I Think You’re Bonkers

My buried car… Oh, another reason for home ed, no reason to go ANYWHERE!!!

Second attempt at a snowman…

The hens refused to come out until we’d pulled most of the snow from the floor of their pen, we had to dig them out this morning!

The kids, on the other hand, are spending every minute out in it and only coming in when frozen, and even then only if there’s food or hot chocolate on offer!

…and my poor Rosemary bush….

Well, the kids did with the help of another parent at home ed group this morning. I helped with the eating and it was lovely. No doubt there was weighing, mixing and stuff along the way. I did watch both Dino and Mimi rolling out the lasagne sheets over and over again until they were finally thin enough. Other kids were making tagliatelle. Lunch was vege lasagne, tagliatelle with butter, garlic and spinach, garlic bread and some cheese to sprinkle over. Dino loved everything and Mimi at least tried everything and she said the tagliatelle was nice.

There are a couple of pics but I have tog et them off the camera, crop and resize, so, umm, maybe later. 

We do eat a fair few meals with pasta in and I’m wondering about getting us a pasta maker so we can make our own, dry it and use it and maybe even gift it for friends.

I have washing out on the line, the sun is shining and the sky is blue (ish, in patches in between the clouds) - shame it’s still cold really, it’s a lovely day. The ground is still very very wet, so no digging but I may go back out to spike some more lawn in a bit. The washing won’t dry but it’ll air and smell nice!

The kids took a bucket and went slug hunting - feeding them to the hens as they found them. That should help with the slug problem this year. While they did that I got out my new cordless drill and put up a new bird table on the big shed. Then we discovered we have no bird food apart from an old fat ball we found in a cupboard - I have no idea how long it’s been there but it didn’t smell rancid so we hung that up. Then on the table part we chucked a handful of mixed grains (don’t tell the hens!) and a couple of apple cores and we’ll see what happens. We have bird food on the shopping list for next week.

Thinking about the garden - we had a chat about how there’s pretty much no cover round our garden and nowhere for wildlife to live. So this year we’ll be putting in more shrubs, bushes and wildlife friendly stuff, as well as the veg we’ll be growing too. I don’t think another tree will work, we already have three and more might cause problems, I’ll have a think on that. I do like trees though.

I also want a bit of a herb garden, some for eating, some for pretty and some for scent, and some just because…. I think a visit to The Herb Garden near here is in order sometime in March or April.  They do native wild flowers too, which might be nice.

The kids are clearing and hoovering the living room and making a decent job of it - probably because I banned DS time until it’s done to my satisfaction. Also likely a result of the serious talk we had about their sliding behaviour again. 

Dino is still doing work on Ancient Greece and find out all sorts of interesting things, drawing detailed pictures and reading loads. He made a cake pretty much by himself this week too and it was lovely! Mimi helped with the extra thick icing.

Today’s big thing is the he’s taken himself off to a corner of the sofa with his Cub blanket to sew on his old Beaver badges - he has loads and he’s done three of them. But he has until May to get them all on there so no real rush.  He’s off to his first camp in may and needs the blanket for that.

Both kids are knitting now and enjoying making things - dishcloths and doll scarves at the moment but it’s all good stuff. I’ll get pics of that in action at some point, when I remember.

Dino got a book on Ancient Greece from the library and today both kids have drawn triremes, labelled them, read a bit about them, made lego models of them and are now watching Jason and the Argonauts in the hope of seeing one in action. Dino can’t work out how all the oars don’t get tangled!

More Greeks tomorrow while the interest is there I think. 

We did the jobs list on the door again today and we’ve done them all - apart from my writing, but that gets done when the kids are in bed. 

We started the day by writing a list of jobs on the chalk board door in the kitchen and crossed each one off when done. That seemed to focus us all nicely, but I still have a couple of things to get done - including Nano.

One of those jobs was to move the hens so they’re closer to the house where it’s a bit more sheltered and not so grotty getting to them in this nasty cold, wet weather. We did that and the hens are now happily scoffing fresh grass, we cleaned their house out at the same time.

Kids did some workbook stuff and seeing as Dino made a single toffee apple at Cubs last night another was demanded for Mimi - so we googled for a toffee recipe, dug out an apple and we made toffee!

and both kids have toffee apples…

I shall be sampling the toffee slab later… 

First we dug out the insides… (Dino doing his own, Mimi doing mine - hers turned into semi liquid mush)

Then they designed things for me to carve - No way was I letting them loose with a sharp knife, the pumpkin skins were quite tough really. 

Dino wanted a Werewolf….

Mimi wanted a skeleton, but was happy with a Skull ….

The innards have made a HUGE pot of pumpkin soup for dinner tomorrow.

My extension lead died mid way through making the ramp for the chickens house. I’ve replaced the fuse and tested the drill, it’s dead. Suggestions gratefully received….

Anyway, the ramp and perch got finished and the run has started to be covered in mesh - courtesy of freecycle, and it looks like we actually have enough to finish the job.

House and ramp.

Moveable perch inside the house. Allegedly some chickens like to perch and others don’t so this perch can be taken out of they don’t like it, and for cleaning.

Just need to finish putting the mesh on the run, make a door to get in and out - for us, and get some feed for them…..  The hens should be here in about 10 days or so. Pics when they arrive, promise…

We’ve been working on the hutch again today which involved replacing the bolt on one door and cleaning down the other doors and frames so they shut again.

The silvery bolt is the one we put on. There’s an old broken one underneath it but it’s so rusted that I can’t shift the screws to get it off, and tbh I can’t be arsed.

Then we enlarged the hole into the sleeping part - which will be the nest box. (Note, we means me with an audience, and now and then a child might pass me hammer, screwdriver or whatever) 

And last we fixed some roof felt on the roof and put it back on. I’ve not fixed the roof down, figuring it might be handy to be able to lift it off at some point and it’ll prob need replacing properly at some point too - instead of the bodge replacement it has now….

That slight curved lift on the right isn’t there now, I just had to jiggle it into place and now it’s flat. Got to get the last bits for the run and make that and then we’re ready for chickens! Oh and I think a ramp so they can get in and out of the house might be good too….