The leaves are almost all gone now from all the deciduous trees in the garden
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| Fungi growing in the mulch by the play area |
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| Still flowering |
Monday 1 December 2014
Labour of Love
I had an idea for a while that I would love to make a wall-hanging for Amy with her name on and a special bible verse but I find it difficult to get vague ideas from my head into actual projects - I am much better at following a pattern. However a good friend of mine has helped me with thinking through the ideas, encouraged me when I was struggling with the practicalities and given me deadlines to keep me going with this piece of work till it is finally FINISHED!!!
I started with making some hearts from some of her clothes that she had worn in her first year and appliqued these onto a heart shape. These fabrics were also used to create a border.
Here are my initial ideas.
The buttons from her clothes were used to make up the letters of her name.
The name Amy means 'beloved' so this was embroidered underneath in stem stitch.
To back the hanging I used one of her cotton cot sheets and added a little message on the back.
It was a big project for me and has definitely taken me out of my comfort zone of following patterns! But I am really pleased with the end result ; )
I started with making some hearts from some of her clothes that she had worn in her first year and appliqued these onto a heart shape. These fabrics were also used to create a border.
Here are my initial ideas.
The buttons from her clothes were used to make up the letters of her name.
The name Amy means 'beloved' so this was embroidered underneath in stem stitch.
The verse I chose for her was from Psalm 37
"Take delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart"
To back the hanging I used one of her cotton cot sheets and added a little message on the back.
It was a big project for me and has definitely taken me out of my comfort zone of following patterns! But I am really pleased with the end result ; )
Advent
The first day of advent, a time of expectant waiting in preparation for Christmas, a time of looking forward to Jesus's birth. For the last few years we have enjoyed the Jothams Journey trilogy of books which I would highly recommend.
This year I thought we would do something a bit different and after searching pinterest decided to focus on looking at Names of Jesus to help us look at all the aspects of his character.
We have made a paper chain with 25 links - one for each of the days leading up to and including Christmas - each with a different name for Jesus and a verse from the bible where it is mentioned. We will remove one of the links each day and find out a bit about the name and what it means for us. I hope this will help us to get to know Him better this season.
I also commissioned Luke to build a Lego countdown calendar! Here it is with a mini Mary and Joseph making their way to the stable in Bethlehem
We shall also be burning our advent candle each day at teatime.
Hope these small things will keep our minds on the real reason for the season ;)
This year I thought we would do something a bit different and after searching pinterest decided to focus on looking at Names of Jesus to help us look at all the aspects of his character.
We have made a paper chain with 25 links - one for each of the days leading up to and including Christmas - each with a different name for Jesus and a verse from the bible where it is mentioned. We will remove one of the links each day and find out a bit about the name and what it means for us. I hope this will help us to get to know Him better this season.
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| Chain over the fire place |
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| Our first link removed Alpha and Omega |
We shall also be burning our advent candle each day at teatime.
Hope these small things will keep our minds on the real reason for the season ;)
Friday 28 November 2014
Owl Pellets
We were given some owl pellets from a long eared owl to investigate a little while ago and have just got round to dissecting them this week.
Owls eat a variety of small mammals - they swallow them whole - then 6-7 hours later they regurgitate the indigestible parts in the form of a pellet which they drop on the ground: so dissecting these pellets can give interesting information about their diet and about the kind of animals that are found in the owls habitat.
Luke thought they were quite smelly so wore suitable nose wear!
Here's an intact pellet, they are about the size of the end of your thumb - you can just see a bone sticking out of it.
It took quite a while to take the pellet apart - all the elements are tightly packed together. We all worked on our own pellets.
Here is the end result from two of them:
There was loads of fur and each had at least one skull and jaw bone and a number of longer limb bones.
We got the microscope out to have a look at the bones in more detail.
We were given a key to help us identify the bones. The placement of the teeth is the first clue to see if the jaw belongs to a rodent or an insectivore.
Our skull had a gap between the incisors and cheek teeth so we followed the key to no 9 and had to look under the microscope to see the zig-zag chewing surfaces which identified our bone as belonging to voles.
Here are the boys journal pages
Funnily enough Amy's favourite book this week has been Owl Babies so its been owls all round!
Owls eat a variety of small mammals - they swallow them whole - then 6-7 hours later they regurgitate the indigestible parts in the form of a pellet which they drop on the ground: so dissecting these pellets can give interesting information about their diet and about the kind of animals that are found in the owls habitat.
Luke thought they were quite smelly so wore suitable nose wear!
It took quite a while to take the pellet apart - all the elements are tightly packed together. We all worked on our own pellets.
Here is the end result from two of them:
There was loads of fur and each had at least one skull and jaw bone and a number of longer limb bones.
We got the microscope out to have a look at the bones in more detail.
We were given a key to help us identify the bones. The placement of the teeth is the first clue to see if the jaw belongs to a rodent or an insectivore.
Our skull had a gap between the incisors and cheek teeth so we followed the key to no 9 and had to look under the microscope to see the zig-zag chewing surfaces which identified our bone as belonging to voles.
Here are the boys journal pages
Tuesday 25 November 2014
More mammal recording
This week we have been out with a man from our local record centre to do some more mammal trapping. With the clock change we set out at about 3.30 to set up the traps. We had 20 of the longworth traps to put out.
We had a production line going - filling with bedding, then seed, apple and castors
We had to make sure we located them in some undergrowth, with the tunnel part flat and the main bit at a slight angle to prevent them from becoming waterlogged if it rained. Then camouflage them with some leaves.
The dark seemed to come on us quickly and the last lot were tricky to place but we got all 20 down in various habitats - in bracken, brambles, grassland and down near the stream.
Time to log the locations to make finding them the next day easier!
Steve showed Ben how to log GPS coordinates
The dark seemed to come on us quickly and the last lot were tricky to place but we got all 20 down in various habitats - in bracken, brambles, grassland and down near the stream.
It was an early start the next morning (Ben was not pleased to be out of bed at this time) - 7.30 we were on our way to the woods - its important not to leave the animals in the traps for too long.
Well out of the 20 traps we had 6 tripped with 5 wood mice and a shrew!
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| Wood mouse looking for a way out |
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| Wood mouse disturbed from its bedding |
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| You can see the pointy nose on the shrew |
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| Spot the disappearing tail near the middle of the photo! |
Our friend from the local record centre was pleased to catch a shrew and showed us the special licence he had to allow him to trap these! Apparently shrews are unpleasant to eat so don't have many predators except owls, but we had heard some owls the previous evening. The shrews distinguishing features are its long narrow nose, it has silky brown fur with a grey underside.
We were also shown how to record these animals on the national database RODIS (Record Online data input system)
Steve has also given us some owl pellets from a long eared owl to dissect and identify the animals eaten by it - sounds fun!
Friday 21 November 2014
Crochet presents
Been enjoying doing some small crochet projects for presents and they have been well received.
Here is a bookmark I made for a friends birthday.
Some more of these on the way - I have quite a few December birthdays!
My daughter was invited to a Frozen party last weekend. She hasn't seen the film yet but I found
this pattern on pinterest and it was a really quick project for the birthday girl.
think I will have to crochet another one up for my daughter too!
Here is a preview of my next project for my son - you might need your sunglasses. He likes these neon colours. Lots of ends to sew in yet - all will be revealed soon!
Here is a bookmark I made for a friends birthday.
Some more of these on the way - I have quite a few December birthdays!
My daughter was invited to a Frozen party last weekend. She hasn't seen the film yet but I found
this pattern on pinterest and it was a really quick project for the birthday girl.
Here is a preview of my next project for my son - you might need your sunglasses. He likes these neon colours. Lots of ends to sew in yet - all will be revealed soon!
Sunday 2 November 2014
October garden
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| Harvested our pink fir apple potatoes |
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| Seed heads on Inula |
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| Acer starting to turn red |
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| Hawthorn |
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| Berries ripening |
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| Hypericum |
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| Cones forming |
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| Amazing colour on Euonymus Alatus |
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| Chillies brought inside to harvest |
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| Acer |
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| Lots of leaves to rake up! |
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