Cow Day 5

For those that made it to Cow Day 5 today, here are the answers to the quiz:

How many stomachs has a cow got?
4

How long does the average cow spend eating each day?
6 hours

Old cows in India sometimes have their own nursing homes.
True

How soon can a newborn calf walk on it's own?
1 hour

How many days does it take for milk to get from a cow to the shop?
2 days

A cow can produce 10,500 pints of milk a year.  How many cows could the houses from here (44 Duncan Road) to Albert Road need?
2 cows (1 cow can supply about 22 families)

So what is Cow Day?

Five years ago a friend was trying to build a more wholesome less-consumerist component into the kids festive frenzy, and Cow Day was born.  So for one day each December they have an open house and try and raise enough money to buy some animals for families in the two-thirds 'majority' world who need it.  People bring cakes to sell in the cafe, Waitrose provides veg for a great soup lunch, people bring games, come in fancy dress, get involved in a promises raffle and much more.

Last year's 'Cow Day 4' involved 23 households/65 people and raised an impressive £375 that equated to 15 goats for families who needed them (all the cows were sold out!), purchased from the Oxfam present catalogue.

Fun in the Woods

Can you guess what it is?

  The kids and I had a great couple of days at Grandma's earlier this week.  

And with the sun shining, the local countryside, and a bit of creativity

the kids had an amazing time!

The first afternoon we turned a IKEA storage box into a paddling pool, 

and had fun with water, paint brushes, stacking cups, kitchen funnels and grass

 (a real treat when all we have is a paved back yard at the back of our house).

 

And the second day we did a 3km wood walk to a local farm 

(with a few animals to see, a small play park and a cafe).  

 

6km and a 3 year old aren't normally a great combination, 

but 

we played pooh sticks in a ford

spotted insects

investioated a dead frog

saw tiny piglets

got chased by chickens, and chased chickens (guess which child did which!)

jumped in muddy puddles

took photos of amazing fungi

picked blackberries

and chased each other up slopes.  

A priceless day!

The photo at the top just shows the top of this fungi

Finding richness in less blogging time?

Image from: http://www.genderacrossborders.com/2010/04/26/what-does-blogging-mean-to-you/

So it's almost a month since my last blog post, and ironically there has been more to write about in the past month than in the whole of the past year.  However, it's a watch this space on most of it, all will be revealed before the end of this mad year!

But the last few weeks have definitely been rich.  The sun and the olympics came to Britain, and the summer holidays have meant that regular kids groups all get cancelled, so I've been finding more creative ways to occupy the kids.

A few months back I mentioned the National Trust's '50 things to do before you're 11 and 3/4', and we haven't even started on that list yet, but I've had a great time with the kids:

• at the Men's Modern Pentathlon and going on four trains
• finding beasties in Creech Wood
• swimming in the sea
• painting beach huts (with water)
• meeting farm yard animals
• balloon modelling in the library
• spotting amazing butterflies in the Butterfly house
• bouncing on a bouncy castle 
• seeing how high we can really go on the swings in our local park
• eating more meals outside than inside
• planning this week's Greenbelt adventure!

And with the exception of the Olympics and Greenbelt, they've been free activities and all done with lovely friends.

Our lives are very rich and we are blessed by living in an amazing city...wouldn't want to be anywhere else!

No time to blog!

So it's almost a month since my last blog post, and it's not that I've decided a don't want to write stuff about the year anymore, it's just the lack of time free to sit down and write! It's becoming a recurrent theme, how making things and trying to do things differently is taking more time, and I definitely feel the biggest learning from this whole experience is the truth in the statement that 'time is money', but there is definitely more richness in relying on it less!  So what's been going on in May?

Beach Hut Fun
After about 6 years on the waiting list, we got to the top and now rent a Beach Hut (or Sun hut to be more correct, as it's just back from the beach and we have the prom, road and a great patch of grass between us and the beach).  We've only had it for about a month now, but have already had so much fun down there with a whole host of people, we're definitely glad with took the plunge (as it's not a cheap experiment!).

In the hot days the kids have loved paddling, and as we don't have much of a garden at home, and certainly no grass, the novelty of a giant expanse of grass to run around and crawl on has been brilliant.  We've also had lots of fun doing art things, and generally hanging out with friends and eating together.  We've also met some lovely new neighbours and even a previous neighbour from our days in North End is now a neighbour again!  So if you're in the area...come and join us!

In the last month, I've also become more and more aware of the passing of time, and that pre-school days will be gone in just over a year's time, so I'm really wanting to have some great time having fun with the kids, as well as having good time with them, whilst dealing with the rest of life....they've good at helping out round the house, and it's not all about fun-fun-fun.  But the beach hut has been great for more focused time with them, as I can't disappear to just put on another wash load.  The challenge of this, is that I then need to fit even more into evenings as the jobs still need doing, so sleep has definitely been lacking this month.  Finding the right balance is the biggest challenge of all motherhood days I think.

Devon
We had 5 days in Devon, thanks to a friend of my Mum's who lets us her holiday home.  Sadly just before the weather became amazing, but had fun with Grandma at a farm, on the beach and at the house.

Gardening

Tomatoes alive inside!

We've continued to try and grow things in the garden, but with the exception of radishes and apples, the slugs seem to be feasting on all the rest, so it's not a great success currently.  I planted out tomatoes and broad beans yesterday, that have done really well inside, but we wait to see if they get eaten before they have a chance to get even bigger :-(  Orange peel, coffee grounds, egg shells and organic slug pellets seem to have little effect on Pompey gastropods.
Also the compost bin and Bokashis seem to have been the perfect breeding ground for fruit flies, which means I'm becoming a very good aim with rolled up newspaper, and my daughter enjoys the blood smears that appear all over the kitchen cupboard doors...dead and alive have become quite focused topics in our house.

Gifts

More cut out people cards

And I still continue to try and make gifts as much as possible, although people are getting more and more belated presents with each passing month.  Men & boys really seem to be the main challenge, although I'm hoping I have a current idea that can run to several boys over the coming months...am just awaiting feedback from the first little chap to get it.  Homemade experiment kits....check this out: http://www.sciencebob.com/experiments/lavalamp.php  

So May hasn't been a quiet month, and when you add normal household chores, helping family house hunt, mad weeks at work, Governor duties and keeping kids occupied, it's little wonder that there is ever any time to sit down and blog!

Childhood Challenges

Get free images here

So this week I introduced my 3 year old to Hopscotch.  She's really into numbers and hopping at the moment, so it was a bit of a no brainer.  But it got me wondering how many of our kids have played it and how many other things, that past generations have come up with, are they missing?

The National Trust launched a new programme last week, called '50 things to do before you're 11 and 3/4'.  Lots of it is quite simple stuff, but some things will definitely take us a while to cross off.  You can see the list here.

And find out more here from the National Trust here.

It also got me thinking about a new small gift idea for kids.  I could add a 'Childhood Challenge' to their cards.  Here are some examples:

'Before you're 4, learn how to play hopscotch' (and include a piece of chalk), 'Before you're 3, grow some cress' (include a sheet of toilet paper and some seeds), 'Come egg rolling with me this Easter', 'Set fire to a leaf using a magnifying glass' (not sure their parents will thank me for that, but at least I didn't suggest a small creature or sibling ;-)

Am always on the lookout for other creative, outdoor, simple ideas...suggestions on a postcard.

Parenting Advice and Garden Update

So my evening out for International Women's Day was a lovely evening of talking with girl friends, and not being interupted by little people...a rare treat!

 

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/womensday

One of the topics, sums up my prefered method of parenting advice.  I'm just not one of those people that is inclined to trawl through loads of parenting books, written by people who I don't know, some of whom don't have kids, and that always seem to be very long.  Give me some hands-on parent experience any day!  We had a great discussion about what words to use when kids start asking about their different body parts.  This is coming up lots in our house at the moment, as my eldest (girl) realises the differences between her and her little brother.  From the discussion I'm still not 100% sure on the way I want to go, although I've definitely eliminated some options and am not far off a decision.

Rob Bell in his book 'Love Wins' has a great quote about his and his wife's parenting ambition, along the lines of 'we want to bring our kids up with as little to unlearn in their futures as possible'.  I definitely want the best for my two, and prayer and muddling along with other parents thoughts/opinions/ideas and mistakes has done me well so far.  (Maybe I should write a book on group parenting ;-)

Garden Update

As to the garden, there has been great progress this week , thanks to a lovely warm weekend...hooray...spring!  After weeks of deliberation we've decided to get a shed to store the bikes at the expense of some of our garden sun spot, but being able to use and maintain our bikes really is very important.  (Amazingly the NI repayment has totally covered that...God's timing ;-)

Yesterday we spent a great morning relocating a big trough to our new growing area, and moving the compost bin, so the shed has space to be put in next week.  We've had to take out some bushes (currently up for grabs on Freegle), but if we get lots of fruit & veg from the same space, it will be well worth it.  Now I just need to find some time to get a plan going of what to plant when and where, and find somewhere for our apple trees.  And since this (other than the shed) this is all recycled things, how many of the seeds etc can we source creatively?!

The new blank canvas of our back yard