How time flys!!

I can't believe that its been nine months since I last blogged. Well come on yes I can, life seems to get crazier everyday. This is being written whilst my three and one year old use me as a trampoline. If only I had not been so selfish and decided to get chickens, they could have had a real trampoline and I could have been sat here quietly with a cuppa.

The summer was full of growing veggies and fruit, spending lots of time with the kids and hubby, and trying out our new hobby camping. We rescued two male Guinea Pigs, and the girls named them Dilbert and George. This piccie was taken after they had had a bath.

Lavender Bath Salts

We having been making lots of homemade gifts for friends and family for Christmas. For a couple of years now we have been giving foodie things such as jam, chutney, sauces, and chocolates. So this year I decided to try something different.

I made this with my five year daughter and how we did it:

We added 2kg of Epsom Salt into a metal bowl. Onto that my daughter dropped 180 drops of Lavender Essential Oil. Add 1kg of bicarbonate of soda and mix together. Put into jars. I used 200ml kilner jars, and this filled thirteen. Once I had finished I decided that some dried lavender would look nice in the jars, so this will be a job for tomorrow. They will then be tied together with some ribbon. My daughter will take some to school for her teacher and TA, hopefuuly they will enjoy them.

A month of mixed blessings.

I have felt that my feet have hardly touched the floor this last month.

My middle child turned three, she is also completely dry during the day. Her speach is coming along in leaps and bounds, but we are waiting for an appointment with the Speach Therapist. She is a constant source of amazement to us, and every birthday is a very proud day. I also find it a time when I reflect to her terrible start in life, but I hope that in future years i will not think about it.

My baby is now one, that year flew by so fast. He had a great day with a little tea party. He gets more confident each day with his walking, and he is a very cheaky little chap.

Mr Sunflower was made redundant in the same week as his birthday, so it wasn't much fun for him. The owners of the restaurant decided to shut it, so there was nothing that could be done. However he got straight back out there looking for work, so we will see what happens. I feel a lot more confident this time because I have learn't lots of skills from people at the www.selfsufficientish.com its well worth a look, especially the forum.

Flossie Kitten

Meet our latest addition to the Sunflower family her name is Flossie, and she is 13 weeks old. She still can be a little bit shy but I can't really blame her in this mad house. The children love her and hopefully she will fill the hole left by our last cat. Here she is with the little mouse that I made for her.

Finger Puppets

My eldest daughter decided that after I made her a cushion for school,that I can now make anything. She wanted a mouse finger puppet, so I made her one from odd and edds of felt that I had. So then her younger sister decided that she now wanted one. I got a bit excited by this and made her a fairy. Since then I have been busy making a princess. I can't make up my mind whether they are good enough to give as gifts? I would welcome any thoughts that anyone has please. I would either give a couple of different finger puppets, or a tooth fairy bag (please see earlier post) with a fairy puppet.

New Chickens

Last week with the remains of my birthday money I went a bought myself two more hens. We had lost one of our other girls in July and she was sadly missed, I was also having to buy egg as the other girls pretty much stopped laying. We decided after much thought to stick with hybrids, and we bought a Speckledy Hen and a Bluebelle. The Speckledy is called Poppy. The Bluebelle has been named Dr Mumbo by the ever crazy hubby.

This is a photo of their first adventure in the garden.

Garden Produce

I have a normalish sized garden, on an end of terrace plot on an average housing estate. But I am moving away from pretty flowers and trying to feed my family from it.

The last few years we have been growing lots of fruit and veg in various sized pots. This year I managed to squeeze a Raspberry and Goosegog bush in the boarders. Along with some thyme and lemon balm. At the moment we are eating spinach, mache, raspberrys, strawberry, peas, watercress and rocket.

We also have four Mrs Chickens. These are called Dottie, Daisy, Rosetta and Shadow. Shadow has just started laying after being broody for three weeks. I lifted her off her nest and realised that she was trying to hatch some snail shells, crazy bird. So at the moment we are getting four eggs a day.

I have bigger and better plans for next year. I am planning to build two new raised beds, so I have much more room to grow goodies.