An Egg...and Hares...nearly Easter

Our little frizzle feathered pullet became a hen today as she laid her first egg (technically she has to be a year old to be a hen but I feel that the act of laying an egg is a rite of passage from being a girl to a woman!).

Springy knew Frazzle had gone broody and ensured she was sat in the nest box undisturbed. An hour later Springy went back out and found the little pale brown egg (pale brown is the colour of her ears).

Springy ate the egg with a potato cake for her lunch - yummy!

On our puppy walk this morning we saw some March hares in the field. It seemed to be a female and three males (the females are the ones that box and I told Springy it's because the boy hares all want to marry her but she has to be very tough with them).

Puppies and poopies

We're having a backwards step with the puppy at the moment, although she has managed to get her poopies in the right place...mostly. However, wees are going all over the kitchen floor! We've had some lovely walks so far and puppy is responding to "Sit", "Down", "Come" and today we managed a first "Roll over" in terms of doing the first stage of the move. She's a bright little puppy but Springy is a little jealous of her at times (which has been interesting).

Springy has had a nice weekend and we went to visit some friends we haven't seen in ages for a playdate and they came around today too. It was really nice and they were very interested in the puppy.

Today I wanted to do some gardening but instead the weather stopped it as we had galeforce winds (after a lovely morning start). I really want to clear up the front because I left all the Michaelmas daisies in place for all the insects etc but now the front needs a good tidy up. I'd also like to have a few more primroses in place and cut back things that are stopping the light from reaching the rose bushes and so on. Instead, I had a nap...just fell asleep on the sofa with sheer exhaustion.

Springy needs to do a little bit more knitting than she has been. She's reading My Secret Unicorn: The Magic Spell. Apparently, it's good and I've been reading the Rainbow Magic books.

We watched Prince Caspian - talk about inappropriate for under 12s! It was incredibly violent (I did read these books as an under 10 year old but don't remember them being graphically violent but...it just irritates me that the film classification was so wrong). Anyway, I've said no to any more viewings of it (we borrowed it from the library and C chose it). I want to read The Hobbit to Springy but there is no way I will allow a viewing of The Lord of the Rings. I'd ideally like her to be able to read the books first. I've told her if she wants to see Harry Potter films she has to read the books first (which should take long enough in years).

She's also reading Animal Ark: Hamster in a Hamper by Lucy Daniels (actually by a book company who have utilised the name for a whole series). Because I work part-time as an editor it makes it really difficult for me to read books these days because if I'm working on one I have to focus myself entirely on that otherwise I get the plots muddled up between books. It's a bit annoying having to wait until the next book is finished and I got a book from the library called The Various which looks quite good.

Brownies was really good again - the theme was St David's Day and Springy dressed in red for the Welsh dragon. We had Welsh cakes too.

Springy has fever

Springy had her MMR just over a week ago now and seems to have come down with something...not sure whether it won't turn into measles which is the one of the three that she hasn't had. I ummed and ahhed about vaccinating her - decided that at this time it would be best option because she's no longer breastfeeding and she's 7 and increasing in age. Vaccines are not an easy choice to make because their are pros and cons on both sides and then there are us parents in the middle, trying to do what is best for our own child/ren.

Anyway, I'm typing whilst Springy has a short nap. I've been patting her down with a cold damp flannel and giving her lots of fluids including elderflower tea (home gathered).

She had Brownies last night - a trial - and really enjoyed it and wants to keep going. They had pancakes and a pancake race. They were a really loud bunch - more like boggarts than brownies! Nevertheless Springy and I both feel that she will benefit greatly and have lots of fun and learn loads from the group.

Snowdrops and Lilies

Today Lily (our new shih tzu puppy) had her 2nd vaccine which means next week we can take her out properly.

Today Springy and I did a couple of watercolour paintings using the wet-on-wet technique. Springy did a yellow circle, surrounded by blue which was the sun in the sky. I did a snowdrop picture.

Snowdrop painting
First of all use very diluted blue and wash it from the bottom of the paper upwards in horizontal strokes. This leaves stronger blue at the bottom and lighter blue at the top of the paper. Then use yellow and take this over the bottom third of blue to make green. Use the brush to come upward in stalks (green). Then wash brush and dry it and lift off the blue paint where the stalks end to make the white snowdrops.

The story went as follows:
The winter had been full of cold ice and snow.
Then the sun began to shine a little - the grass grew again and then little shoots started to appear - up they came from the ground...it tried to snow again but the sun was too strong.

I will try and post a picture later on this week.

(c) Liz Plant 2009

Melisa's Maths book

I really want to get Melisa's maths book featuring gnomes for Springy.

http://www.waldorfjourney.typepad.com/

This thing on adrenal and thyroid issues (thank you to friend who provided link) looks interesting:

http://www.drrind.com/forms/wp_metabolic_seminar.pdf

Narwhals

We watched the new David Attenborough BBC series today (on the BBC website) and discussed bits as we were viewing it. The episode was called The Great Melt.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00hn4hs

A puppy called Lily

This month has been beautiful so far. Imbolc was snowy which the folklore says means a good year ahead. Springy went out to play in the snow which was a bit wet, rather than the useful type of snow that you can make snowballs out of but still...snow is snow and it was fun.

Springy started a dance class - ballet and modern - which she loves. She's there for 1 and a half hours which I would have thought would have worn her out but it hasn't quite yet. The first time she went, we stayed to check she was all right and she was beaming away with her smiles. I got all tearful. She's now been to her second class and the dance teacher wants to move her to the next class. I'm so glad I waited until she was 7 for starting ballet because I think it's a much better age to start with formalised movement.

We have a lovely CD that we're listening to at the moment. It's called Fairy Moon: Songs of the Ring and is by Maria Sangiolo. Springy's favourite song is Meanie Mary.

http://www.mariasangiolo.com/

We got ourselves a puppy who was born 20th November 2008. She's a Shih Tzu and we have called her Lily. She's adorable - a lot of work but we've been learning how to care for a puppy and so far seem to be doing the right things. Today we introduced her to our chickens and yesterday she met the guineapigs.

She gets fed 4x per day at the moment because she's still ver little. We feed her at about 7.30am (sometimes 8am), midday, 4pm and 7.30pm (or quarter to 8). We're making sure she gets exercise. She cannot go out in full yet because she has only had one of her vaccinations (which I'm still unsure about but Parvo virus is a risk factor and nasty so I guess it's necessary to vaccinate) but we've been running with her on a leash in the garden and she mostly follows. We've found that knowing where we are going to helps.