Well, I'm sitting here this week thinking we don't really have any flowers in the garden to draw at this time of year.  It is officially Winter in New Zealand.  But Bethany can always find something!  The children were playing outside after completing their IEW lesson for the afternoon, and Beth came inside with this little bunch of foliage and just started drawing. 

Lets see which flowers we can identify in there:  There is a little white rose on the right, from the neighbour's bush which grows over our fence.  There are some little white & purple alyssum and a little purple lobelia which are always faithfully flowering in our pots, whether we tend to them or not!

Here is Ainsley with her colourful version of the vase:

The other thing going on in our backyard at the moment is a little explosion in our finch population.  We've been keeping finches, canaries & quail for the past few years, but hadn't had much success with breeding them this past summer.  Perhaps it was too hot, it was a record, long, hot summer for us here.  But a few weeks ago we had two clutches of zebra finches hatch.  Here are some of them in the aviary.  The chicks are the ones with the beaks turning from black to red.  Not many males this time round though, they develop the characteristic zebra markings on the breast & wings. 

The finch at the far end is a goldfinch.  I did a little painting of one a little while ago.  Here it is.

 For more on Green Hour #15, click here.