Happy Easter and bluebells

Happy Easter. This morning we heard the first cuckoo of the season and also watched 2 hares run around the field (they must have been out delivering eggs). We had pink eggs waiting on the breakfast table from the Easter Hare.

 

On 20th April we went to see the local bluebell woods.   It was as if a very large magic carpet of blue was floating above the ground.

 On 18th April Springy was  building fairy boats with leaves and twigs in the garden (she has a lid of a propogator as the 'lake'). She also placed cherry blossoms in the water in case the fairies capsize their boat and used lemon balm leaves as the sails.

9th April -  we had a stunt plane fly over this afternoon. They often fly over the fields near us and over the sea (coming from local airfield). It can be a bit disconcerting when they do the snap roll and the engine cuts out and you see vapour trail and think it's smoke and wonder how "over the house" they are but great fun to watch the aerobatics. It was a red plane so it looked rather cool.

Hung out washing, mowed the lawn, dug out a load of ground elder, cherry tree has blossomed, violets are peeking out on front lawn, guineapigs out in their run nibbling away, hens out in garden grazing, went for a walk with Lily to local shingle beach and Springy has a Scout friend back here for a playdate - and the weather is beautiful blue sky and sunshine.

Chocolate and play

I'm hoping to visit this place soon: it's called Demel in Vienna and it is a delicious cafe haus.
http://www.demel.at/en/frames/index_demel.htm


I love sachertorte.

This is an interesting article on play:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19212514

Easter and Spring crafts

Craft things to make:

felt a bar of soap (spring cleaning)
take bar of glycerine based soap and felt around with wool

make a fairy garden
take a plant pot drainage tray, add soil, use wheat grains to grow some grass with and decorate (with Springy) with shells, stones etc
or (which we've already done) take a bowl, fill with fine playsand, add some glitter, wool, stones and so on - for winter we made a snow scene with some white modelling clay (snowman), white wool, a pipe cleaner sheep and some brown and red for a robin (use cut down cocktail sticks to prop up figures if necessary) . For Spring you could fill with the sand, use some green wool and a yellow pompom or yellow clay to make a little chick or some flowers.

Felt egg (and add little chick from yellow wool or pompom for Easter Sunday)
i)Tightly wind wool around a small rock (for the egg shape), wind layers thinly and have lots.
ii) when it is thick enough (about 1/2") put the 'egg' into hot soapy water. Keep it in your hand and squeeze the water in and out from it.
iii) After a few minutes place it into a cold water bath squeeze - do the hot and cold several times more.
iv) Squeeze the water out
v) Leave to dry (I put my wet felting things on a flannel in the airing cupboard)

Spring 2007

Spring has arrived and although we are away from home on a holiday to grandparents at the moment, here is what our Spring looks like.

First off, we are growing a bean (planted on a waxing moon) plant. Daughter has been very interested in watching it from the first shoots to when we left it the other day with about 6 leaves.

We have also grown a Triops, called Candle, from an egg. He (or she) was the only one to hatch and daughter has been enjoying feeding Candle every day. She has learned about cleaning it out (I do it but she helps by ensuring I don't catch it in the cleaning pot) and had to patiently wait before it hatched. It's a fascinating little creature (it's a type of crustacean) and it zooms about its little tank and when it finds food it gets very excited, homes in on it, grabs the food and swims on its back (a bit like a sea otter). They are a lot of responsibility so not recommended for families who won't look after them properly!

We also are using some stories and songs as a regular part of our rhythm:

Princess Spring - Enki Education
The Story of the Root Children - Sybylle Van Olfers
Pelle's New Suit - Elsa Beskow

I also ordered a bag of fleece and some mini carders. We washed the fleece by soaking in warm water and washing up liquid (Ecover) - soak and don't rub unless you want felt. We dried it and then carded it. I've tried to spin it on a drop spindle but that isn't working (well it works but I don't know how to do it right, despite some good instructions).

Daughter has also seen some spring lambs who were just a day old.

Easter is only a few days away and gifts this year are toothpaste (Weleda calendula and Green People Orange), a little knitted rabbit (homemade), a wooden orange, and some felt egg cosies (which we need to make).