of you who may be interested in testing your own garden soil. We should get the results back in a week or so.

As I have mentioned previously, I’m keen to raise awareness regarding the risk of lead contamination in backyards. It concerns me that there are likely children that are unknowingly playing in lead contaminated backyards (not just in Newcastle). I am just so relieved that we are now aware of the lead in our backyard and can take measures to ensure our safety.

 As part of raising awareness I contacted the local paper. The paper was interested and a quick phone conversation and photo shoot later an article will be appearing in tomorrow’s paper. I tried to convey a positive message about wanting to raise awareness of the potential risk and that it is relatively easy to deal with lead contamination once you know it is present. I don’t want to scare people away from growing their own vegetables and I don’t want to come across as an alarmist. But in reality, I have no power over what appears in the article. I’m having visions of some alarmist heading above a picture of Little Eco and me in our garden. The photographers instructions for me to look “pensive” and comments from the journalist along the lines of “I have no control over the heading that appears above my article and your photograph”; “trust me”, and “I tell people to try and look at the bigger picture – you are doing a good thing” just add to my concern. Oh well. Fingers crossed!

[Edited to add note: Well...story wasn’t in today’s paper. Not news worthy? Maybe next week? ]

Our blood lead levels are OK. Yay!

Just sneaking a quick post from work. Our blood lead levels came back fine. You can imagine how relieved I am. Although I am the one who spends the most time in the garden, I had the lowest lead levels?

Me 0.05 µg/dL
Daddy Eco 0.06 µg/dL
Little Eco  0.11 µg/dL

All way below the 2µg/dL level I was hoping we were below (above which you start seeing health consequences). Little Eco’s being a little higher is not surprising because children absorb more lead (50% of ingested lead vs. only 10% for adults) and put more things in their mouths.

Now all we have to do is deal with the contamination. Easy! Much better than dealing with health problems.