Natural Cleaner

A while ago I promised to post the recipe of some of the natural cleaners we use here, and I have finally got round to it. We made the decision quite a few years ago to ditch the many chemical cleaners due to my allergies... sneezing and itching your way through the cleaning everyday really takes its toll.

The recipe is really simple just dilute white vinegar with an EQUAL amount of water in a squirty bottle... and that's it... yes, really. (For example if you use half a litre of white vinegar you need to add half a litre of water.) White vinegar is a natural cleaner, disinfectant and deodoriser, so far we haven't found anything we haven't been able to get clean naturally. There is a slight smell of vinegar but this dissipates as the surface dries and you can add a few drops of essential oil if you prefer, to give your cleaner a nicer smell. We have used tea tree or lemon for the extra cleaning abilities in the past.

Alternatively, we have a jar which we fill with the white vinegar before it is diluted, then simply add all the citrus peel from the fruit eaten and leave to infuse for a week or two before straining and diluting the vinegar with an equal amount of water, as above. This makes the vinegar smell more like oranges and lemons negating the need for essential oil and making the house smell lovely.

We have also been utilising lemon juice for it's natural cleaning and bleaching effects and bicarbonate of soda can be mixed into a paste and used when you need something a little more abrasive.

I would never go back to conventional cleaners now as I find it very effective, very cheap and it doesn't make me sneeze but if you decide to try out any new cleaners do a patch test first and check online for anything you shouldn't use it on... for example you can't use vinegar on marble.

Elderflower cordial

Due to the late start to spring, I was able to enjoy one of my favourite drinks on my birthday this year... Elderflower cordial. I love everything about this drink, the mere taste reminds me of summer. Even the children love it, my daughter has a cute name for it, she calls it 'flower juice'. So I thought I would share our recipe here.

You need to pick about 20 to 30 flower heads on a sunny day, as fresh as possible. I love the smell of these flowers, to me they smell exactly like the cordial tastes.

We usually leave them upside down for a short while to ensure any bugs trapped in the flowers can escape safely. Then pour two litres of boiling water into a large tub, we use our wine fermenting tub, and mix in one kilogram of sugar until it dissolves. Prepare two lemons... we usually zest and juice them, chop up the remains and toss them all into the boiling water.

Once the water has cooled to warm, drop the flowers in too. At this point you add two teaspoons of citric acid, this is a preservative and is available at the chemist. This helps your finished cordial last a little longer, however, we have made it without adding the extra citric acid before without any problems. Everyone here loves it so much it never lasts longer than a few days anyway. Give your mixture a stir and leave it to infuse for 24 to 48 hours depending on the strength you prefer.

After infusing you will need to strain the flowers out of the liquid and bottle it up in sterilised bottles. It will be strong as it needs to be diluted with water to drink it. Then just enjoy...

Seed Bombs

We have just had our 4th wedding anniversary and every year my husband and I try to make each other a gift based on the traditional gift guide. For the 4th anniversary the gift should be fruit or flowers, a little difficult to make... so we had to be a little creative.

As our love is so strong and very special and we both have a strong love of the natural world, I thought I would make a gift for my husband that would share the beauty of our love with the world... with nature. So I made him some seed bombs as these will grow into flowers.

These are so very simple to make... I just mixed a handful of compost with some wildflower seeds from our local area in a bowl, sprinkled in a little powdered clay and a few drops of water. Once mixed well I spooned the mixture into a heart shaped ice cube tray and left to dry.

When these are planted little pockets of wildflowers should spring up in bare patches giving a little extra help to our ailing bee population.

If this gift just feeds one bee or makes one person smile as they walk past we will have made a difference to this world, albeit a very small one.

Well that's my gift to my wonderful husband this year... Happy Anniversary. 

Quick Paper Garlands

A recent celebration had us reaching for the scrap paper to make some very quick and cheap party decorations. We try to live very thriftily here and spending money on party decorations which could be used for extra presents seems a little strange and the children have a huge amount of fun in the process.

As we didn't have much time and the children are small, we went for the simplest garlands possible. The top one is just a simple bunting garland made with paper, cut, folded and glued over the string or ribbon. Any paper or card can be used and it can be highly personalised to suit the birthday girl or boy, you can use letters or numbers if you choose, my son is hoping for a dinosaur one on his birthday. As you are making this yourself you can choose the exact length and design.

The butterfly one is another very simple one and takes just a few minutes, I have used a shape cutter and a scrap sheet of sticky paper. The butterflies were just stamped out and stuck back to back over some gold string. We made heart ones like these on valentines day, very pretty, my daughter is planning on having these in her room.

The spring blossom garland continues a craft idea we had a few years ago spring blossom craft.

Each flower is made up of three or four cut out tissue paper flower shapes, stacked and twisted together.

These are then threaded onto your chosen string or wool to make the garland.

You can make these garlands out of anything you choose and what's more, it saves you money and it's a wonderful craft idea to get children involved in the decorating.

We have garlands hanging in the house at quite a few times in the year, mostly made by the children who are quite proud of their creations. A couple of recent, very pretty, seasonal ones have been the Autumn leaf garland and the paper snowflake one.

I am hoping to eventually get round to sewing some more permanent garlands in felt and fabric to keep forever, it's just finding the time, it seems to be in short supply here.

Bean Projects

Every year since we started home educating, one of the spring science and nature projects has been bean growing in a jar to see the root growth. We have studied them, grown them, dissected them and eaten them... We have tested growing variations like light, dark, with water and without, and grown many different kinds of bean to compare. We have kept records and logged our data in every different way we can.

This year we tried something different....

This year we placed one side of the jars so that they touched the window, it has been so very cold and frosty here that we thought we would see how much temperature affected the beans. We put two beans in each jar on opposite sides, one side was touching the window pane at all times, the other bean was facing into the house.

As you can see in the two photographs above the bean on the inside of the jar (the warmer side) grew but the bean touching the window (frosty side) did not... the results were the same in each and every jar so the children's temperature experiment is quite conclusive even though there is only a short distance between the two beans on either side of the jar, this makes a big difference!

There is also added incentive to grow beans this year....

My husband built this tepee in the garden from some tree prunings, we wanted to create a living tepee, a quiet place to play or read in a bare part of the garden. The beans will be grown up all around the sides to provide the cover for little ones to hide in, my husband has added a little fence at the bottom to protect the young beans from the chickens. Although it looks like Dotty is having a quick dig to see what is in there, which doesn't look good for the beans!

On the celery front, we are continuing to grow new plants from the stubs which you can read here if you missed it. I have noticed some new shoots coming up from last years plants too, which is very unusual as the weather in the UK is too cold in winter for celery to survive!

We also still have and love the three chickens that live in our garden, they have been no trouble at all (so far) and have provided us with loads of eggs. In fact so many that we haven't had to buy any at all for over a year and I think there are about forty in the kitchen waiting to be used.

That concludes our quick update for now, we will be back very soon to breathe some life back into the blog.

Magical Museum visit

Last week we had the chance to visit the Magic Worlds exhibition at our Castle Museum, it is touring from the V&A. There was a wonderful mix of magical items from film props, magician's props, items from fairy tales and many beautiful works of art.

My daughter was really pleased to see sooty was included in the exhibition and even happier to perform her own puppet show with some of the props available.

 Many fairy tales had their own sets to explore... I know one little girl who was in her element and totally oblivious to the real world. 

We really enjoy going to the castle museum there always seems to be something that fits in with our studies, something amazing to see. As a teenager I used to visit the museum nearly every Saturday and it's still a place I love to visit.

Whist exploring the keep we found this model trebuchet, a siege engine weapon from the middle ages. My husband and son were very keen to explore the workings of this as they have been planning to make a small one for the garden in the summer.

As you can see it's like a large catapult or sling which throws heavy items at the castle walls... we were aiming for the little model of Stonehenge my son built.

Goodbye Old Friend

 Yesterday we lost a dear, sweet old friend... our beautiful cat, taken quite suddenly due to an illness. It has been quite a shock as he was loved so much and he will be greatly missed by everyone.

Gone but never forgotten.... finally at peace and free from pain.... always in our hearts.
                             
                               Goodbye Greebo.... we will miss you.