Wednesday, 21 August 2013

Bapples and bees!

The apple tree has finally fruited. One of the apples looked ready today so we gave it a go, it's a bit on the tart side so could do with a week or two longer but still...apples!!




 Also a picture of a pretty flower, which I think is a Hibiscus. The bees are loving this plant, you can often see them struggling to set flight again due to being too pollen heavy.



Sunday, 24 March 2013

Shinies, Squirrels and Students.

Yes, I know. I'm flighty and changeable, get obsessed quickly with things and discard most when the next shiny thing grabs my attention.


Squirrel!


I'm studying with the Open University now, on the pathway to a BA Hons Open. So I have a shiny new blog over at http://rustybrains.blogspot.co.uk/ with lots of studenty ramblings and deadline panics in. Plus, I'm documenting any useful software, stationery and advice I pick up along the way :)

I'll still blog here as and when something fits, and I'm hoping to kick the garden and veg patch back in to touch when it stops bloody snowing (!) so I'll do a photo update of the neglected chaos out there soon :)


Monday, 11 March 2013

All work and no coffee make Binty a...


something something.

I have a lovely new gadget! :)

https://www.tassimo.co.uk/discover/tassimo-machine-collection/t20/893

My mother's day present to help keep me sane ;)

I needed some storage for the T-Discs so Steve did his wonderhubby thing and repurposed this old CD storage for me.




 Tada!




He's not completely happy with it, but it will do for now until it irritates him so much that he'll build a proper one for me ;)

Thursday, 26 July 2012

Pod people

Potato seed pods! Will try harvesting and growing from true seed next year.

posted from Bloggeroid

Sunday, 10 June 2012

Sloes and Strawbs

*blows the dust off in here*

This blog has been as neglected as my garden, time to update both a little I think ;)

Mini photo update for now. We have berries on our sloe bushes, I'm so pleased!


Garden 100612


Garden 100612

There are also some really weird shaped berries on them. I'm hoping we're growing some kind of mutant giant sloe berry producing bush.
Garden 100612
Garden 100612
Bonus pics of the wild strawberries that have taken over half of one of the beds in the front garden. We're leaving them as they are as wild strawberries are absolutely delicious :)
Garden 100612
Garden 100612


Non garden wise, well most of my blogging goes on over on omnom365.com now. I do far more cooking than I do gardening, that's probably half my problem! hehe

Although I've lost nearly 5 stone with slimming world, I'm riding my bicycle 4 times a week, swimming 3 times a week and have been painkiller free for just over 10 weeks now. Steve has a new job which is keeping him busier, but happier and we finally have enough money to cover the essentials and have a bit of spare which is a novelty. Abi has nearly finished her first year of school, Toby turns 3 in 2 weeks and will be starting playgroup in September.We sadly lost one of our cats a couple of months ago, Suzy passed on after 18 years of being a crazy little furbag. Her big brother Noot is lonely without her, but at 19yrs old he's a bit too old and set in his ways to cope with a new companion so we're just giving him extra attention.

That's it from me for now, hopefully I'll get round to updating with something else before it's time to harvest those sloes.

Sunday, 20 November 2011

Urban Foraging and Firelighters.

*blows dust off blog*

Hello, I am safe and sound but time gets away with me and I forget to post in here. 'Must try harder' was a true appreciation of my talents on my school reports ;)

Well anyway, yesterday we went out for a quick walk around our local area looking for pinecones to turn into useful things.

Here are some pictures from the trip :)



We're lucky to have an open fireplace to help supplement our heating over the winter. This year we have a lot of chopped kindling type wood from pallets and other wood we've collected from freecycle, plus some very large logs from our neighbour's beech trees that were chopped down this year. Last year we used some pinecones as firelighters along with my wax tart* leftovers and I thought it would be a good idea to combine the two this year. Plus anything that keeps my 4yr old interested for an hour is a bonus ;)

Wax tarts are like a cross between candles and oil burners. You can buy them from many supplers, I buy mine from http://candlewick-greens.com/index.html for two reasons, 1)they're superior to any other brand I've tried, 2) the woman who runs it is very lovely.

So take 2 bags of pinecones, a tub of leftover wax from tart burning, a saucepan of hot water, a glass bowl and some greaseproof paper.

Photobucket

Heat the water in the saucepan, place the glass bowl over the water, break up the wax and allow to melt gently.

Photobucket

Photobucket



Take your pinecones and carefully dip them into the wax, hold them over the liquid wax and shake off the drips then leave to dry on a sheet of greaseproof paper.

Photobucket

Store in a bucket or trug next to the fire ready for winter.


Photobucket

Use.

Photobucket Pictures, Images and Photos

Sunday, 3 July 2011

The Cake is a Pie

Quick Photo Blog for Toby's birthday last week. It was a quiet event due to everyone being ill the whole week before, but he seemed to enjoy himself nonetheless. I can't believe my little man is now 2, time goes so very quickly. Anyhoo...photos!