Becoming Domestic

Edie and I watched some ladybirds ‘cuddling’ last week and photographed them.

Later in the week when we found our newly flowering aquilegas were covered in aphids I suggested we go on a ladybird hunt as they are good at eating all the aphids.

We were both a little surprised to find one who did in fact start gobbling the aphids as predicted when we placed it on one of the affected plants.

Yesterday we watched yet another ladybird lay some eggs next to the back door and both kids have been looking at the cluster through a big magnifying glass to see if any of them have hatched yet.

I pointed out a few ladybird larvae wandering the pine needles of last years Christmas tree (growing happily in a pot) to Edie but I wasn’t convinced that I had my facts right as they look so unlikeadult ladybirds.

Having just read this ladybird factsheet I now know that young ladybirds are just as good at getting rid of unwanted greenfly and whitefly and so should be treated as welcome visitors in the garden.

Usually a mother ladybird would lay her eggs near to a plentiful food supply (ie. on a plant with loads of aphids on) rather than a scorching, barren, south facing brick wall.

The female we watched lay two batches and then as the last egg emerged she ate it! The children were a bit perplexed by this and kept asking me why she did it and I really didn’t have a good answer other than ‘Maybe she was very hungry and she knew it wasn’t a good egg to hatch..’

Oops. Looks like I almost missed National Downshifting Week.

I came across this initiative this time last year just as we were looking for a house to move away from London to and I was keen to find resources and information about stepping towards a new way of living.

National Downshifting Week

Saturday 21st to Friday 27th April 2007

7 days - 7 ways - to Slow Down and Green Up !

http://www.downshiftingweek.com/

I applaud Tracey Smith, Creator of National Downshifting Week, and her message:

“Making small and simple changes to your spending habits can have a positive impact on your purse, your health and well-being and it can also help the environment!

Companies and schools can benefit too by adopting these moneysaving principles and in doing so, they’ll help participants get on the right, green track.”

Activities for an Individual

• Cook a meal from scratch, using locally sourced, seasonal ingredients, preferably organic

• Cut up a credit card

• Donate a bag of clothes, toys or useful items to a local charity shop, refuge or recycling centre

• Hand-make a simple card for the next birthday or event on your calendar

• Eliminate 3 non-essential purchases this week

• Plant something in the garden you can cultivate and eat and start a compost heap

• Consider reputable work at home parents and small local businesses, for services you need

• Tonight, turn off the television, switch on the radio, play a few games and talk

• Volunteer an hour of your time to a local charity shop, animal shelter, hospice etc

• Book a half-day off work to spend entirely with someone you love, no DIY allowed

======================================================================================

“Excuse Me Mr Prime Minister…”

We are petitioning the Prime Minister to introduce a comprehensive Environmental/Sustainable Living lesson into the national curriculum, throughout nursery, infant, primary and secondary education.

[Ackers says: As someone who was trained to teach a Environmental Sustainable Living biased Education by a group of very dedicated and passionate lecturers at Warwick University I think this a fantastic petition to start and really hope that we can get loads more signatures so furture generations are equipped to manage the planet they reside on]

Please visit the No 10 Petition here and lend your support with a signature.

Children are the leaders of the future - let’s help them get on the right, green track, long before they step into adulthood.

Submitted by Tracey Smith of National Downshifting Week UK – Deadline to sign up by: 17 April 2008 – Signatures: 165

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Introduce ‘Sustainable Living & Environmental Awareness’ lessons to our national curriculum for all pre-school, primary and secondary schools in the UK.

A nationally supported educational structure that raises environmental and sustainable awareness, would get all of our children on the right, green track before they step into adult life.

Elements should include:- how to compost, seasonal cooking from fresh (which should never have left the curriculum), basic fruit and vegetable cultivation, what’s in our hedgerows, better interaction via a revival of non-electric games, natural cleaning without chemicals, balancing your cheque book/living within your means, simple renewable energy and promotion of volunteering in our communities, amongst others.

Children are the leaders of the future and would benefit from proper ‘life-lessons’ offering real guidance - let’s take the ‘freaky out of eco’ by normalising and encouraging sustainable behaviour and lifestyles.

• Large piece of steak cut into strips and marinated for a couple of hours in the fridge in natural yoghurt, lime juice (from a bottle hanging around in the fridge), Encona hot chilli sauce

• Boiled rice
• Tortilla wraps
• Chunky salad of orange pepper, cucumber, spinach leaves, ripe avocado
• Natural greek style yoghurt
• Salsa made from:
  • Tomatoes
  • Onions or Spring onions
  • Balasamic vinegar chilli sauce
  • Corriander (we should have this had but Upton shops don’t stock it so we are waiting to grow our own plants)

Both Edie and Mo and also their little friend Bella who came all the way from London to visit us with her mum this weekend have been covered in insect bites. Beki thought that Bella had been bitten by fleas as they have a cat and I’d been telling my kids that it must be mosquitos but finding nothing in their bedroom or in the rest of the house despite the welts all over Mo’s front and Eden’s legs.

My daughter has been driven half mad each morning and evening with terrible sobbing and anger and its only as I’m taking her pyjamas off and getting her dressed that I can her legs are absolutely covered with fresh huge swollen white/red insect bites which she is clawing at with her nails.

Luckily I’ve had tubes of sting relief cream in the first aid box which seems to soothe immediately and also have had a bottle of antihistamine (phennagren) to give to them at bathtime to reduce the immune reation and to help them sleep through the discomfort of such an attack on their soft soft skin.

Poor little loves. I couldn’t understand what it could be and how there could be more each afternoon and morning yet I couldn’t find the cuprit in the house.

I mentioned it to my mum who told me she’d had a similar thing when she was tiny, always in the spring, which was always diagnosed as eating too much fruit (?) and suddenly I realised that I’d been seeing loads of midges swarming around each evening on various walks and in the garden and recalled from my childhood that they used to bite me on the scalp but one would never seen one doing it. Mum recommended I use insect repellent on her which was a top tip I may not have thought of.

I’ve just looked up midge bites and am very glad I found this as (a) its interesting (b)it confirms the diagnosis I’ve made about my kid.

(This article is about Highland Midges which must be a more tyrannical cousin of their soft Worcestershire cousins who only tasty unblemished four year olds)

What Happens When A Midge Bites?

http://www.stevecarter.com/ansh/midge.htm 

Biting begins at about 5 am, peaks at 7 am and falls to lower levels after 9 am. Peak activity in the evening can be anytime between 6 pm and 11 pm.

It is the pregnant female midge that bites in order to feed her developing fertilised eggs. As with other blood-sucking insects, the female midge has a well-developed, specialised mouth that allows her to pierce the skin of the victim with a pair of finely-toothed elongated mandibles. Blood is then sucked up by mouth parts that are rolled up into a tube shape. It is thought that the midge’s saliva is pumped into the wound to prevent the blood from clotting and the flow from drying up. This saliva induces in the victims a mild allergic or immune response causing him or her to to respond with immediate production of histamine which travels to the site of the wound. This causes the blood capillary to remain open for a few minutes, allowing the midge to feed on the blood meanwhile. During this time, the human body sends in white blood cells which start to eliminate any infection and repair the wound. The consequent swelling and itching of the bite are the result of the healthy human response to the attack.

A single bite can be little more than a minor irritation; however, midges are never alone - they cluster in their thousands, and it is likely that a human can be bitten many times in a few minutes. The bites are distracting and annoying, and there are tales of people being driven to madness by their unremitting attacks. The scratching of the site of the bite can lead to unsightly sores on the skin.

Some people are targetted far more than others, and this phenomenon has been a subject of scientific research for some time. Most mammals - and cattle especially - produce a complex alcohol when they sweat, and combines with carbon dioxide, acetone, lactic acid and water vapour that is naturally exhaled when individuals breathe. These chemicals, along with the heat also released have the effect of attracting midges. As if this were not enough, the female pregnant midge produces her own pheremone which signals to other midges that she is in the vicinity of a potential victim. She lands on her target and searches for some suitably soft skin above a blood capillary before piercing the skin. She will spend three or four minutes feeding on the blood, and it is during this period that the individual will become aware of skin irritation. The midge will remove about one ten-millionth of a litre of blood. For many people, they will notice an irritating raised and reddened area of skin which subsides over the next few minutes. For others, midge bites can be a major problem, with infuriating itching, bleeding sores and generalised discomfort.

At the beginning of April I planted my ‘early’ potatoes (a variety of spud which is ready to eat early in the season) and ‘main crop’ potatoes (a different sort which is ready later in the season - and bigger? I’m not entirely sure yet) in a couple of trenches (about 20-30cm deep) next to each other at the far end of the vegetable garden.

I left plenty opf space (30 cm) between them and a bit more between the first trench and the stumpy barely alive new raspberry canes. Bealers thinks I’m mad to leave so much room but I think we’ll be surprised how big they grow and we can always plant something little beside them. My theory was that I remember that potatoes need earthing up so the newly formed potatoes don’t get exposed to the sunlight and turned green while they are growing bigger.

I got the children to help me trowel in a couple of inches of well rotted manure before we pushed the seed potatoes in firmly and were about to cover them up with soil. I noticed that on the end of one trench there was extra room by the fence for me to dig another foot or so of trench so I could get more potatoes in.

As an experiment I didn’t line the bottom of this last mini-section of trench with any manure but covered the whole happy lot (about thirty seed potatoes) up as I wanted to get the kids in for some urgent tea & bathtime (they melt or are totally loopy and uncooperative if I miss their bedtimeby half an hour or so). I watered them in with a couple of trips with the watering can.

Anyway. This evening I noticed that the spuds have sprouted this weekend (and my sweet peas have become very poorly looking but that’s not interesting right now). The earlies are some thick blueish green foliage and the main crop  have lighter green leaves sprouting through the soil - BUT NOTHING GROWING IN THE BIT WHERE THERE WAS NO MANURE ADDED TO THE TRENCH!

No wonder man discovered manure being tremendous for the crops. I’m looking forward to finding out which ones taste better An hoping its the ones grown in poo as there are so many more of them…

My poor four year olds were back at their idyllic village pre-school yesterday after a two (or was it three?) week Easter break. Each day I’ve picked them up at 3pm only to have both of them wailing, refusing to get in the car and generally melting at the tops of their voices with streams of tears plopping down their chins over nothing in particular. Pre-school, it would appear, is extremely exhausting.

I feel so mixed as I’ve loved being with them full time for the past couple of weeks and not having to get them dressed, supplied with a couple of packed lunches and out of the house by 8.30am but I also love working with Bealers and being involved in the business. It’s certainly quieter, more cerebral and people generally don’t screech at me or get toothpaste all over themselves in the office.

I’ve really really really missed the kids and keep finding myself thinking of calling them on the phone as if they were grown up friends.

Just before we broke up for Easter we got the happy letter confirming the twins had places for the reception class and could start in September. Given that there will only be 19 kids in the class, all of whom we know already from pre-school, the teachers seem nice and the school is just 2 minutes walk from our offices we have decided that we will not be home educating the children full time and they will be accepting places at the primary school. I’ll be able to work more hours and the kids will continue to be friends with the chums they have already made at school. For us it’s essentially free childcare that we will be subscribing to with the pleasant side effects of not having to take total responsibility for their primary education, make new friends etc.

I’m already slightly weepy at the thought of them going to school for five days a week whether they want to or not from September. I know I’ll feel strange not knowing the detail of what they have done, who thay have played with, was anyone nasty to them, were they naughty, embarrassed, happy, proud? This is strange for me to have these feelings given that I used to send them to full time childcare from the age of 7 months - 3 years for a job I didn’t particularly love.

This week I’m particularly aware of how much being at school obviously zaps them. They are shattered, hungry and miserable when we get home. Usually my kids are great, fun people to be around. They question a lot, we discover things together, I teach them things I know, we read, we laugh, they play. In sending them to school from September so I can concentrate on helping to run the business am I inviting stress and misery into their little lives?

My mum who was a reception teacher firmly believes that children need to learn about structure, routine, fitting in with the masses but I’m pretty sure she’s wrong.

Luckily through the pre-school I’ve made some top mates - other mummies who have small kids who get on well with E&M. They’re always being invited to parties, play-dates, chicken/cow feeding so another huge fringe benefit is these new friendships will continue and grow with the children staying at school.

Wow. We had a grass snake in our garden. We watched it, photographed it, video’d it and generally marvelled at how it moved like a snake a bit but also just sunbathed a lot in front of the compost heap where we keep the children’s outdoor toys and I have a water butt.

I LOVE living in the country.

The sighting of a snake was so exciting for me that I called my mum who asked me to identify it properly (using the lovely countryside books I once found in the local skip) to make sure it wasn’t a viper/adder. It wasn’t and I now realise it was a very young snake as fully grown grass snakes can be over 100cm in length.

I’ve just read that female grass snakes often favour compost or manure heaps to lay their eggs in Autumn as the heat of the rotting pile acts as an incubator. This explains why we found it just by our compost heap but will I ever be able to use the compost if I think it might contain snakes!

Thank you Good Housekeeping Institute and the tomes of wisdom I have gleaned from you over the years but this is by far the most useful nugget you have published since I’ve been reading your monthly magazine as getting boiled eggs to come out exactly as everyone wanted was a mysterious black art I’d never known the secret of.

How to boil an egg and not have them undercooked or overcooked:

• Bring a pan of water to the boil
• Once the water is boiling, lower in a medium sized egg at room temperature
• For a soft boiled egg, cook for 6 minutes
• For a ’salad egg’ - firm but with a soft yolk in the middle - cook for 8 minutes
• For a hard-boiled egg, cook for 10 minutes
• Once the egg is cooked, lift out of the pan with a slotted spoon and serve.

One of my kids really enjoys planting things, learning the names of flowers, watering, digging, weeding and generally being out in the fresh air helping me in the garden. Her brother is more interested in books and films but now we live here in the countryside with a large garden, he is becoming interested in being outside more.

Whenever I’m digging a trench in the vegetable garden the kids are at my side but have only got one little trowel to use or their set of plastic beach spades and invariably end up bored and throwing soil at each other which isn’t allowed and results in someone crying and needing their eye flushed out with water.

I’ve kept my eye out for a set of children’s sized long handled tools for a while now but couldn’t find anything so was delighted to see a lovely little set in Woolworths this week for £19.99 which included a shovel, a rake, a broom, a wheelbarrow, gardener’s apron and gloves all in lovely bright colours but proper metal implements.

It was just the thing I needed to say thank you to my daughter for being such a great little gardener and also an encouragement to my son to come and help out more instead of moaning about wanting to go inside.

Before…

After a very special trip to Woolies…

Now all I hear from my son is ‘Mummy please can we go into the vegetable patch and do some more digging?’ which is cool and they fight over who is going to sweep the path. Brilliant.

I make sure they treat the new tools with the respect all actual tools reserve by putting them away in the shed after they have used them, not swinging them around their heads uneccessarily, or even just leaving them lying around where someone could trip over them. With a bit of luck they’ll last for a few years and will have helped me occupy a couple of energetic four year olds while I’m too busy in the garden to entertain them.

The other thing that’s really helping instilling a love of gardening is having them choose seeds (pumpkins, sunflowers), sowing seeds, label seed, water seeds and then amazingly seeing things grow just a few days later. They think it’s excellent fun.

You’d think that having watched Gardener’s World every friday night for the past decade from various London dwellings I’d know exactly how to seperate the little baby plants from each other in their small pots and transplant to larger individual pots where they will have space and nourishment to grow bigger BUT I was really nervous about doing the job. In fact it was Bealers who spent time meticulously taking each of his chilli seedlings out with the help of a plastic label and gave them their new homes.

The only tips I could remember from Gardener’s World was to make sure he held the seedlngs by the leaf rather than the very fragile stems as the plants would die if these got crushed and to give each one some luke warm water almost immediately

The task was tedious rather than challenging so I now have the confidence to tackle the hundreds of other seedlings - not entirely sure where we’ll be potting them on to though as have run out of pots. I suspect we will have to invest some more cash on plastic plant pots but with a bit of luck we’ll be able to use the same ones for many years.