Home Education-learning through life's lessons.

Next few days??

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 07:38:23 GMT

Mmm, this is quite a bit longer than the next few days isn't it?? lol

Anyway, where to begin?
Well, we are all fine :-)
Brandee (hen) was unwell for a while and there was a time when I wondered whether she'd pull through or not. Very scary but I'm happy to say that she is now back to full health and laying like a trooper-bless her.
I have been learning about and doing Reiki healing. It is simply allowing the life force energy to flow through you and into the person/animal who needs it.
It is not harmful, unsafe, connected to a cult or anything else dodgy. It is simply to do with energy which all living things have. Sometimes our energy becomes weak or unbalanced and Reiki just re-balances it. Here is some more information for those who are interested.....http://www.absolutereiki.com/About%20Reiki.htm and.... http://reiki.7gen.com/ Anyway, I believe that the Reiki healing is what helped Brandee to get over her illness. If you had seen her at one point she would have bought tears to your eyes. She was hunched up, constantly shaking her head, hardly eating and just looking ill. She was indeed a very poorly chook. After a few Reiki sessions she started to perk right up. Now she is as fit as a fiddle. lol
One very interesting thing is, whilst ill Brandee stopped laying. She didn't lay for a few weeks. After the Reiki sessions, when she was better she laid GIGANTIC eggs. Double the size of the other girls. lol lol
It's been a while now and her eggs have returned to normal size. My family keep telling me to Reiki Jasmine to see if she lays big eggs. lol
I have also given Reiki to an ill frog (who got better and hopped off) and to my Mums cat Molly who hurt her foot and was limping about for days.
After the Reiki she was leaping about like a kitten :-)

I have been reading a lot of books about positive thinking and how negative thinking affects health etc. If positive thinking is something you are interested in I recommend the author Louise Hay. Absolutely brilliant and really does help you to look at things differently. I have a few of her books now. Mine are from Amazon.co.uk

Ooo-we have a car. Don't think I have mentioned that before??!
Anyway, it is a black escort-quite nice actually.
Sadly Liam is very, very travel sick. He needs a travel sick pill just to go on a very short journey so we don't really go out in the car very often because I don't like to give him pills all of the time.

Anyway, things that I could add on here keep popping into my head but I think this post is long enough for now. lol
I will add a couple of pics at the end and I will pop back on soon to update further. I won't bother saying that I'll be back within the next few days though as we all know that that may not be the case!! ;-) lol

Some snails which I bought for the pond. Red Ramshorns :-)

These 2 whoppers are called trapdoor snails. They have a hard cover over the opening of the shell-hense the name trapdoor. Also, they don't lay eggs. They give birth to live young once or twice a year with only 5-20 babies in each batch. Interesting little things :-)

This is a picture of a hedgehog which became entangled in the netting which goes across my garden to contain the chickens.
This picture shows him after I had spent 20 odd minutes cutting him free. I still had more to do but thought I'd leave him for a bit as he was curled up into a ball with the netting around his little feet.

I really didn't quite know what to do so I popped him into a cat box with dog food and water. I didn't want to release it straight away as it was very light outside when I discovered it so I thought it best to keep it somewhere safe and release it in the evening.

It gobbled down the dog food, had a drink, had a poo then slept like a baby all day :-)
The kids were fascinated.

The release went well. At least we think it went well. We couldn't see a thing!! We opened the box when it was getting dark and assumed he would come wandering out.
We waited..........and waited...........and waited. After a couple of hours he eventually came out but it was so dark we could hardly see. lol
Our neighbours were watching with us as they love nature and stuff too, so all of us were stood there watching. Really nice.

Of course the netting is now down-never to go back up again. In fact I am giving it to my brother to burn in his burner thing as I NEVER want to be responsible for putting an animal in danger again. I felt really guilty :-(
We are going to fence the garden off instead now :-)

Just a quick tip for you nature lovers-some things are really dangerous to wildlife. When you throw tin cans away-please squeeze the top of the can so that hedgehogs, fox cubs etc cannot get their heads stuck in the can. Also, the plastic can holder thingys (Y'know the plastic things which hold 4 beer cans together) well, animals get stuck in them too. If we find any on the floor whilst out, we pick them up and when we get home we snip the plastic so that it is no longer in rings.
String and netting from meat is also dangerous. Animals can small the meat, they eat the netting and it can become entangled inside them. Please take a few seconds to snip the string into bits, much safer that way :-)

One last thing. Hedgehogs apparently eat the red elastic bands which postman use to hold bundles of letters. They think that they are worms, eat them and the elasic band can cause problems inside their tummies.
We now pick up the elastic bands we see and the children are making a great big elastic band ball with their great Grandad. Saving the hedgehogs and making a ball :-) Maybe you could do the same??

Right, I'm off now.
Have a fabulous day and may the sun shine (for a change)! lol

Take care
Jay xx

Ooooppps

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:32:51 GMT

Really have left it a long time since posting haven't I? lol

Got lot's of pics and things to add plus bits that we have been doing but haven't time right now so I will make sure that I pop back on within the next few days to catch up.

Anyway, must go and do some housework and bits I suppose. Got a terrible back ache today and can't be bothered to do anything but hey ho. lol
Haven't had much trouble with my back for a long time so can't complain really :-)

Will be back soon.

Smile :-D

Been a while!!! lol

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 08:31:20 GMT

Ooops! I didn't realise that it had been so long since I last posted!! lol
Got a few pics to add :-)

For some reason the pic won't rotate but I love this pic of the moon-looks like the moon is laughing :-)
Came out like this because my hand wobbled as I took the pic! lol

Liam holding a stick insect-look how big they have got!!!

Emmie before going to Brownies to do her promise :-)

Slightly fuzzy pic of Em at Brownies on her promise day.

Still at Brownies.

Nice spring picture taken in my garden.

Pond full of frog spawn!!

Our new wormery :-)

A worm egg.

My hanging basket tree from a little shopping spree on Ebay. These were my Mother's day pressies :-)

Going to spray the bracket black :-) My tomato plants will be in these baskets :-)

Bird feeding station-I LOVE this soooo much :-D

Bit out of focus but this is a wood pigeon on the feeder.

3 tier planter. We have Alpine (wild) strawberries in the top basket, normal strawberries in the bottom and we will put something pretty in the middle one. Ebay again!!! lol

A lovely picture of our new 'Dog Loo' lol.
We are now being very careful about what we throw into the bin. The dog, hens and worms eat all of our food scraps, everything that can be recycled goes into the recycling bin and even the doggy doo's is being got rid of in a good way :-)

We normally have 3-4 black bags per week and this week we had 1 half full one!!!!!

Anyway, will go now but I will pop on soon to chat about the worms settling in etc.
Take care.

Jay xx

Pics of chard and bits

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 12:01:18 GMT

Hello all,

Hope that you are well and feeling cheery with this sunny weather we have been having :-)
Although it has been sunny-it certainly has not been warm has it? lol
Anyway, the cacti seeds are doing well and we sowed the lithops seeds and they are all growing but are way too tiny to get a clear photo at the mo.

Here is a picture of 'chard' which I mentioned in my last entry..............

The stems are such beautiful colours and the leaves are very tasty. Will be sowing them outside after the last frosts.

Bought the kids a little gift the other day from Ebay. They are little pots which look like eggs. You soak them in water for 10 minutes, bash the tops off (like a boiled egg) and within a couple of weeks we should have some plants growing :-)
1 Busy Lizzie, 1 lavender and 1 bunny rabbit. Just thought it would be a nice idea and being that they look like eggs I just couldn't resist :-)

Also, here is the little net fence I made to stop the girls getting down the garden........

It works really well and not one of them have got through it so far :-D lol
You can already see the difference between the grass the girls can go on and the grass that they can't!! lol

Emmie went to Brownies again on Friday. Much more confident this time and we paid the £15 for her promise box so all we need to get now is her uniform which I will buy on Monday from the local school uniform shop. Next Friday she has to make her Brownie promise in front of all the leaders, Brownies and parents :-s
She is really nervous bless her!! She has to say it out loud as well as recite the Brownie law. I'm sure she will be fine but I really feel for her!
I'm hoping to either take pics or a little video of it so I will post them on here afterwards.

Well, it's a nice sunny day so I think I may pop into the garden and plant my thornless blackberry which arrived yesterday-another Ebay buy!! lol lol

Wishing you all well.
Enjoy your day :-)

3 hens laying, Brownies and cacti

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 07:27:47 GMT

Just to let you know that Brandee has now started laying too, so we are back to 3 hens laying which is brilliant :-D

Our tiny cacti seedlings are now getting little spines, they are only tichy and look more like fine hairs but fascinating to see nonetheless.

Emmie had her first night at Brownies yesterday. She absolutely loved it!! :-)
The first session was free but from now on it will cost £2.50 per week which is not too bad. Next week I will be paying £15 for her promise box which has some books and things in it and the following week she will become an 'official' Brownie. I will have to get her uniform sorted by then but she is sure that she wants to go every week so that'll be fine.
Normally girls go for 4-6 weeks before needing the uniform but the Brown Owl thought it would be nice for Emmie to become part of the group in a couple of weeks as there is another little girl there who will be (I think it is called sworn in) at the same time so then Emmie will not be the only one who isn't 'official'. lol
We know the lady who runs it (brown owl) as her parents live up the road from us but we didn't know that she ran Brownies otherwise Emmie could have joined ages ago! lol

Emmie has already made some new friends and has met up with some of the girls which she used to go to school with so it's nice that she is amoung some familiar faces.
She is sooo excited to go again next Friday, bless her.
I will also be looking to get her into a dance class soon-probably in the summer. The lady next door knows the lady who runs it and apparently it is really nice there and the children really enjoy it. I think that is held on a Tuesday so our Friday and Tuesday nights will be a bit more hectic than we are used to. lol

The stick insects are doing well and at least two of them have shed their skins now.
I will take some pics soon and you can really see how much they have grown already.

My lithops seeds finally arrived so I will be sowing them quite soon and also I ordered some chard seeds which are a leafy vegetable. I will be planting them out in April. I will try to remember to put some pics of Chard on here next time I add an entry-they are really pretty with bright colourful stems ;-)

Will also be getting my grape vines within the next couple of weeks, one green, one black and they will be grown over the chicken run so any that dangle in will be able to be eaten by the girls.
Not sure if I mentioned in the last entry but I have sectioned off part of the garden now so that the hens are contained down this end-easier to watch them and also means that they cannot wreck the entire garden. lol
It's been less than a week and they have barely any grass left!!! lol lol

Will post again soon with pics :-)

Have a lovely day and enjoy it.

Update in pictures

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 08:03:40 GMT

Thought I would add some of the pictures I have been meaning to add.

These are the finished stones after the final polish but you really cannot see how shiny they are in the pics so I haven't bothered showing all the photo's but they really are very shiny and sooo smooth. Very happy that the rock tumbler could be turned off after such a long time of it making a racket!! lol lol

A pic of Booka-our corn snake.

My Mum's cat Molly posing for a picture :-)

Jasmines 1st egg!!

Liam's 3rd birthday. Very happy because Emmie bought him a teddy bear which he fell in love with in Asda's. lol lol

The teddy :-)

Liam as Sportacus.

Em as Sportacus-the red eyes add to the effect ;-) lol

Liams birthday cake.

Pit stop Pete cake.

My Mum's living room-completely trashed!! lol

1st lot of cacti seeds.

Not easy to see but near the red part of the pen is a tiny cactus seedling :-) This is 1 week after sowing.

Much easier to see now-this is after two weeks :-)

Our stick insects new home. They need to live in a netting enclosure, not a tank as most people think.

Not easy to photograph but here you can see a tiny stick insect :-)

Here they are in the tub which they arrived in. There are 6 altogether, 4 for us and 2 for my Sister Nadine.

And you can see a couple here, one hanging on the leaves and one on the stem of the brambles.

Sorry that there are so many pictures but I hope that you enjoyed them :-)

Have a lovely day and take care :-)

Stick insects

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:27:58 GMT

Hello all,

We are still waiting for one packet of cacti seeds and our lithop seeds to arrive. They are taking their time aren't they? Oh well, in any case we now have three baby cacti growing in our seed tray from the first lot of cacti seeds. They are tiny little things and I don't know how well they will photograph but I will give it a go!

Jasmine has now started laying-bless her. Her first egg was on Sunday 20th January.
I will also post a pic of that. My Mum and brother made some scotch eggs and one of Jasmines was a double yolker :-)

Also we are now adding to our ever-growing collection of pets. We are awaiting the arrival of 4 Thailand stick insects. We have also ordered a net cage for them to live in.
My sister is having 2 aswell.
We will have to spray them with water every day and make sure that we can find a reliable source of bramble leaves for them to eat.
Here is a pic of a full grown one...........

This picture is of a stick insect owned by a young man called Martin. His stick insects had babies and they are babies which we are getting :-)
Fascinating little creatures they are. They are predominately female and the females do not need a male to fertilize the eggs. (parthenogenetic) Interesting stuff eh?

So, we will have.........3 cats, 3 hens, 1 dog, 1 snake, tropical tank, fish pond, sea monkeys and 4 stick insects. The kids Dad thinks it's turning into a zoo!! lol
He has never really been one for having pets. The snake is his but as for the rest of them-he could take them or leave them I think! lol
Wonder what quirky little pet I could get next?? Mmmm, will give that some thought I think! ;-) lol
I know that the kids would love more giant African land snails so maybe at some point............lol

It is little Liams birthday tomorrow so I am off out today getting his cake and bits sorted out. No doubt I will have birthday pics to add too.

Have a great day and if anyone fancies a few stick insects-gis a shout and I'll ask Martin to send you some :-)

Byeeee and have a really good day. xx

Lithops

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 07:24:37 GMT

Found this little video which shows loads of lithops. Enjoy :-)

Sea monkeys, Lithops, cacti and stuff!

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 06:52:50 GMT

Well, we have some new little projects coming up.
First of all the rock tumbler is nearly finished (thank goodness), it is on it's final polish.
Here are the stones after the second grinding. They are much smoother than the rough stones we started with.
When it is all done I will show pics of each type of stone after each process side by side so we can see the difference clearly.

I have taken some pics and a little video of Emmie's sea monkeys. They are getting on really well and growing fast. Unfortunately they are not easy to photograph but you can sort of see them.........

We are hoping to go to Colchester zoo this spring, we are just praying that Liam is ok having travel sick pills so that we can get there. He is coming up three years old so I will be able to give him stronger travel sick pills soon. We will start off with some bus journeys and see how he goes.

The children and I are soon going to be growing some cacti from seed and also some lithops (living stones). We have done our homework and have ordered the special compost etc for them. Very excited. lol
Here are some photo's of lithops.....................
(Pics won't upload for some reason-wondering if I have too many pics in this entry, will post lithop pics under new entry)

They are very unusual and apparently a bit tricky to grow from seed but we fancy the challenge!! lol
So, the plan is that we will start them all off in seed trays and when they start growing we are going to make our own cacti garden, our own lithops garden and also we are going to pot some up to give to people as gifts.
Let's just hope they grow!!
From what I have read-cacti are brilliant for kids to grow as they start off looking like minute green balls and then as they grow they begin to develop their shapes. Sounds good-let's just see how we get on!! lol

Liam having a wash at his kitchen sink!! lol

My babies after their baths sitting with their glo babies :-)

Emmies home made goo/slime.

Emmie's dog tied up outside the chicken run!! lol
I was in the kitchen and Emmie was out in the run with the girls. I looked outside and saw Emmies dog tied up and it made me laugh-she obviously thought that it might go charging off around the garden while she was with the chickens.LOL

Have a fab day :-D

Wishing you all a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 07:54:09 GMT

HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL! :-)

Well, Let's hope that 2008 turns out to be a good one. 2007 turned out to be not so great for us so here's hoping that we have a better year this year.

The kids had a great Christmas and Father Christmas bought them tons of new toys.
Now we just have the problem of fitting them all into our tiny house. lol

The hens were pleased when the tree came down as I chopped all of the branches off of it and put the trunk into their run so that they can climb on it. I've also managed to get my Mum to convince my youngest brother to let me have their tree trunk for the girls, it was a bit of a job though as he wanted to chop it up and burn it in his chimney burning thingy wotsit. lol

The pics of the girls making use of their tree trunk are still on my camera at the mo so as soon as I put them on Photobucket I will post them on here.

Just before Christmas, my little Sister came to my house with a bunch of flowers for me. I was sooo surprised and actually got quite choked up when she gave them to me. What a little sweetie she is :-)

My new clock. My youngest brother bought this for me for Christmas. I really love it and when I paint that chimney wall dark red I think the clock will look fantastic!!

Some spare Christmas tree branches which I had to trim off of the tree so that it could fit into the room better. The girls enjoyed scratching about in them looking for mixed corn. :-)

I made the hens a shelf using part of my old Eglu run. I attached it to the wire using the Eglu run clips and held it steady with a piece of chain. Sometimes the simplist of ideas are the best and the girls enjoy it :-)

Emmie got a rock tumbler for Christmas so here is a picture of the rough stones. I am going to photograph them after each stage of grinding and polishing so that we can see how they change step by step.
I will probably put those under seperate entries.
She also got Sea monkeys which have now hatched out but are way to small to take pics of at the moment.
I might try and get Emmie to keep a Sea monkey/rock tumbler diary on her own blog but failing that I will do it here. (Which will more than likely be the case I feel.) lol

Will post more pics soon when I upload them off of my camera :-D

Have a great day and Happy New Year to you all once again!!

(Edited due to typo)