Author: Mrs Madden

I have discovered that the branches from my fallen tree are not quite as green as I had thought and the wood is hard and difficult to whittle.  As a consequence of this, I have cracked the handle on my pen knife.  I have ordered another one but I don’t know when it will arrive.

If you are planning on doing some whittling, please do not be tempted to cut branches from living trees at this time of year.  The trees are just waking up from their winter sleep and the sap inside them is rising which means that if you cut them now the sap would keep pouring out of them and they could die.  The safe time to cut branches from living trees is winter when they are dormant (sleeping).

However, I have managed to do a bit of whittling.  I drew around my template and started to cut away the wood around my spoon.  This is as far as I have got. 

INGREDIENTS

• 110g self-raising flour
• 1 slightly rounded teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 level teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 50g block butter, at room temperature
• 50g (or 2 tablespoons) golden syrup

METHOD

Pre-heat your oven to 190C, gas mark 5 (I have a fan oven so I set mine at 160C).

Sift the flour, ground ginger and bicarbonate of soda together into a mixing bowl, add the sugar, then lightly rub in the butter till crumbly.

Add the syrup and mix everything to a stiff paste.  Divide the mixture into quarters, as evenly sized as possible, then each quarter into four (you should have 16) and roll the pieces into little balls.

 

 

 

 

 

Place them on a greased baking sheet, leaving plenty of room between them because they spread.  Flatten them slightly and bake for about 10 minutes.

 

 

Take out of the oven and allow to cool a little before transferring them to a wire rack to finish cooling.  Store in an airtight container – mine never last long because my kids love them.

Wear suitable gloves and pick some stinging nettles and put them into a bucket.

 

 

 

 

Place a rock on top of the nettles so that the nettles don,t float when you add water.

 

 

 

 

Cover the nettles with water.

 

 

 

 

Place a lid on top (I used plant pot tray) and weigh it down with another rock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Place the bucket outside your green house and leave to ferment (do not put it inside as it will smell awful after a couple of weeks. Once it is nice and smelly, you can add some of the liquid to your watering can when you water your plants (do not use it on indoor plants because it smells too much).  Mrs. Madden.

I found this bumble bee yesterday (not sure if it is a carder bee or not) – she was very low on energy so I gave her some sugar water and put her in the sunshine.  After a few minutes she flew off. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also saw some geese flying over early this morning – the photo is a bit blurred but I had to be quick or they would be gone.  Mrs. Madden

Here are a few plants that I am growing.  I have tomato plants, cucumber plants, courgette plants, some basil, some ivy leafed geraniums and some sunflowers (I used some seeds from my wild bird seed and planted them in an old egg box).  I know that quite a lot of you are growing things too.  How are they getting on?  Mrs. Madden.

Today I spotted a Buff-tailed queen bumble bee.  She stopped searching around my garden for a nesting sight to have a little drink of nectar.

 

 

 

I also spotted a Pterostichus madidus (I looked it up) which is a very common, flightless ground beetle.  What did you spot today?  Mrs. Madden

To make this butterfly, you will need some thin card, a craft knife a pencil, a cutting mat and a picture of a butterfly to copy.

 

 

Fold the card in half and draw half the butterfly and some shapes to make the pattern on the butterfly’s wings.

 

 

Cut out the shapes using the craft knife – cut through both layers of card.

 

 

 

Cut around the outside of your butterfly.

 

 

 

Open out your butterfly.

 

 

 

 

If you don’t have a craft knife you can use a small pair of scissors and make your design a bit simpler.

 

Here are some other insects I have made.  Mrs. Madden

I have been reading this book  about extraordinary insects and I have found out that there is a midge that lives in Africa and its larva (young) spends its life in small puddles of water that are constantly drying out.  This creature can cope with a loss of up to 97 per cent of the water in its body whereas, we humans can only cope with losing 14 per cent!  When the larva are in a dried up state, they can cope with pretty much anything:  you can boil them, dip them in liquid nitrogen, soak them in spirit, expose them to cosmic radiation for years, or simply leave them alone and they can survive for up to 17 years!  To wake them up again, simply add water.  That’s amazing.  I decided to do some insect art – these are some place mats I have painted – I still have two more to do.  Mrs. Madden.

I wasn’t very successful at photographing wildlife today.  There were lots of little birds about but my cat, Lisa, thought it was fun to scare them away.  I still managed to get this photo of a chaffinch.  Mrs. Madden

• 150g/5oz/1 cup plain flour
• 25g/1oz/3tbsp cornflour
• 50g/2oz/1/4 cup caster sugar
• 115g/4oz/1/2 cup butter

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 (I have a fan oven so I set mine at 150C).  Brush two baking sheets (or a circular cake tin with a push out base) with a little oil.
2. Put the flour, cornflour and sugar in a bowl.  Cut the butter into pieces and rub into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.  Mould to a dough with your hands.
3. Either, roll out dough on a floured surface to a 5mm thickness or press dough into greased cake tin using the back of a tablespoon and use the back of a fork to decorate around the edges and stab with the fork several times in the centre.  If you have rolled out the dough, stamp out shapes with small biscuit cutters.
4. Transfer to the baking sheets or put the cake tin in the oven.  Cook the biscuit shapes for 10-12 mins.  Cook the one in the cake tin for about 20 mins.  Once the biscuit shapes are cooked, transfer them to a wire rack to cool.  Once the shortbread in the cake tin is cooked cut it into eight even pieces before it cools, then allow to cool.