The good life

My dream in life has always been to live just like Tom and Barbara in 'The good life'. To be as self sufficiently as possible, putting in hard work to get something truly marvellous back.

 It's the hippy in me fighting to break free!

At the old house, I 'dabbled' in growing my own. There was already a greenhouse erected when we moved in so I tried my hand at peppers, rhubarb, tomatoes and potatoes. The potatoes were the most successful, only giving us one meals worth but did taste yummy. The tomatoes tasted awful and the peppers never amounted to much. Although I do believe this was a common problem with most growers and not just me being really bad at it.
The new house being rented, doesn't offer much scope for a patch. We have made a herb garden for the kids and the children managed to plant some tomato and bean seeds earlier in the year which we sent to Nannies to grow. Again, we managed a meals worth of each!

I am now getting one step closer to the good life. I am seriously looking to getting a few chucks early next year (thanks to our trip to Coombe Mill for making me thoroughly obsessed with the little things. Who new they were so cuddly?), I've discovered how to make my own butter (get me!) and bread and the biggie, I've managed to secure a plot at the local village allotment!!

SO excited! Every area I've lived in before has had year long waiting lists but here, the parish council has recently secured a piece of land to use as an allotment and I have managed to bag a plot.


The 'lottie' (as I've discovered those in the know affectionately call it after joinng a few very helpful facebook communities) is literally a 2 minute walk from the house, is ready to use now and is just £25 per year, so it couldn't be more ideal.

This is all very well and good, but obviously my past 'dabblings' in growing has not proved much and I am a complete novice at it all.

I have, like I said, joined a few communities, ordered some recommended books and subscribed to 'Grow your own' magazine in the hope of actually getting some decent vegetables out of this.

Main thing is really, that I wanted it for the kids.

I want them to get stuck right in with it all and really embrace the whole thing with me. To learn about where food comes from, how we grow it and to enjoy eating it all too.

They are both very 'outdoorsy' anyway - what kid isn't? And love to get their wellies on and get dirty so I think we could do well! They loved going up yesterday to see our plot and exploring others....

Aim is to have one half of the plot for the kids to experiment with and to keep them entertained enough for me to have the other half for 'serious' veg growing.

I have a raised bed on order for them and will aim for easy things like strawberries (or whatever else may be seasonal) to start them off.

I have the job on my half of getting the soil ready for planting next year now. It is currently grassed over, but I'm hoping to go with the 'no-dig' method of lasagne gardening which will require us to go on lots of woodland walks to collect lots of 'brown matter' to layer up and create some lovely fertile ground to work with.

As you can tell, I'm slightly excited about this whole new adventure and can't wait to get stuck right in. I'm hoping to bore you all and blog the progress as we go!!!

A mini Autumn photoshoot

After being lured out from blogger hibernation last week to post about our fabulous holiday at Coombe mill, I was prompted to look back on my blog, what posts I did, which were my most popular, which were my own personal favourites and where is all dwindled out.

I discovered that most of my posts were in the Autumn months - Autumn: play dough meets nature, Decorated pumpkins, Autumn is nigh, Halloween cornflake dragon nests. These were my most popular posts and my own favourites. Why is that? I just love Autumn and everything that it is about and I guess with that passion comes a want to write about it.

Golden leaves, conkers, scavenger hunts, halloween, bonfire night, welly walks, splashing in puddles, wrapping up warm, hot chocolates, stews and roast dinners, squirrels, badgers, foxes.....

The weather is so varied, which has been evident this week more than any.

Beginning of the week we were in the garden playing in water in just t-shirts, enjoying sunny park trips and walks along the canal.

Coombe Mill: A family holiday on a farm

So, it's been a while since I last blogged. It's really been a while.

No real reason why. The longer I didn't blog, the harder it became. I didn't feel like I had a 'come back' post. Although we have had lots of fun over the past 10 months, nothing seemed blog worthy somehow.

Until I went on holiday 2 weeks ago. I had the most amazing time, I just HAD to share!

We went to Coombe mill for the week.

You, inside a snow globe!

Here's a really quite but cute Christmas craft we did last week. The kids had a helping hand in making them and they have enjoyed shaking them ever since!

A play dough tea party

Sharpie Pen Vs Porcelain Paint Mugs

Dare I say the dreaded word so soon? Well, it is November (already!) so I'm starting to think about Christmas presents.

Throughout the year me and my 2 year old have done a lot of home made gifts, mainly painted mugs and plates, which have gone down really well. My 2 year old loves painting full stop so it was great fun for her to do. Here are some we did using potato printing (bunting), hand prints, stencil (crown), finger print dots and free hand strips, foam letter prints, which I then 'tidied' up with a porcelain paint pen. Wrapped in cellophane and tied with ribbon they looked great! Vibrant colours, high gloss and went on easily. 

As fun as it was, it didn't allow for much detail so when I saw on pinterest that you could use sharpie pens on ceramic I was thrilled. I am going for a 'Tea for Two' theme for my mums presents this year complete with biscuits, chocolates, tea and mug cosies etc, all hand made. SO, I just needed to do the teapot and mugs. 

Again, looking for inspiration on pinterest I used a few designs that caught my eye and adapted them to my own. 

Here is the result.

Simple but effective I think. And will go nice with her red and white theme kitchen.

My two year old also wanted to get involved so she drew around her hand and coloured in the larger areas while I doodled in the middle. The pens were easy to work with and great for accuracy. No drying time but less vibrant in colour than the paints once baked and haven't checked it in the dishwasher yet.

Go on, give it a try for yourself. A mug for canvas - what can you design? 

Silent Sunday

Recipe: Orange & Carrot Muffins with a crunchy oat topping

Silent Sunday

Halloween Spider Cake & Bonfire Cake

I baked a couple of cakes for Halloween and Bonfire night which were so easy, perfect for a novice (like me!) but looked great so thought I would share them with you for inspiration.

I won't go into the ins and outs of how to make them as I think they are fairly self explanatory, I'll keep it short but if anyone wants a full guide just shout!

Bonfire Night Recipe: Cinnamon Catherine Wheels

Here's an easy peasy recipe the kids get involved with for some yummy cinnamon swirls aptly renamed for Bonfire night as Cinnamon Catherine Wheels.

What you need

375g pack of ready rolled puff pastry

75g Caster Sugar

75g Softened butter

2 tbsp Ground Cinnamon

Sultana's (optional)

1 Egg beaten with 2 tbsp Milk

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200°c/ Gas 6. Roll your puff pastry out into a flat rectangle.

2. Beat together the butter, sugar and cinnamon in a bowl and then spread over the pastry. Scatter with sultana's if desired the roll the rectangle pastry from the short side into a sausage. Chill for a minimum of 10 minutes (the longer the better as it will make it easier to cut!).

3. Cut into 1cm wide slices and place flat on a baking sheet. Press them slightly so they spread out a little. Chill for 20 minutes (Or you can freeze them at this point. Open-freeze until solid then freeze in a sealed container for up to one month. Bake from frozen (brush with egg mixture and sprinkle with caster sugar half way through)

4. Brush with egg mixture, sprinkle with sugar and bake for 18-20 minutes until golden. 

Best served warm, sprinkled with sugar. Yummy with custard or just as nice cooled as an afternoon teatime treat!

Source

Halloween: Chocolate Cornflake 'insert scary creature here' Nests!

We probably all think of chocolate cornflake nests as traditionally an Easter thing, but they are so simple to make, kids love making them and they are pretty tasty too.

So, I decided to re-make them for Halloween as Dragon and Dinosaur nests, but you could do them as any scary creature you wanted to really!

All you need to do is follow the same recipe used for our Easter ones HERE but in place of the mini eggs we used Cadburys new green mini 'screme' eggs and some which other halloween-ish mini eggs with red caramel inside, simply cut in half.

As my two year old is obsessed with sprinkles too, we added some orange shreds sprinkled on some and used some toffee sauce on others to make them extra gooey (and tasty!)

I also had the idea of candy floss/ spun sugar put over the top as cobwebs for spiders webs. I didn't have time to try it, but someone could.... I think it would look good with a few of the small plastic spiders dotted around for display too. 

OK, ok, so I know spider technically don't have 'nests' like this but it's all for the fun of halloween eh?

Leaf art: animals and fairies

At the moment in seems as though we cannot go on even the tiniest of walks without collecting a carrier bag full to the brim with leaves!

The different shapes and colours, so many varieties too, means that we just have to pick them up!

So - what to do with them once they are home? Seems a shame for them to sit in a box forever more.

Halloween: Decorated pumpkins

Everyone has to have pumpkins at Halloween right?

But, as pretty as traditional carved pumpkins are, they really can prove difficult to do for any adult, let alone a child. There is of course, lots of fun to be had in hollowing them out but the actual cutting part is one for those a bit older.

Having 3 preschoolers, we decided to decorate our pumpkins instead.

Armed with paint, pens, glitter, gems and sequins the kids had free reign on what they wanted to do with their pumpkin.

The little ones (12 and 16 months old) used paint and their fingers to cover the pumpkins and the nearly 3 year old had a whale of a time with glitter & gems.

They are not scary by any means, really rather pretty actually. Great to display and last much much longer than those which have been hollowed out.

Autumn: Play dough meets nature

Here I have 2 activities to do with play dough after going on a nature trail collecting lovely Autumn bits like leaves, cones, twigs etc

Sunny October?

Maybe a bit of an odd post but felt like I should post it seen as though we started the journey on here...

Way back in March, yes 7 whole months ago, we planted some sunflower seeds in pots and posted about it HERE.

We planted a lot and gave many of them away as gifts for easter.

Silent Sunday

Gel Sensory Bags

I know I said in my last post that we love messy play BUT sometimes, just sometimes, it is nice to get all the fun of messy play, without the mess!

Impossible?

Nothing is ever impossible ;-)

Sensory bags are the answer!

Shaving foam sensory play

We love messy play! And for a new sensory experience today we tried using shaving foam.

I kind of wanted to make this 'more exciting' than just shaving foam in a tray. It just didn't sound too interesting and I even tweeted for ideas to include.

But what do I know? I'm not a 1 year old who has never touched this weird fluffy white stuff before... Then it IS exciting!

I'm so glad I did just go with the basics for this activity. I did it with an 11 month old, 15 month old and 2.5 year old and they all absolutely loved it.

The younger two were just simply amazed at it's feel between there fingers and giggled every time the squidged it in their fists.

Poking it, Patting it, Smearing it, squelching it. All doing an amazing job on developing fine motor skills!

The 2 year old loved being a 'big girl' and being able to squirt her own shaving foam out as she wanted.

I also gave her some pots and cups to incorporate her love of role play into this activity. It quickly became a cafe set up and she was asking for sprinkles to go on her hot chocolate with whipped cream.

I gave her cocoa powder and she was in her element making all sorts of concoctions, mixing away like a busy little bee.

Autumn is nigh....

I love autumn. It is my favourite season of all.

Just as well it's not Summer, as that never happened did it!

So, our theme at Little Chicks is just that - Autumn. Official start date 21st September and the signs are already beginning to show. The frosty mornings, the golden colours and the seasonal vegetables.

I have lots planned for this theme, some we've already done like tissue paper tree's and scratch card leaves but our favourite so far has been our trip to the PYO farm yesterday.

We went to learn about autumn fruit and vegetables, seeing ones that have just started to grow like the pumpkins ready for October, fruits that are just dying off that are from the summer season like strawberries and ones that are just ripe now, ready for picking.