snuggle up.....

turns out that were not the only ones trying to snuggle up

and get cosy in this little old house of mine!

autumn is....

a season that inspires us to take lots of nature walks.

autumn is.....

a season that inspires us to craft.

preparing for autumn

although it feels like we're in the middle of summer, the reality is that it's autumn and the cold whether will be moving in any day now. so what better way to welcome autumn than by beginning the autumn chores, weeding, digging, mulching, collecting the first batch of leaves for making leaf mould, you catch my drift right? we are busy preparing the allotment for next year.

another job that i have done today is clean out the compost bin on my allotment. i want to start making my own compost for next year, i'm quite excited about this as i haven't really attempted this before and another thing that excites me is the fact that i won't have to bin all my vegetable peelings etc (forgive me if im boring you talking about compost, but i can't help it, i'm excited).

and as the whether was soooooo glorious we invited some of the family along and had good old picnic and everything else that comes along with a picnic, bike riding, tree climbing, children wondering off in all directions and finishing off with a water fight!

i only remembered my camera while i was eating, hence the several shots of food and none of the actual allotment, maybe next time insha'Allah.

harvest

although this relationship has been a rocky one, and although we didn't get to spend much time together, we didn't bond very well or hit it off immediately, i know it's going to be a long term relationship (between myself and my allotment that is).

we didn't get a lot of anything, but we did get a little bit of everything, Alhamdulillah.

autumn/winter ice sculptures

after a very boring week of workbooks and worksheets, i decided to give the kids a break today. after a couple of hours of reading to each other and watching programmes about fishing and another about animals that live in holes, the kids went out to play. their discovery of this block of ice and leaves fascinated the children, and got them really excited, it also gave me some inspiration to make our own ice sculptures! so we got to work looking for whatever we could find that could go into our sculptures.


here's what we found


we arranged these objects in a glass

poured in some water

and left them in the freezer for a few hours

and voila, beautiful ice sculptures to admire, well for a few hours anyway.

the kids absolutely loved this activity, it was very exciting for them, they waited impatiently all day, checking if it was ready or not, i would definitely recommend this activity to anyone.

,

nature detectives

autumn is one of those times of the year when we can truly reconnect with nature, there is so much going on all around us, literally the world is changing, right in font of our very eyes, it's a beautiful time and we should make the most of it! this week we went out with our home schooling group, our goal was to discover the signs of autumn. so with our wellies on, our clip boards in hand and our magnifying glasses at the ready, off we went, to one of the sisters allotments, it was a secluded and peaceful place where the kids could run around freely, there were loads of tree's (so plenty of leaves to collect), it was a really nice outing.

(willow weaving)

these are the treasures that we came home with!

what are we going to do with all that? watch this space!

goodbye sunshine, hello rain

it's the chill in the air, the last batch if my cherry tomatoes, the empty fruit tree's, the ripening pumpkins, the sign of harvest put up at our local church, the nights drawing in, that tell me that summer has well and truly gone and autumn is here!