All you need to do is say YES.

Say Yes! I can do something about this.

Say Yes! I can help.

Say Yes! By saying No to plastic.

I know it is hard.

I know we are surrounded by the rotten stuff.

But if we each decide to stop buying one item of plastic.

Just one item.

I have said no to plastic water bottles.

So just Say Yes

And we can make a small step forward.

Say Yes to the planet and say no to unecessary plastic.

Our grandchildren are depending on us.

I didn’t want to watch the documentary, The Cove. It wasn’t high on my agenda as ideal background noise as I faffed about on the computer after a long day at work.

But inertia won as I was loathe to get up from the coach to find the remote.

So I finally watched The Cove because I was too knackered to change the channel.

I don’t know how to describe how I am feeling today.

I think I am in a little bit of shock still.

The film was very distressing

Even though I knew the dolphin slaughter was coming I was unprepared for the psychic impact of hearing the dolphins distress.

The sound of dolphins screaming isn’t easy to ignore.

I honestly dont know if I have the energy to focus on dolphins as well as all the other horrible things we do as a species.

We have a long list of awfulness to our names.

The Australian Kangaroo cull comes to mind then there is the factory farming of domestic animals.

We can also own up to the practice of shooting Brumbies from helicopters.

Designer pets and puppy farms. Sharks caught soley for their fins and then thrown back into the sea alive.

Poisoning of our wildlife with the horrific 1080 poison.

The list goes on and on.

But for the moment I am trying not to listen to the echoes of dying dolphins in the back of my psyche.

You can watch the cove on ivew if you missed it.

You can donate to Save Japans Dolphins

Or you can google any of the other appalling things that I have mentioned here and then come back and tell me what you think we can do.

I don’t know what I am going to do as I haven’t had a deep think about it yet.

Our planet is at tipping point. The ocean is in crisis.

Where the fuck do we think our grandchildren are going to live if not here on this dying planet?

We need to find some solutions today people. Not tomorrow.

Otherwise we wont have a tomorrow.

Wow! Sunday Selections has been going for twenty weeks.

Thank you to everyone for playing along with me and sharing your photos and your stories.

I take a lot of photos and most of them are just sitting around in folders on my desktop not doing anything. I thought that a dedicated post once a week would be a good way to share some of these photos that  otherwise wouldn’t be seen by anyone other than me.

I am also remarkably absent minded and I put photos into folders and think  that I will publish them later on and then then I never do.

So I  have started a photo meme that anyone can join in and play as well. The rules are so simple as to be virtually non existent.

Just add your name and URL to the Mr Linky.

Publish your photos on your blog using the “Sunday Selections” title.

Link back here to me.

Easy Peasy.

Here are my photos for this week.

I have a large honeysuckle that grows over the balcony rail, it is only a few feet away from my computer space and in the spring and summertime the perfume is divine. I often try to photograph the honey eaters as they drink the nectar from the flowers or the silver eyes and wrens as they pick insects from the leaves.

This year the plant is absolutely covered with grey aphids there are  zillions of the fat little fuckers happily sucking the life out of the flower buds.

As soon as “The Spouse” sees aphids he gets an itchy trigger finger and wants to start madly spraying soapy water everywhere to kill the little sap suckers.

I am not that hasty. I like to adopt a wait and see approach to pest management. We have a very good ecological balance here and I have found that it only takes a week or so before all the predatory insects find the veritable feast on the honeysuckle.

Also while the Aphids are sucking the life out of the honeysuckle flowers I know where they are, the honeysuckle is a tough plant and it will recover. I would much rather have a large population of Aphids on one plant that can cope instead of all over the garden on my more fragile plants.

So yesterday when I should have been working on various projects and answering your emails, I was photographing the busy ecosystem that is contained within one plant in my garden.

The birds come in the early morning to breakfast on the aphids.

There are ladybirds everywhere, gorging themselves on fat juicy aphids. (photo credit: Veronica took this first shot)

I counted at least four different types of parasitic wasp busily hunting aphids.They were far too flitty and zoomy for me to photograph well.

There were lots of different flies feeding on the honeydew the aphids produce as well as two different types of small ant.

As I am writing this I can see a number of finches eating aphids as well, I know that if I move they will fly away and I don’t want to disturb their breakfast.  You will just have to imagine them flitting from branch to branch busily pecking aphids off the flower buds.

This is a press release by Mick Dodson, former Australian of the year, this comes courtesy of the Tasmanian Times Website.

It beggars belief that this is even legal in Australia. Aboriginal land in one of our most fragile ecosystems has just been earmarked for compulsory acquisition by the Western Australian Government.

The reason? Energy giants including BP, Woodside, Chevron and Shell want to build a gas pipeline, and they don’t want to wait for Indigenous consultation. Some traditional owners are in favour of the pipeline, others disagree. But one thing is clear: compulsory acquisition means no genuine consultation, and far less compensation if the project goes ahead.

We need to respond quickly and make sure Premier Barnett’s announcement is met with national outrage. Locals are delivering a petition to the Premier’s office next week. Can you back them up by adding your name today, and asking your friends to do the same? Go to link http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/nocompulsoryacquisition

The nation is talking about hung parliament negotiations in the marble halls of Parliament House. But far away, in the red dirt of James Price Point, 400km from Broome on the Dampier Peninsula, there is another power struggle going on; pitting the profits of BP, Shell, Woodside and Chevron against the rights of Indigenous Australians. You can help shift the balance.

There are numerous registered Aboriginal heritage sites in the vicinity of James Price Point (Walmadan). Locals tell of Indigenous burial sites and ancient rock art; in some areas you can actually see the footprints of prehistoric birds, long extinct. But the Western Australian Premier wants to bypass Aboriginal elders in what’s been called “colonialism all over again” by Wayne Bergmann, Kimberly Land Council CEO. And what’s more, the project hasn’t even received environmental approvals required by State or Federal law.

This is about more than one site, or one gas pipeline. Compulsory acquisition in WA would put the profits of multinationals above the rights of traditional owners—and threatens decades of progress on land rights. Can you stand with traditional owners behind a campaign to stop compulsory acquisition? Colin Barnett’s decision could set back the Indigenous Rights movement by 30 years or more. Together we have the opportunity to ensure this doesn’t happen.

I was listening to local ABC radio the other day and Tim Cox was having a conversation with Sally Bryant about Tasmanian Wedgetail eagles. I thought I would share the information I picked up.

The female wedgetail eagle is a larger bird than the male of the species and the darker the feathers the older the bird.

This still doesn’t help me identify the sex of this lovely eagle that has been visiting me but I do like to gather and share snippets of useful information as well as interesting links like this one,  Raptor and Wild life Refuge

Though I also don’t think that they are horrible photos either. I went for a walk this morning and took some photos. I was fascinated by this piece of roadkill. This was a wallaby. Now it is a series of photos.

Not much later though, I am looking forward to putting this together, I am just waiting for the weather to warm up a bit and then we will have fishy mayhem. There will be death and destruction galore and I will film it all.

For new readers of this blog I am not really about to indulge in a bit of fish assisted homicide, for even though he is very grumpy I am rather fond of  The Spouse.

I am talking about the film I said I was going to make during my creative concept development class.

I have discovered that there is a little bit more to making a film than grabbing a video camera, shooting some vision and sticking it all together in a watchable format.

I have discovered that the practice vision that I shot will suddenly take on a life of  its own and demand to be shown as a short film instead.

I have discovered that I really, really enjoy film making. My poor Nikon still camera has been slightly neglected in favour of a second hand video camera and I have been hoovering up vision left, right and centre.

Yesterday we all had to present our work to our teacher Glen Dunn and our colleagues. I wasn’t prepared for how nervous I felt presenting my short film to my class. I am cheerful, outgoing, opinionated, wisecracking and flippant. I am also intensely private which is a bit of a contradiction as I am a gregarious show off with theatrical tendencies. I rarely get nervous, stressed yes, nervous no.

My ceramic work is what it is.

All my emotional energy goes into the clay and afterwards I am drained. Even though my artist statements are usually quite emotional, my inner thoughts aren’t really out there on display next to my pots.

With this first film I made I was giving people a glimpse into myself. I was really sharing what I see in an unambiguous manner and I think that I was so nervous because I really wanted people to like what I had done. As opposed to my ceramic work where I just want people to respond to my work and I am not really fussed whether people like the work or not.

I am sure that I will get over it though and soon my film work will be the same as my ceramic work, where the response is enough, but it was interesting to analyse my feelings towards this first film.

Anyhow enough babble. I have uploaded the film to Vimeo. This is the first draft, is that the right terminology? Do films have drafts or edits?

This is the first version of my first film. Drive.

I am interested in what you think about it.

Drive from Kim Foale on Vimeo.

This photo of a dead sea bird is the inspiration for my newest work. I took the photo from this website.

There are reports that journalists are not allowed to photograph anything within 65 feet of the oil booms.

My head is a messy place at the moment, I have been researching reports of leaking methane and benzene in the Gulf of Mexico and the news isn’t good.

So today I have been listening to loud music, feeling sorry for myself and playing in the mud.

If you mouse over the photos you can read a description. I don’t have the energy to say much more. I am shattered today. I think the pot will look good when it is finished.

Here is the finished work. This bowl is available at the Off Centre Gallery in Salamanca.

I received this comment on my oil covered birds post,

Our class has been watching this video as well as the news every day.  We are sad that the birds are covered with oil and they are stuck on the beach.  What can we do to help?  PLEASE WRITE US BACK…LOVE, ROOM 110

I don’t know what you can actually physically do to help room 110, as I am Australian and thousands of miles away from this disaster. I am sure there are plenty of practical things you can do that don’t involve picking up oily and distressed sea creatures though.

You could choose a wildlife organisation and ring them up and see what they need. I do know that volunteer rescue organisations are always chronically short of money so maybe you could organise a fundraiser, a raffle, something like that and then donate the money to an organisation of your choice.

Here in Tasmania a few years ago the community got together and knitted woolly jumpers for the penguins to wear  as part of an oil spill response pack. ( a jumper is a sweater)

Here is a web page with a list of organisations you can contact

I assume that The American Red cross would know how you can help and I am sure that The ASPCA would be another good organisationto get in touch with.

Now as for what you can do in the longer term, that requires a bit of a think. Have a look around your home and really look at everything that you have. The ice cubes in your refrigerator, the throw away plastic bottle in your rubbish bin, all your gadgets, the family car and the clean clothes that you are wearing today.

Everything that enables you to have a comfortable life takes energy.

We are all responsible for this oil spill.

We all need to change our habits.

Reduce your consumption, it is as simple as that. Dry your clothes outside on the washing line rather than in a dryer. Put a sweater on when you are cold rather than turning the heater up.Turn the lights off that you aren’t using. Unplug your mobile phone charger from the wall when you aren’t using it. Dont leave the television on standby. Turn off the microwave when you aren’t using it. Think about that next trip in the car, is it necessary?

Look at how many green or red or blue little lights are on in your house while you are sleeping of a night. Do all those electrical items really need to be sitting there all night silently, sucking power just to save us a few seconds time when we want to use them.

Don’t leave the water running when you brush your teeth in the mornings. Put the plug in the sink when you peel potatoes. Choose environmentally friendly products and ask for organic produce. I am sure you can all think of a zillion more things to do to reduce your own consumption.

Saying NO to plastic is a really good thing to do.

Small things. They are all small things but from little things big things grow.

One person does have the power to change the world.