Well, I thought I would put in the last couple of day as Ive been out with the kids a couple of times.
Yesterday Thorin my 6 year old boy and I went hunting for the last of the Elder flower, I say the last as most of it has turned in preparation for berries. We spent three hours climbing through overgrown woodland getting scratched and mauled by the Holly and the blackberry bushes, we waded through what seemed to be an ocean of nettles to get to some fine specimens (so we thought) only to find that they were too far gone. We waded through a stream and walked around a lake and traversed a few hills. Both of us were armed with sticks collected from a fallen oak, a very useful bit of kit
Its a pity we didnt get any pictures, I was cutting the top ones and Thorin was cutting off the lower flowers. He was using a full sized mora and with deft cuts he was harvesting nearly as quickly as me. We had a few people walk past us while we were half standing in the bushes, all of them had a polite hello, a glance and a smile at Thorin ..I think that this is one of the advantages of being in the countryside (where we often wander, not where we live) the locals dont see it as so strange that we would harvest from nature Its a nice feeling. We also made sure that we only took a bit from each bush...not that there was a lot available this late in the season.
While walking around a lake I spent the time teaching Thorin some of the advanced skills needed to skim stones ;-) Well, they were advanced until he mastered them in about 30 seconds! He still cant get them to bounce 6 times or more but he will get there
As we walk I ask him what all the trees and bushes are, most of the time he comes back with the answer, sometimes he stands there looking at it, trying to work it out and often he does One thing that has struck me this year is that the children had to be reminded about quite a few things, they probably retained about 50% of what they knew last year, it show that we need to keep up their education and that if we dont they will loose their precious knowledge, this year they will retain more, and next year they will retain even more, it needs to be a steady process. But they do learn and they do retain a lot of it, my children will know far more than me because of the head start I intend to give them.
We ended up with a big bag full of flowers, which was worth the scrapes and the sweat on our brows. We got home and got the big pot out to start the process of making Elderflower cordial (this time weve used the recipe in Hugh Fearnley Whittingstalls River Cottage cookbook, which we know is good because of the batch we made 2 weeks ago!) Today weve finished off the process and its ready to be bottled. I intend on bringing some to the meet up for all to try
): Its really good with lemonade and ice
Yum.
Yesterday evening the whole family went for a walk to a nearby waterfall, when weve got the kids with us we always have to go up the stream, jumping from rock to rock, I have to admit that its much more exciting that way. While there we found hundreds of little frogs, they were one of those things that you dont notice .and then when you do you see them everywhere. Thorin and Rowan (my daughter) decided that they were way too small to eat so they just picked them up and had a good look, exclaiming that they 'kicked their legs like nutters!'
Rowan fell in up to her waist, which although amusing for the rest of us was not quite so amusing for her, she was especially put out that a squelching noise now emanated from her person She soon recovered though and after we had climbed a few little rock faces we decided to retreat back to the car squelch, squelch, squelch .Down the stream, rock hopping, the rest of us finding it a bit easier than my wife who had our 4 week old baby strapped to her! On the way down the children found some more frogs, some tunnels in the gorse bushes, sheep tracks and droppings, horse, dog and bird tracks .theyre not great at tracks but they can tell those and they can tell which direction the animals are going in .
All in all a nice day .
Heck, that was just yesterday :yikes: I think Ill leave today for now
Yesterday Thorin my 6 year old boy and I went hunting for the last of the Elder flower, I say the last as most of it has turned in preparation for berries. We spent three hours climbing through overgrown woodland getting scratched and mauled by the Holly and the blackberry bushes, we waded through what seemed to be an ocean of nettles to get to some fine specimens (so we thought) only to find that they were too far gone. We waded through a stream and walked around a lake and traversed a few hills. Both of us were armed with sticks collected from a fallen oak, a very useful bit of kit
Its a pity we didnt get any pictures, I was cutting the top ones and Thorin was cutting off the lower flowers. He was using a full sized mora and with deft cuts he was harvesting nearly as quickly as me. We had a few people walk past us while we were half standing in the bushes, all of them had a polite hello, a glance and a smile at Thorin ..I think that this is one of the advantages of being in the countryside (where we often wander, not where we live) the locals dont see it as so strange that we would harvest from nature Its a nice feeling. We also made sure that we only took a bit from each bush...not that there was a lot available this late in the season.
While walking around a lake I spent the time teaching Thorin some of the advanced skills needed to skim stones ;-) Well, they were advanced until he mastered them in about 30 seconds! He still cant get them to bounce 6 times or more but he will get there
As we walk I ask him what all the trees and bushes are, most of the time he comes back with the answer, sometimes he stands there looking at it, trying to work it out and often he does One thing that has struck me this year is that the children had to be reminded about quite a few things, they probably retained about 50% of what they knew last year, it show that we need to keep up their education and that if we dont they will loose their precious knowledge, this year they will retain more, and next year they will retain even more, it needs to be a steady process. But they do learn and they do retain a lot of it, my children will know far more than me because of the head start I intend to give them.
We ended up with a big bag full of flowers, which was worth the scrapes and the sweat on our brows. We got home and got the big pot out to start the process of making Elderflower cordial (this time weve used the recipe in Hugh Fearnley Whittingstalls River Cottage cookbook, which we know is good because of the batch we made 2 weeks ago!) Today weve finished off the process and its ready to be bottled. I intend on bringing some to the meet up for all to try
): Its really good with lemonade and ice
Yum.Yesterday evening the whole family went for a walk to a nearby waterfall, when weve got the kids with us we always have to go up the stream, jumping from rock to rock, I have to admit that its much more exciting that way. While there we found hundreds of little frogs, they were one of those things that you dont notice .and then when you do you see them everywhere. Thorin and Rowan (my daughter) decided that they were way too small to eat so they just picked them up and had a good look, exclaiming that they 'kicked their legs like nutters!'
Rowan fell in up to her waist, which although amusing for the rest of us was not quite so amusing for her, she was especially put out that a squelching noise now emanated from her person She soon recovered though and after we had climbed a few little rock faces we decided to retreat back to the car squelch, squelch, squelch .Down the stream, rock hopping, the rest of us finding it a bit easier than my wife who had our 4 week old baby strapped to her! On the way down the children found some more frogs, some tunnels in the gorse bushes, sheep tracks and droppings, horse, dog and bird tracks .theyre not great at tracks but they can tell those and they can tell which direction the animals are going in .
All in all a nice day .
Heck, that was just yesterday :yikes: I think Ill leave today for now
