30 Days Wild in June : Update

I'm very aware that I didn't blog during the last week of the Wildlife Trust's 30 Days Wild in June challenge, this was because life was very busy and I just didn't have the time to sit down and write.

As a family we all very much enjoyed the daily focus on wildlife around us that this challenge brought and I'm pleased to say that it has continued.

I have always enjoyed any brief moments of respite spent in nature away from the busyness of everyday life and have developed a deeper knowledge and wider appreciation of that which surrounds me. We are very lucky that we live in a rural area and so get to see a very wide variety of animals ranging from deer and kestrels through to water shrews and crickets.

My particular focus ended up being on the wide variety of bees visiting our garden - until we took up this challenge I had no idea that there were so many and I am gratified to know that our attempts to ensure we have wild areas to attract wildlife (with a particular focus on bees and butterflies) have worked.

Unfortunately, due to ill health, we did not manage to complete our project to build a bug hotel in June, however we are moving forward with it and hope to have it finished by autumn.

Here are a few more photos of what we got up to during the challenge:

Bird's nest made by June

Summer Meadow made by June & December and their fellow Nature Detectives as a backdrop for their butterflies

June's beautiful butterfly

Shield bug in one of the wild areas of our garden

Home Ed Friday

Home Ed rocks! It wasn't yet 11am and we'd already covered several lessons:

P.E./Gymnastics : Trampolining in the garden - this week we were given a very large trampoline by our next door neighbours (who are filling the space it took up with a swimming pool!), so the girls are practising for their upcoming end of term Trampolining Class display.

English Literature : December read another couple of chapters of The Borrowers Afield in the garden. Then we talked about the characters and how they differed from those in the film 'Arietty'.

Natural History : June discovered two dead Water Shrews under/near the trampoline. She decided that the flies were on one rather than the other because it had blood coming out of it's nose (poor thing) and also commented that it was important that the flies were there, as, "They need to eat it to break it down for the life cycle". She then went and got her magnifying glass to examine them properly. Both girls were fascinated by the animal's tiny claws and how long their snouts were. There was some discussion as to whether to leave the Shrews out for their killers to devour, however it was decided that in this hot weather it would be more sensible to bury them.

Burial Practices : We talked about ways of burying dead bodies and December  talked about Egyptian mummification. A shroud was made (out of kitchen towel) and then December dug a grave under a geranium (Daddy helped as the ground is fairly hard right now). June gently placed the Shrews in their grave and then their Daddy filled it in, before June  placed a pretty stone with mica on top, to mark the spot.

Then they came in for an ice lolly each (after first washing their hands!).

30 Days Wild in June : Days 16 - 23 Summary

Life has been so busy that I have not had much time to spend online, which isn't a bad thing at this time of year. However, it does mean that I am very behind with my blogging for the Wildlife Trust challenge, which is a shame.

Here is a summary of what we have been up to over the last week:

At Nature Detectives today December and June collected leaves in the woods and were very excited when they returned to the activity room as they had seen a deer whilst out and about. Unfortunately no-one was able to get a photo of the deer, but here is an artist's impression by June as well as a photo of some of their leaves ready for pressing.









A hectic day, however June and December spent a couple of hours in the garden playing with their wild animal toys that we got from the local toy library. They really enjoyed making the lions creep through the grass before leaping on their prey!

A day of great excitement, being June's birthday :) We had a busy family day as her party was planned for the next day, however we did all manage to spend some time gazing at the Moon in the clear evening sky, which was lovely :)



























A hectic day full of bouncing children at June's Peter Rabbit themed birthday party! Above is a photo of her birthday cake which I made to fit the theme :)

A wonderful friend (who is a trained Park Ranger) put together a themed co-operative treasure hunt for the children to do around our garden, which involved collecting radishes, strawberries and jigsaw puzzle pieces as well as having to avoid being caught by Mr McGregor! June loved the Mr Rabbit's Journal with a map of our garden in the centre which was made especially for her :)

Woad

Teasel

Flowering Nettle

We had a lovely Summer Solstice, visiting the Wood Show at a local museum. December and June enjoyed having a carriage ride with their Daddy and really admired the beautiful dappled Percheron horses. We spotted some impressively tall flowering nettles as well as woad, teasels, hops and bird's foot trefoil.

Bird's Foot Trefoil

Hop

I spent about half an hour sitting in the sunshine enjoying watching the bees busy on the clover in my front garden. It was very peaceful and I could happily have sat there much longer if I hadn't needed to get on with other things.



June made one of these beautiful butterflies at her Nature Detectives group today.

I've also included a photograph of the bird's nest she made a week ago, which she is very proud of :)

I Made a Bag!

It's June's birthday today and tomorrow will be her birthday party.

She decided  a couple of weeks ago that she was going to dress up as Peter Rabbit (based on the CBeebies show character Peter Rabbit) and wanted a bag like Peter's. I searched high and low for one to buy and as tomorrow grew closer I realised that I was going to have to make one.

I have never made a bag before! I have made dresses and trousers and even a pair of dungarees but never a proper, fully lined bag with a strap.

I went out shopping on Wednesday and called in to a haberdashery I know and had a look at their remnants table. Unfortunately none of the materials were the right colour and I was just about to think I was out of luck when I happened to notice a large bolt of cotton/linen mix cloth on the racks which looked just the right colour. Not knowing what pattern I was going to use I bought 1 metre of the fabric (it later turned out that I only needed about an eighth of that quantity!), found a matching cotton thread and went home pleased that I had at least got material the right colour.

That evening I sketched a couple of ideas out, using the bag on June's Peter Rabbit as a guide. However, I was still no nearer to figuring out how to get the strap firmly attached, or how to make sure that the bag would last more than a day's play.

Fortunately a good friend recommended this pattern Reversible Mini-Messenger Bag which I ran up last night and here are photos of the work in progress:

Here is the finished item:

I am really pleased with it (I'm already planning on making a bigger one for me!) but, most importantly of all, June absolutely loves it :) Mission accomplished!

30 Days Wild in June : Days 13 - 15 Roses, Bees and Ducks

We have had another really hectic weekend and I am actually quite amazed that we have managed to do as much outside as we have!

I found time to wander around the garden and enjoy our roses, all of which were planted by the people who lived here before us. Most of them are scented and the large deep red one especially has a very heady perfume. I felt very refreshed after this.

Sunday was particularly busy, with family members involved in several different events, so I was pleased to be able to get outside to enjoy the garden at all. I took these photos late in the afternoon and think that I managed to find several different types of bee gathering nectar, these are the only two that we have managed to identify (so far!). I have provided the information on each photograph.

Early Nesting Bumblebee on Hedge Woundwort

White Tailed Bumblebee on Geranium

June and I went for a walk in the early evening to post a letter to my brother in Australia and found some wild strawberries just behind the postbox. We were both amazed - I haven't seen any in years - and June told me how much the small animals like mice and voles would like them :)

After this excitement we went and checked on the ducklings at the village pond. As you can see, they are fully fledged now. Last year was a bit of a disaster as there was a heavy frost a week or so after the eggs hatched, fortunately the weather this year has been much better and altogether 10 ducklings (out of 14) have reached adulthood.

30 Days Wild in June : Days 9 - 12 Tadpoles, Butterflies and Dancing in the Rain

We have been quite busy this week, so I thought I would cover the last 4 days in this post.

On Tuesday at Nature Detectives after a walk in the woods looking for materials, June made a bird's nest using clay, twigs, moss and feathers. Unfortunately I don't have a photo but will post one here if I get one next week.

Afterwards we all checked on the progress of the tadpoles:

Some of them are developing legs already.

Here's a photo of the life cycle of frogs that December made:

On Wednesday we spent a lot of time in the garden. I was cutting back some blackberry brambles that were getting a bit enthusiastic in their spread across the hedges and December and June were watching ants, which have been busy building a nest just outside our back door. 

Yesterday (Thursday) December did some more work on her John Muir Award and Bronze Arts Award by creating a detailed model of a butterfly, using straws, masking tape, PVA glue, newspaper and acrylic paints:

 Here's a photo of the life cycle of butterflies that December created recently:

Today (Friday) has been very overcast and humid with heavy rain showers so the children spent about half an hour running around the garden in the rain trying to catch rain drops in their mouths (with some success!) They came in soaked and demanding hot chocolate (!) and biscuits, so it's safe to say that this has definitely been a happy week of wild activities :)