New Living Smart Graduates

Shani from Ecoburbia has just completed the latest Living Smart facilitator training at Replants on Wray Avenue.

This means that a new group of enthusiastic, sustainably minded people have been launched into the community to make positive change.

I bumped into her and a couple of graduating facilitators this afternoon as they were leaving.

Shani with two brand new Living Smart Facilitators, including local personality Simone Van Hattem

The Living Smart course is an excellent way to connect with your community and make positive, sustainable change to your life. It has been a strong driver for the things Emma and I have done on the avenue this year – and it seems like there’s already a few of us who have done Tim and Shani’s course on the avenue.

Save the Numbats!

It will have been a long time since anyone has seen a numbat around Wray Avenue – if anyone ever has!

Your more likely to see a fox these days. Seriously, I saw one trotting down the middle of the avenue about 3 years ago. Nobody believed me until reports in the Herald a year or so ago about backyard chooks being outfoxed in Whitegum Valley.

Foxes are one of the chief reasons numbats are so endangered. The little marsupial – Western Australia’s faunal emblem – used to range as far east as New South Wales. Now they’re found only in the Dryandra Woodland and a few, small pockets of forest in the South West (sadly threatened by the state government’s draft forest management policy).

So there’s something kind of funny that another British import is working so hard to save this species rom extinction. Lisa Hill, a English-born veterinary nurse, has a passion for these creatures that few born-and-bred sandgropers have for this little creature.

On Wednesday of this week, Lisa organised a viewing at Replants of a unique documentary made by Dr Tony Friend in 1996. There’s a clip you can watch here.

About 30 people came down to watch it and be enchanted by the antics of the little marsupial, one of Australia’s most endangered species.

Lisa has also coordinated a fundraising music event at North Fremantle Bowls Club next Sunday, 2 December, to raise money for the campaign to save numbat. The Facebook event, including details, is here.

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Avenue Artistry

I took a stroll up Wray Avenue today and saw something amazing happening on the corner of Wray Avenue and Attfield Street.

Spray can art piece, corner of Attfield and Wray

Matt and Louise had sought the services of Lady Bananas and Tomahawk, whose work recently featured in Sculptures on the Street on warehouses in the Knutsford Precinct, to add some creativity to their wall.

The wall had been the victim of some tagging and this was their creative way of addressing the problem, adding something visually interesting to the avenue and supporting some local artists. Great work guys!

I’ll post more pictures when it’s finished.

On the verge of being able to play chess on Wray

A few limestones blocks leftover from a garden makeover became the inspiration for a feature on the verge at the corner of Wray Avenue and Brennan Street.

My next door neighbours (Jeanette, Sean and Nick) have told me that, when they lived around the corner on Little Howard Street, they used to play chess out on the street with neighbours. I thought a public chessboard would be a great thing to put in that open, desolate verage space – leading to an inter-street tournament in future, perhaps?

The idea has been in my head since way before the Balga tree planting but the beautification of the verges got me moving on it.

With my average tiling skills, I laid out a chess board on top of one of the blocks and laid two others alongside as seats.

I carted out the limestone blocks a couple of weekends ago now and haven’t had much of a chance to enjoy them.

So I was really stoked this weekend when I headed in to Fremantle and saw people sitting out there.

The first two people to enjoy the limestone blocks?

Hopefully I can weed the area this week and maybe mulch it to make it look a bit more appealing.

Then on the weekend I’ll put out some chess pieces for people to play with!

Fun run fun

I woke up yesterday and found out the Suncorp Fun Run was cutting along the bottom of Wray Avenue.

I sauntered down to Wild Poppy to check it out.

What really made it worth watching was seeing the goat in amongst all the runners. I’m not sure if he was doing the 10km or 4km race.

See if you can see it in the pictures.

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