Five good things for August

End of the month and so I shall do a round up of good things

1 Despite the terrible weather we HAVE managed to harvest potatos and onions to store...an improvement on this time last year! We have some plums ( not many :-( ) and a good quantitiy of apples and I have lots of lovely tomatos and courgettes and other beautiful food from the veg plot and polytunnel SO we can make wine, cider, dehydrate, freeze, bottle, pickle, jam and chutney away over the next month or so.

2 I have 2 new hens who are lovely and seem to really like me! Today I had one sat on my head and the other on my shoulder! ( sorry I didn't have the camera with me so no pics) Also (fingers crossed) we will have some chicks in the next few days! We are getting a reasonable quantity of delicious, organic, free range ( and some) eggs and hopefully I will be able to sell or barter some of them for other stuff we need..

3 The Kittens and Cats big and small. They are an endless source of delight and laughter!

4 Where I live. It is BEAUTIFUL! I thank the Gods that we look after such a wonderful plot of land.

5 Compostman and Compostgirl. HE is my soulmate and I love him dearly, despite silly rows over the proper way of cooking sausages on a camp fire(!) She is a blessing...even though she makes me want to tear my hair out sometimes! Enough said I think!

I shall try to count my blessings at the end of every month, even if I don't do "5 good things" every day!

And to all my good friends, both in the real world and on the web....you all make my life a lot brighter...and those who visit me here and read my ramblings THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

Saturday fun in the woods...with sausages!

Today we had another play session in the woods, this time with my friend M, her children N, K and J and a couple of Compostgirl's school friends as well.

Saturday was actually a lovely very hot sunny day here so it was lovely and cool in the woods.

We all went down to play in the wood mid afternoon,

Compostman lit a fire to cook on while I got my wonderful Kelly kettle going for hot drinks.











When all this was happening the children were playing tag, pretending to be the 5 Billy Goats Gruff on the bridge over the little ditch, making dens, collecting sticks, climbing on logs and gennerally haveing FUN!

We all had hot drinks ( chocolate for the children, tea for the adults) made with boiling water from the kettle while I cooked sausages and onions over the camp fire and then we all had Hot Dogs ( with ketchup)






Then the children cut, sharpened and peeled sticks and toasted multiple marshmallows , while Compostman made popcorn....YUM!







We finished the day with more running around, and a final play before going back up to the house smelling strongly of woodsmoke!

Just in case anyone was wondering, we DO come and play in our wood on other occasions..Compostgirl quite often goes by herself or with friends and makes dens and plays round the fire pit area BUT we only have fires and food when I am there to supervise and keep an eye on everything. Just to be safe!

Oh and in answer to a few queries, I AM a trained Forest School person, I DO have lots of First Aider qualifications including a "First Aid in the Outdoors" AND a "Paediatric First Aid" certificate....Compostman and I ARE both fully CRB'd and I HAVE done a lot of this sort of stuff, as has Compostman , although he is not a trained FS person.

When Compostgirl is a bit older we shall have camp outs in the wood and she can do the fire stuff with me...for now she helps to light it, has fun using my flint and steel and loves to poke sticks in the fire and to toast things.....

If YOU are reading this and want to do similar stuff , why not contact your local Wildlife Trust? They may well have Nature/Play Rangers who will be doing this sort of thing? Or the Scouts or Guides do it , as do the Woodcraft Folk.

As do I, for birthday parties and suchlike! ( for a fee!)


I LOVE to play in the woods!

Making pasta sauce with some of the produce!

Today I picked more stuff

Since I last posted I have picked
5 kg Courgettes
5 Kg Tomatoes
3 Kg Purple Beans
4 Cucumber
1.5 Kg Melons ( 4 smallish ones!)

and dehydrated LOTS of stuff.



I decided to make a batch of general purpose pasta sauce today. Tomatoes, Onions, Garlic, Courgettes and green Peppers...all from the garden of course!

Here is a batch of the sauce with Beef mince added to eat for our supper as Spag Bol.

And here are the 5 x 500g tubs of sauce ready to freeze.

Mmm lovely Organic pasta sauce...mmm...

Playing with my Kelly Kettle in the woods

A friend and her grandson came round for the afternoon and we went for a play in the wood.

Time for a brew up! This is my new Kelly kettle boiling 2.5 pints of water in 5 mins on a few handfuls of paper and small sticks. making popcorn overthe fire.
Mmmm it went really quickly!
Compostgirl and friend made " draw sticks" ..they burnt the end so it was like charcoal and then drew on some flat logs...great fun!

We all had a lovely time and then our friends went home, tired out from a fun day!

Sid catches a Rat!

Don't worry, it was dead when I took these pictures..he killed it VERY quickly.......