sNo fun for birds...a timely DIY bird feeder

The youngest two were standing by the door in full snow kit by 7 this morning. Just shows what's possible when they're keen! And they were so excited; jiggling up and down with anticipation, thinking snow balls, sledging and NO school.
I was thinking snowed in, husband away...and no school. What an old misery.
But I had a plan for my three almost eager little helpers - once they'd had their fill of snow.

I've been meaning to make bird feeders for ages. We used to have a bird table, but it slowly rotted away, and we haven't replaced it because of the cat. There are other ways: higher, hopefully safer ways, and feeders seem to be a better option with a cat prowling about. Nothing's going to be perfect, still it's got to be worth the risk in this kind of weather.

All you'll need is an empty plastic bottle, some string, a few sticks, scissors (I found small, sharp nail scissors were best) and bird food.

Make two small holes opposite each other near the bottom of the bottle, and push a stick through to make a perch. Repeat this, so the second stick goes in slightly above the first.

Next cut a small hole (no more than 3/4cm wide - too big and the seeds will fall out) about 4cm above each perch. I found the best way to do this is to pierce the bottle with the scissors, and then twist a stick around in the hole, until it's the right size.

Poke a hole either side of the bottleneck, and thread some string through (a longish darning needle helped with this bit) and tie the ends together.

Take the cap off and use a funnel to fill the bottle.

I did a little googling to find out where cat owners put their bird feeders. Top tips seem to be washing lines, weak branches and generally making the area under or around them less cat conducive with the odd prickly plant.  So we put one on a line between the apple trees, and the other on a high, spindly branch above a holly bush.

The birds were a little tentative to begin with....

...but it wasn't long before we had our first taker!

Linking up with Country Kids from Coombe Mill

Day 288 - Flower Power

This found its way back to me recently. It was in a box mum discovered when she was clearing out her attic. 

I don't like to think how long it's been since I last used the press - there were some papery flowers inside that could probably be classed as vintage...fun finding them again though.

Anyway I brought it with us to France and managed to get the youngest excited about having a go. She's always keen to try new things, but this enthusiasm can also fade pretty quickly...

We're staying out in the countryside and there were plenty of colourful wildflowers to pick.

We collected quite a few.

And some interesting leaves and grass.

They should stay in the press for about 8-10 days, but impatience plus a little project I had in mind meant they came out early. 

There was some major glue supervision needed with the sticking - the flowers were extremely delicate and fiddly. I was VERY glad we'd pressed so many, as quite a few didn't make it and ended up stuck to the table (newspaper next time...)

Still, it was fun arranging them, and we were both happy with the end result, though it was a bit fragile. With hindsight it would have been better to cover the flowers in sticky back plastic, just to protect them. But we were in a rush to catch the post.

Happy Birthday Dad!

I'm linking up with Artsy Play Wednesday at Capri + 3

and Country Kids from Coombe Mill.

Day 202 - Shell Seekers

There is something pretty special about taking your children to a place brimming with happy childhood memories.

Every summer without fail we used to go on holiday to a small cottage, a field away from a beautiful beach near Tyrella in Northern Ireland. There was no electricity, we had to draw water from a well and the outside loo was an old sentry box. I remember my granny cooking over an open fire; card games, swingball, sand in my sleeping bag and looking for shells. I LOVED looking for shells. I spent hours on the beach, walking along slowly with my head bowed, searching the tide line.

I must have talked about it a lot, because my enthusiasm seems to have rubbed off on my daughter. So much so that I promised I'd take her to my shell beach when we were over staying with my mum last week.

No amount of miserable weather was going to put her off: she waited by the door, bucket and spade in hand until everyone was ready to go. It was her dad's last day with us before he headed back to Afghanistan, so making the most of the grey day felt like the right thing to do.

We were lucky - we caught a small window of dry weather. Still cold though; but before you could say 'where's my jumper' she was running about in her cozzy.... 

The boys warmed up with some running..

moments later they were jumping waves....in their jeans. Daft loons.

Everything about the beach felt so familiar, and the shells were as good as ever. The kids helped me gather some up for a little project I had in mind. All the time I was scanning the colourful piles, searching for that little, elusive gem of the shell world...

...a COWRIE.

Finding one has always been special, and boy was I excited when I did! No playing it down in front of the kids. It was like finding treasure - I was yelling and waving it about....showing off basically! We found 12 altogether.

On the way back we stopped off to get a tube of glue. My plan was to see what we could make out of our shell collection - another thing I used to love doing. Now it does require a bit of patience, but worth it I think; and after a quick coat of clear nail varnish, this is what we came up with. 

Lovely little reminders of our day on the beach. 

Linking up with Country Kids over at Coombe Mill

and Suzanne's Oldies but Goodies!