mid march...nearly.

Almost half way through the month, and I've hardly managed to be here.

This makes me sad.  I like to blog, I like looking back over years past.

This year is looking mighty thin on the ground.

And yet, the activity going on behind the scenes is ridiculous I tell you.

Every time there is a bit of fine weather, I am out there, ripping out brambles with my fancy feel-no-pain gloves, freeing up trees and shrubs that have been fighting a losing battle for too long.

Some of these brambles are huge.  I measured one that trailed over fourteen feet!

When there isn't fine weather, you'll find me in the kitchen staring out of the window and moaning about the rain/ fog/ cold.  I've decided fog is my least favourite weather....it's so melancholy and round here, it also gets your clothes soggy in a sneak attack.  You only realise when you're shivering that you're soaked through.

We had the first camp out of the year.

It was a semi camp out, because we couldn't find our proper tent so used the beach tent, and by ten thirty everyone was too cold to stay out.

We did have a great fire of dried brambles though, and had marshmallows on sticks, and hooting owls, rustling bushes and stories.

Lb jazzed things up by accidentally crashing through the side of the tent (he forgot that they aren't solid) and snapping a tent pole.  No matter, we found that a bamboo cane works just fine.

The geese are back on the water, and have brought a couple of mallards for company.

The heron is murdering the frog population, which is upsetting Mb a great deal.  We walked round the edge of the water and found twenty corpses.  I didn't mind a funeral for the first two.  The rest will have to have one great send off together I think.  Did you know that frogs go white when they've had their middles hacked by a heron?  Well now you do.

There are bazillions of tadpoles in all the ponds.  It's creepy to watched the surface move around as though it's one big living thing.

We've been playing with the Cuisenaire Rods again, working through the booklet that came with them.  I'm noticing Mb is the most interested.  I think the colours and shapes and the tactile nature fits well with him.

Lots of Incredibots.  Love this.  Embarrassed but proud that Eb is kicking my bum at the challenges.  (I wanted to say butt here however we say bum all the time so it wouldn't be a very true representation to say butt, even though it sounds cooler.  Kicks Bum does not sound cool at all.)

Grid Club too.

Some Charlie and Lola, How It's Made and Oscar's Oasis.

A great deal of puppet theatre action.  My favourite performance was Lb's own made up one about the Parrot and Owl who are afraid of Mrs Pig because she makes a loud noise, but who turns out to be very nice.

I took a bunch of photos, which I need to download.  Some document learning, some document silliness.  Both are equally important.

Outings to Libraries, Science Events and a Museum.  All of which really deserve their own post.

A local farmer told me that animals can die around now, for no good reason.  I have found this to be true.  We found a young fox drowned in a small water pool in the woods and two little mice all curled up in a nest of leaves as well as the slightly more disturbing leg of a lamb in the horses field.

I've checked about and no one is missing any lambs, but then it's possible that a Ewe gave birth and a fox stole the babies before any one noticed.

Which brings me to the next big thing.

We are awaiting the possible arrival of some Molly (orphan) lambs from a neighbour.  We were going to get them a couple of weeks ago but plans have altered and now we are taking any stragglers at the end of their lambing season.  We're also lucky that the farmer is going to provide us with the milk for feeding from his dairy herd.  I'm preparing myself for sleepless nights once again.

Needless to say, after the find of a leg, I'm making the pen look like fort knox, and I'm going to leave our dogs out on guard.  Not in with the lambs of course , just in case temptation gets the better of them but in their own section between the sheep and the barn entrance, so that any crafty fox has to get past them first.

Finally, I'm enjoying reading Bliss Beyond Naptime and The Barefoot Crofter.

Both have lovely archives which I'm finding more interesting reading than any thing I've picked up from the library this month.