I've been making lots of lovely smelly things recently - with lavender.
I love the smell (particularly around the house) and it grows really
easily. Having lavender in the garden also attracts bees which is
really, really important. I've made a little video (with some footage
Tim took in the garden earlier) - please watch :)
So, what do you do with all that lovely lavender (apart from seduce
bees!)? Lots of things! Here are just a few.
Hang it in bunches to dry (and scent the room!) Here's mine in my
kitchen - it needs to be somewhere warm so that it dries quickly before
it rots.
Make lavender water (which can then be frozen in an ice cube tray and
defrosted whenever you need some)
Pull the flowers off the stalks and put in some fine cotton material
Fasten with an elastic band
Pop into a tall glass jar
Pour on boiling water, cover the jar and leave for 24 hours (sorry for
the blur!)
Then, remove the bag and throw away the flowers. Put some fresh flowers
in the bag and reseal with the elastic. Tip the water into a saucepan
and bring to the boil then put the flower bag and boiled water back into
the jar and top up with fresh (boiled) water. Leave for another 24 hours
then tip into an ice cube tray and freeze.
Make a very special, dry-skin busting soap. First, grate up some
unperfumed, uncoloured soap (mine is palm oil based). I actually used a
zester to do this - takes a while but is strangely satisfying!
You will need: olive oil, lavender flowers and dried chamomile. You will
also need some sillicon cupcake cases and a baking tray.
Put the grated soap in a glass bowl and put that over a saucepan
containing boiling water. Set the whole thing on the hob on a lowish
heat. You will be adding freshly boiled water to the soap mix but it
needs to be on the stove to keep everything at a good, constant
temperature otherwise your soap mixture won't melt down properly.
Put your lavender flowers in a plastic bag and use a rolling pin to
GENTLY crush them
Make some tea with your chamomile!
Add about a cup of boiling water to your soap mix and stir. As it starts
to melt down, add in the (strained) chamomile and the lavender flowers
and a couple of teaspoons of olive oil. Stir. Looks a bit yuk at this
point!
Add another cup of boiling water and stir again - it will be getting
bubbly
Now, take the bowl off the heat - don't worry about any soap bits
remaining because now you're going to beat the mixture with a wooden
spoon. It will start to thicken up.
You can go in with your hands to squish out any remaining bits (make
sure it's not too hot still!)
When you're ready, spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases and put in
the fridge to harden off.
In a couple of days you can turn them out - hey presto! Cute cupcake
soaps that are wonderfully good for your hands (got rid of April's nasty
dry bits!) HOWEVER PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE test on a small patch of skin
before completely lathering up with it to make sure it doesn't cause an
allergy!!
Oh, and one final bee-related thing ..... Tim was tidying the front
garden this afternoon and found a poor dead bee :( We have a little
"animal graveyard" in our garden (created by April) to put any dead
creatures she finds (woodlice, bees, spiders etc) - but before she put
him there, she had a look at him under our mini microscope ......
...enjoyed the lovely weather which was was warm and sunny and gorgeous
despite what the weather forecast said :)
... met an odd looking man who came round to bring Tim a musical score
for the show he's doing.
... played some maths games with Rosie (adding and subtracting negative
numbers).
... got an email from a blog-friend who told me that Chris Packham was
making an appearance at the Ringwood Waldorf School (to do something
called Never Mind the Buzzards!). Oooo! I want to go!
... wandered round the garden with Rosie and used April's little old
Fisher Price tape player to record bird and bee sounds (not sure why -
was a nice thing to do though!)
... sewed a tooth fairy pillow for my little babe who has got her first
wobbly tooth! It's hanging on by a thread at the moment so won't be
there for much longer. The odd thing is that the new tooth is already
there, already erupted, BEHIND the baby one! April is terribly, terribly
worried she's going to swallow the tooth while eating because she's
heard the story of Rosie doing just that when she lost her first tooth.
She was eating a custard cream at the time!
... put Rosie's name down for a place at Young Rangers at Moors Valley
to start in September when she turns 13. She's very keen to, eventually,
work with wildlife/conservation so it's a really ideal step into that to
start getting some experience. She's wanted to end up working with
wildlife since about the age of 6 and is really very knowledgable :)
... and now I'm going to go and watch Bill Oddie on the telly.
The kids were eating lunch today and Rosie spotted a tiny little
woodmouse out of the window - he was rummaging around in our front
garden flower bed :) I went out and managed to get a picture of his bum!
You can see how tiny he was comparing him to that dandelion leaf on the
left.
Then, while I was still there, he sat up beautifully and looked at me
with these HUGE eyes as if to say "oh go on then, get a better
picture!". So I tried but the batteries ran out on the camera!! I'm SO
disappointed because he was sooo cute!
You know the sort - where EVERYTHING gets on your nerves. Just stupid
little stuff.
I woke up feeling a bit out of sorts and the feeling was not in anyway
helped by the fact that I realised I had no hot water. The boiler has
broken again.
AGAIN!!
Right, ok. So that was that. Then I thought maybe I'd do some cleaning
but was feeling too lazy. So, I did some work with the kids and that was
more successful. Then they went off to do other stuff and I played
around on the computer until April called for me from her room "look!
mummy! there's a funny bird!" The funny bird, which was perched right at
the top of our fir tree, was in fact a juvenile heron! It was huge! I
rushed off to get the camera, came back, pointed and was JUST about to
push the shutter when ... it flew away. Aaarrggh!
Then we had lunch - chicken dippers and smiley faces (yep, me included
because I had a mad craving for "toddler food" today). April pestered me
endlessly while I was grilling which resulted in me NEARLY depositing a
panful of smiles on the kitchen floor and her getting ordered away.
*Sigh*
Then, eventually, Tim got home from work and we went off to Tesco - I
needed (amongst other things) some more ink but guess what? They'd sold
out of the particular one for our printer.
Now ...... just about to get the kids off to bed and HOPEFULLY have a
pleasant evening!
Oh, one thing that made me smile today - only 20-odd days until
Springwatch! Me and Rosie love watching that and keeping an eye on the
webcams at the baby birds :) ... and I...enjoy Chris Packham ...
Not an easy time at the moment for a couple of non-bloggable reasons and
on top of that I'm making zero progress with the website (Tim needs to
do some of it for me and I'm going to have to wait until he's on
holiday) but I've been photo-taking a fair bit :)
So, instead of rambling on, I'm just going to post some pics I've taken
recently (some good quality some not so good but all nice I think)
April playing - picking flowers and playing in our little "woody" bit of
garden - there's Katie (Hemmy's girlfriend too!)
A Great Tit - marching purposefully across the lawn - what he's looking
back at I'm not sure! Baaad quality picture this!
Pretty flowers :)
Finally, a peacock butterfly that was sunning itself on our path
That's all folks! Got to go and get Rosie motivated as Tim's taking her
to the dentist to have her fitted brace today - lovely!
Posted by Sarah at 8:41 AM [Permalink] Edited on: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 8:43 AM
Categories: General, People, Wildlife
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Monday, March 22, 2010
Setting a good example
Behold! Recycling pigeon!
I was in the kitchen this morning, making tea for Tim in an attempt to
get him out of bed (although, to be honest, I think probably this
would be more effective.... I'm a real early bird and his reluctance to
get out of his pit in the morning drives me potty.)
However, I digress. There I was making the tea when I heard a big thump
and looked up out the window. There was a pigeon which had landed in the
old pigeon nest which we found last autumn and it was picking it to
bits! When it found a (presumably suitable) twig, it flew back to it's
nest site and then a few minutes later returned for some more at which
point I got a little video of him :)
He has a good old rummage around trying to find just the right bit of
twig!
Posted by Sarah at 10:08 AM [Permalink] Edited on: Monday, March 22, 2010 10:09 AM
Categories: Wildlife
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Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Art, telly and gardening
Despite ongoing sicky-ness, we've packed a fair bit into the last couple
of days. Yesterday was utterly gorgeous weather wise and April and I
spent AGES hunting (quietly!) for in-progress birds nests in the garden.
We stared for a long time at our resident pigeon flying backwards and
fowards ALL morning with twigs in it's beak. We've also got blue tits in
the bird box in between April's and Rosie's bedroom windows which is
sweet :) The kids decided (eeek! a bit of homeschool stuff slipping in
here!) to make maps of our garden and start plotting where birds are
building nests - this is largely so that they can go back in the autumn
and locate the now empty nests and investigate them!
Today (noooo! more homeschool mentioning!) Rosie was studying Picasso in
art and she drew, in pastels, a Cubist portrait (hers will be on the
homeschool blog if you want to look). This looked like a bit of fun so I
had a go to - here is my (rather lame) effort *laughs* - the neck is too
skinny and the yellow side of the face is far too "sloped" - I think
there should be a gentler angle upwards and off the paper. Oh well, it's
good to be creative sometimes even if it does turn out shabby :D
I started watching a new series on telly - The Wonders of the Universe
(9pm BBC2, Sundays) - Empire of the Sun was the first episode and it was
totally amazing! The bit with the total eclipse of the sun was
incredible! If you want to watch it you can still catch the first
episode on BBC iplayer for another month.
Due to the increasingly better weather (although today was a bit
rubbish) and the leaf buds popping up everywhere and the crocuses on our
lawn, I've gone all garden-minded :) So, today, we went to our local
garden centre and came back with 2 bags of compost and a tub of plum
tomato seeds. I've also got various flower seeds and herbs to plant so I
think me and the kids will get started on those tomorrow or the next day.
Not been about (blog wise) for a few days - been nursing the sick pretty
much - and spring cleaning.
Just as April was recovering from her hideous virus, Rosie came down
with a slightly less severe version of it. Then, just as she was (is!)
recovering from it Tim got ill. Actually, I didn't realise that Tim felt
ill until yesterday morning because he never mentioned it to me. He left
for work at the usual time 4.45 ish (am!), I got back into bed and fell
asleep. Then, about an hour later i was woken up by a knocking and I lay
in bed thinking "eh?" and not sure if I imagined it or not. Then there
was another knocking and I started to panic because I wondered who the
hell was knocking on my door at quarter to 6 in the morning! Then the
phone rang and it was Tim and he said "hello, I'm outside would you let
me in please?!" Oh. Ok then.
So in he came and told me that he felt really ill.
You want to know something really stupid? Before he told me that he felt
ill, I had no idea and no idea why he was home again. Did I think "oh my
god he's been sacked!"? No. Did I think "oh my god, the car broke
down!"? No. Did I think "oh my god, he's ill!"? No.
The first thought that popped into my head was "oh my god, maybe the
warehouse burnt down!". What?! Well, I was half asleep! *laughs*
So anyway, Tim got up, left the house at 4.45, went for a little drive
to Christchurch, told the work people he felt crap, drove home again and
went back to bed!
Today our landlord came to visit. He lives up north somewhere and all
the years we've lived here we've never met him. He was down visiting his
parents so he'd thought he'd pop in and whilst he was here he measured
the kitchen because, apparently, he's thinking of having a new one put
in sometime. Lovely! It's a really badly designed, hideously old kitchen
so a new one would be very welcome - he also said he'd design it in such
a way as to create space for our fridge/freezer which is currently in
the dining area! Oooo!
So that was that. Tomorrow afternoon Tim and his sniffles are going off
to the church because he has a rehersal for the Easter service - lucky
them - hope they don't get his germs!
We have this pair of pigeons in our garden that have been, for the last
few days flying backwards and forwards in the garden with bits of twig
and (presumably!) building a nest in one of our trees. I do like this
time of the year when you can see the birds getting busy for a spot of
....ahem.. reproduction ;) It's fascinating watching them with building
their nests and then (ooo! so cute!) when you get to spy a bunch of
newly fledged chicks!!
Anyway, this morning I saw our pigeons snuggled up in a lovey way on the
branch of the tree near where they are nest building and (feeling ever
so slightly voyeuristic I have to say!!) I grabbed a picture of them.
I did laugh when I got this off the camera - can just imagine what
they'd be saying if they could talk! Perhaps it's:
Pigeon on right: My darling! Your feathers are so soft, your beak so
pointy - you are QUITE the most beautiful pigeon I've ever seen!
Pigeon on left: *blushing* oh .... *giggles* ... you're too kind!
Or, maybe right-pigeon is taking a more roundabout route to seduction:
Pigeon on right: fancy a popping in my place for some worms?
Pigeon on left: *thinking* ... "I know what he flipping well means by
that!"
Or, MAYBE (gasp! horror!), they are adulterous lovers!!:
Pigeon on right: Look, it's like this, my pigeony-wife doesn't
understand me .....
Pigeon on left: that's what they all say ........ (*thinks*, but GOD!
he's gorgeous!) ... oh go on then! (you can't fight those primeval urges
can you?)
Posted by Sarah at 12:29 PM [Permalink] Edited on: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 12:36 PM
Categories: Wildlife
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Thursday, January 21, 2010
Knitting and new things
I'm still trying to plod on with Rosie's knitting - I think it's going
to have to be unpicked and redone AGAIN though as it's clearly way too
big :( I can see myself reaching the "tearing my hair out" stage before
Monday at this rate!
Even though the snow is all gone, I'm still faithfully feeding the birds
(you should you know!) only today I delegated the job to April as she
had finished her school work and I was still working with Rosie. Off she
trotted to sprinkle some left over fruit cake around the garden - see
that big pile of branches STILL there from last autumn?! Shocking! :)
My little babe also started Rainbows for the first time this evening :)
She had a good time and came home cheerful so she's going again next
week (they always give you around 3 weeks "trial" before you have to pay
anything). I'm pretty sure she'll be perfectly happy but I want to be
100% as I think it's damaging for force littles into doing things they
don't want just for the sake of it.
Right that's that, off to get kids in bed and make dinner with Tim :)
Blog post title pretty much sums it up - both in terms of the weather
and my current mood. Actually, if I'm honest, I'm not so much icy as
just suffering from a bit of cabin fever having not left the house for a
few days due to inclement weather. We ARE however, going to risk it a
bit later and go to shops (maybe "big Tesco" if we're feeling VERY
brave!) and, while not exciting, at least gets us out. Tim has been out
and about at various intervals over the week and he says it is VERY
slippery.
Anyway, I might have been stuck at home but I have been having fun
watching the birds :) I've been venturing out in the early mornings and
skidding all round the garden putting food out for them (god! our garden
paths are perilous in this weather!). The reward for risking my neck is
that I've been able to retreat back indoors and watch them all feeding
:) Here's a picture I took of a robin having some breakfast just outside
our back door - my photography is really poor-quality first thing in the
morning! *laughs*
Other stuff has got washed out this week too. The kids were supposed to
go to their first yoga class on wednesday afternoon but the teacher
cancelled because of the weather. This class replaces the trampoline
class that Rosie used to do on her own last term. The problem with that
was that it clashed too much with her orthodontist appointments which
are also always on a Wednesday. So, we scrapped the trampolining and I
hunted around for an alternative -the yoga class is brilliant because
Rosie and April can both attend because it's mixed age. Although on a
Wednesday, it's not until 4.30 in the afternoon so it doesn't clash with
Rosie's teeth appointments. Finally (the icing on the cake!), Tim can
take the kids to the class giving me a wonderful couple of hours (ish!)
completely to myself every Wednesday. Perfect!
"........ is there any chance of a surprise this year?" *laughs*, I'm
having a happy time compiling a list, for Tim, of Christmas presents
that I might like this year. I have to do this every year because Tim
has a morbid dread of buying me something I'd hate and then I'd have to
put on an Oscar winning perfomance pretending that I did like it.
It's difficult for me to understand because I've never had much problem
buying people nice presents, I actually really enjoy it. I tend to
listen to people a lot and store away little snippets of information in
a part of my brain marked "could possibly be useful at some point". I
think his fear is kind of cute really but, I've got to admit, I really
wish that he would just go for it and take the plunge :) I've tried
hinting sometimes in the hope that he might ... well, you know! Alas,
the list making is the only way!
Anyway, other stuff. Rosie went off to her Guides carol service this
afternoon at a quaint little old church in Hampreston. She, apparently,
enjoyed it but it wasn't very long so I'm not sure it was a full and
proper service or just a little sing-song especially for the Guides.
It absolutely poured with rain this afternoon - very suddenly and
dramatically! The bird feeder outside fell over and I had to go out and
stand it up again so I threw on the first coat I could find. This turned
out to be Tim's work rainmac thing and it is HUGE! He says it's pretty
big on him so you can only imagine what tiny little me looked like in it
- swamped! Anyway, didn't mind the rain because there was a gorgeous
rainbow :) April was thrilled - she loves rainbows. The photo isn't
great because I couldn't get the whole thing in and it was actually a
lot brighter than the colours in the picture look, but I just think
rainbows are so happy-making. What you can't tell from the photo is that
it was actually bucketing down!
Oh, and our printer has died. Not surprising really, it was very old and
used extensively. I can't replace it until after christmas because all
the pennies are needed for pressies for people. What would be really,
really good is one of those super-quick laserjet printers - I do so much
printing that this would speed things up hugely *sighs*
Right, off now. Got to tidy up a bit and then later, after dinner, I've
got to do a bit more work on a present I'm making for Rosie.
Made lardy-bird-feeders today (with a little help from the kids!) I
always put out food for the birds but, when the weather is really cold,
they need fatty food as well as just seed to help keep their little
bodies warm.
These are just melted lard (yum-not) with birdseed, breadcrumbs and
grated cheese mixed in. Then you just shove the whole lot in a little
yoghurt pot (or similar) through which you've already threaded some
string. Put in the fridge for a couple of hours and then tie up
somewhere outside (I hung mine on the washing line near my other feeders
because I like to watch the birds out the kitchen window).
I think the birds will need these because it has turned very, very cold
- when Tim left for work this morning it was -1 and he had to take a jug
of water out with him to defrost the car.
He's just got home from and we're currently trying to summon up the
enthusiasm to go shopping - it's cold and getting dark out there and I'm
not sure I want to!
Oh, before I go, here's a picture I didn't post yesterday - April
blowing out her candles :)
Posted by Sarah at 3:29 PM [Permalink] Edited on: Friday, December 04, 2009 3:31 PM
Categories: Seasonal, Wildlife
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Tuesday, December 01, 2009
First frost
This morning I was greeted by the rather beautiful sight of sparkly,
frosty rooves and fences - granted, I'm shivering because the heating is
still not fixed but, hey! it was still beautiful :)
The poor old birds were almost certainly more cold than me and were
hanging around this morning because my bird feeders were empty -shame on
me! So, I went out and filled them all up (and noticed that the bird
bath was frozen over!) and within a minute I had blue tits, robins,
blackbirds and, I'm almost certain, a mistle thrush (although they
generally prefer berries and it might have been after the ones that hang
over our side gate rather than my feeders!)
Rosie came home from Guides last night with this:
I know, due to my shoddy photography it just looks like a pile of tinsel
but it is, in fact, a very pretty table decoration :) It's a ring that
she's twisted tinsel around and then put some gold holly leaves in the
middle with a red bauble. You can't see the holly leaves at all in this
- wish I was better at taking photos!
We're hoping to take the kids late night shopping in Bournemouth one
evening (I remember doing that when I was a kid and the excitement of
going out after dark and all the lovely christmas lights was SO huge!)
Only problem is we're not sure when yet - got so much on what with Tim's
churchy stuff (he's got evening practices on the 10th and the 17th and
then 2 services - morning and evening - on the 20th!) and Rosie going
off to Swanage for the whole day (she won't get back till late). She
also has a carol service with Guides one evening too. We're thinking
maybe, sometime during the last week before Christmas week. Hopefully.
If all goes to plan. It'll be a nightmare trying to park but we're
determined to do it!
Right, better get on ..... trying to brace myself to go and have a
shower in the freezer room - sorry - BATHROOM. We're going round Tim's
mums this afternoon (again!) as she's going to give April her birthday
presents - not sure why she's doing it early, April's birthday isn't
until Thursday.
I love the wildlife we get in our garden - one of the advantages of
living near farmland and a stones throw from forest is that we get lots
of different wildlife (Tim even had a deer run across the road in front
of his car early one morning on his way to work - just up from our
house!)
We get a lot of birds and one of them is the green woodpecker BUT,
although not particularly rare, it's very hard to see. I suppose during
the summer it's because it's well hidden in the leaves but even at this
time of the year you only get fleeting glances. The last time we saw one
was Christmas day last year!
Anyway, today there was one! Right in the middle of our lawn - I saw it
out of April's bedroom window. I went to get the camera but, of course,
it was gone by the time I got back - however, I looked up and there it
was in a tree so I grabbed a quick snap. It's not great because it was
through the glass and the gorgeous colours of the bird just don't show
up but he looks rather regal I thought :)
... and looking the other way!
Probably won't see him again until next year now!
I also snapped a red admiral sunning itself on the bench - was quite
surprised to see this on the 4th November! It sat there for a while and
then flew off (VERY highly zoomed in picture this as I was quite some
distance away).
Rosie was meant to be going to trampoline this afternoon but, just as
she was supposed to be getting ready to go, she was sick. Apparently
she'd been feeling ill all morning but had not mentioned it until just
now when she came out with "I've just been sick in my bedroom bin".
Nice. Anyway, she's gone off to bed and I'm left wondering what's the
matter with her - the rest of us are fine (at the moment!) Maybe she's
picked up a bug at Guides the other night or something ... who knows?!
Posted by Sarah at 2:00 PM [Permalink] Edited on: Wednesday, November 04, 2009 3:04 PM
Categories: Wildlife
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Monday, October 19, 2009
Cute robin and crafty stuff
Had some other things to blog but decided to do them separate from the
first post this morning :)
First, I managed to get this very cute (if slightly blurred!) picture of
a robin visiting my makeshift bird feeding table:
It's not great because I snapped it through the patio door but, oh, he's
soooo cute and bright!
Also, back when I was using the other blog, I mentioned that I managed
to turn a pair of my absolute favourite (but horribly ripped) jeans into
a skirt. Well, I've finally got the pics and the link to the
instructions. My pictures are utter rubbish (it's really hard taking
pictures of yourself in the mirror!) but hopefully give an idea of what
the finished thing looks like. Notice my silly boots? I'd just been
outside to collect our new kitchen caddy that had been delivered because
they're now collecting food waste round here. We've never had this
service before and I'm quite thrilled so HAD to go and get it ...... you
can tell I really live on the edge *laughs*.
Anyway, back to the skirt. Here is the link and a picture from the site
of the instructions - after looking at MANY versions, I found these to
be the easiest and clearest:
would be more effective.... I'm a real early bird and his reluctance to
get out of his pit in the morning drives me potty.)
