Bits & Bobs

We're still waiting to release Bop. Torrential rain is forecast here for tonight and over the weekend. Perhaps next week will be OK.

I managed to do a Butterfly Transect this morning and clocked up a fair few. The second generation of Small Blues has arrived (good news), and there was a Silver Washed Frit on the transect too (unusual).

Green-veined White

Large Skipper

Silver Washed Frit

Small Blue

I'm working on a new patchwork bag. Spent hours last night cutting loads of 4x4 squares and started stitching them together until my eyes crossed over and I was squinting through watering eyes.

What d'you think? I'm thinking the lime green polka dot line would look good as a final layer along the top? It's going to be a large draw-string bag so the cord would go through that bit.

I went to Hobbycraft this afternoon and stocked up on these plastic sheets. They are to stiffen bottoms. Of bags of course. Don't laugh.

I was also overcome with a Holiday Feeling of Bonhomie when I was in Scats buying dog food and allowed myself to be seduced by these wraggedy pheasants. The dogs now have one each. Poppy is delighted with hers but Teddy is less certain, perhaps feeling it is beneath his dignity to be seen playing with a squeaky fluffy pretend bird now he has attained the Grand Old Age of six.

This is what I observed Out In The Garden just now...

C'mon Teddy! Let's play CHEW in the garden with our pheasants...

I've left mine in the house

Well, go and get it then!

Look how much FUN it is!

Yipee!

Mum's cut my head off

Grr, TAKE THAT, Pheasant!

Phew! It's nearly as big as me!

Yipee!Ted?

I am not amused

Oh Ted! Don't be such a Spoil Sport

I know, if I leave it in the garden and go indoors to get Mum, he won't be able to resist it....

Hello Mum, I'm just hiding from Ted. What's happened to my pheasant? Is he playing with it?

Not really Pop, no.

I've had enough of pheasants- I'm going to bed

Hope all are well?

CT :o)

New Sewing Club Creations & Bop Update From Yesterday

For those who have been wondering how Bop got on last night- the Big Release was paused as it rained heavily here late afternoon and Owlets don't do well in rain. It can flood their downy feathers which don't dry easily and leave them cold and damp. It also keeps the wood mice and voles that are their preferred diet safely tucked up indoors. Altogether, this would not have been the start we all want for him, so we've postponed his release until Weds or Thurs.

In the meantime, I have been busy making things at sewing club. I mastered zips today. This was complicated by the addition of a lining which took me ages to get my head round, as you have to sew the zip in four separate times and then turn the resulting double bags inside out (!) but the end result was good so I was chuffed. Me feels more Christmas presents being sorted, eh?.....

I also made a duffel bag out of some of the wolf print fabric I got for L. My plan had been to sew it into a quilt for him, but it bears the rather alarming legend: not for use in children's night wear on its raw edges, and having held it over the gas hob to test it and found it went up like a bloody inferno in seconds, I swiftly decided to follow the instruction. 

Anyhoo, the duffel bag will do for overnight clothes when we go on hols this summer. It's Another First for me in terms of sewing. My excellent sewing teacher showed me how to put it all together so all the raw edges are hidden neatly away. I got some calico cheap from ebay and used it to line the bag and give it extra strength. All in all I'm pleased with the way it turned out. It's now hidden away until his birthday next month :o)

Finally, I've been baking (and eating the results, but I'm also back to running so I figure that's OK :o) ). 

 
I always find myself baking more when illness comes close to us. As if the creation of good, life-affirming food is a magic spell that weaves health about us and banishes illness. Like a talisman, Standing Guard.

One of my relations is very poorly. She has been for a while, but now her eyesight is failing as a result of the illness, or the operation, or the treatment, or a mixture of all three, and she is feeling very low as a result. So I'm going to brave my dislike of cities and crowds of people, get the train and go up to London to see her. 

She's someone I have been very close to all my life, a person who lit up my childhood, largely by giving me thoroughly inappropriate presents such as fluorescent pink hairsprays and glitter to go all over my face. Even now when she's so unwell and her texts and emails contain sad news about her illness, it is delivered bound up in her typically irreverent sense of humour and her joy in simple things. 

In addition to this, the mother of a dear friend of mine is also very, very unwell. You end up feeling quite helpless to do anything but listen, and you wish for a magic wand. I've been through this lots of times over the years with family, with patients and with friends, but it never gets any easier.  

Sorry to end on a sad note. I have been thinking though how little Bop is a shining light amid all of this. A new life, saved when it was threatened, and now ready to go Home to The Wild. It's a place we all return to, eventually.

Wishing you all a peaceful evening,

CT x

In Which I Go To See Bop, And Get Some Good News (and some new pictures)...

So, I've been over to Wiltshire to see Jill and my Baby Bop. Here is he: very nearly All Grown Up....

What a Handsome Owl he has turned in to, don't you think? He clicked his beak when he saw me and there was a fair amount of Head Bobbing going on too, as he tried to remember who I was :o)

Remember this little fluff-ball whom we found injured on the road back at the end of May, not very old and bleeding from a cracked beak?
 

We all thought he might not make it, but....here is is a week later, still fluffy but looking decidedly less shocked than the night of his accident and feeding OK on the brown mice Jill was offering him...
 

And now here we are, nearly eight weeks later, he is almost fully-feathered and flying about energetically in his shed like a Properly Grown Up Wol :o)

Isn't he beautiful?

The Good News is that Jill thinks he is ready to be released, so I am driving back over to her place this evening to collect him. If all goes well, he'll fly up into our lovely old Apple Tree as the gloaming comes down, and from thence be off into The Wild. I hope The Wild will look after him and that Instinct is so deeply entrenched it will take over once he is free and show him how to fend for himself.

I shall be whispering a word or two to the Apple Tree and asking him to look after Bop. We are Old Friends, that tree and I. For many years he took very great care of my children while they climbed among his branches and swung happily from the swing that hangs by him- I'm sure he will care for the owl to the best of his ability.

So, I am feeling slightly nervous, because returning any wild animal to The Wild is a big thing, with no guarantee of success, but we have reached that point where he needs to be free. 

We'll all be willing him on, right?  I'm sure that counts for something.

I should be releasing him about 8pm UK time tonight- if you can spare a moment to send him luck and love about that time when he'll be making his First Foray into his real world, I'd appreciate it. I feel you're all part of his story too. I will of course report back tomorrow and let you know. 

CT :o)

Dormouse! And Chalk Downland Flutters

I was up and doing early this morning because it was Dormouse Survey Day. Fifty boxes in two hours yielded only one of these magical creatures, and, unlike last time, he was wide awake and feisty as can be.

I know it may look wrong, putting him in a plastic bag, but the aim is to minimise the stress of handling while they are checked over, weighed and recorded and they are not in the bag for long before they go back into the peace and quiet of their woodland home. Once again we were with a licence holder while checking for them (it is illegal to check Dormice boxes or to handle one in the UK without a Natural England licence), so had an expert on hand to help.

I was thrilled to see what is only my second ever Dormouse (you may remember last month's one, and this is a Perfect Excuse to post his picture again....:o) ), and while the picture quality of #2 isn't great at least you can hopefully see the little fellow..
 

Dormouse house complete with 'bung' (a duster) we use to block off the hole while we check for occupancy

Hazel woodland- prime Dormouse habitat

A typical Dormouse nest (the green leaves are a hint that there may be a Dormouse inside)

Busy Little Dormouse

And now, just because we all loved it so much, here is last months (very sleepy) Dormouse again....

 

I stopped off at one of my favourite Chalk Downlands on the way home to see whether the Chalkhill Blues were out yet. They weren't on the area I checked, although I bumped into a chap who had seen them further down the Hill.

I didn't leave bereft by any stretch of the imagination, clocking up my first Essex Skipper of the year, a Silver Y and some Six-Spot Burnet moths, among others....

Essex Skipper (distinguished from the very similar Small Skipper by the black undersides of the antennae)

Fireweed or Rosebay Willow Herb

Goatsbeard

Goldfinch enjoying seed heads

Can you spot the Grasshopper?

Marbled White

Meadow Brown

A very ancient Painted Lady

A similarly venerable Red Admiral

Red Tailed Bumble

Silver Y moth

Six-Spot Burnet moth

Six-Spots mating

Small Blue

Small Skipper (the undersides of the antennae are coppery colour not black)

Small Skip

Small Tortoiseshell

White Knapweed and two small flying friends

Wild Parsnip (the root is highly poisonous)

This week I am hoping to catch up with the Chalkhills, Water Voles, Purple Emperors and learn how to put a zip in a bag and sew a button hole. How about you? 

I will also have my boy home from Wednesday afternoon. When I got home after Dormouse surveying this morning, he'd made a batch of madelines which smelled divine and tasted pretty darn lovely too. I am looking forward to having six weeks together. When I gave him a hug this morning it was a bit of a shock to realise he is not all that far off my height now, and can wear my shoes and my hoodies too. It won't be that way for long- I have a feeling by this time next year he will have shot past me in height and the hints of deep voice that are there now will be a permanent fixture. Where does the time go?
 
Hope you enjoyed the little Dormouse and are all having an Especially Lovely weekend. Thanks for reading my dears,

CT :o)