Peekiboo!

Our house-martins now have a little window on the world. My husband took this photo earlier this evening! Aren't they adorable. This is their second brood of the season.

morning bath

These charming little birds - mostly Blue-Tits - were having a joyful time in our bird bath. It was wonderful to watch! Naomi, (my older daughter) managed to sneak by and take some pictures so I could share with you.

My Next Jam Jar Project!

I have transformed some old empty jam jars into - (drum roll please) - jam jars!

Plum and Ginger jam jars to be precise!

I am excited to share this with you, because unlike many of my talented blogging pals, I have never attempted to make jam before. I found that it wasn't such a big mystery after all and want to encourage you if you haven't tried it before to give it a try.

I didn't use a recipe. I just tried to remember what my mum does. I weighed the de-stoned plums - (very kindly given to me from my friends garden) and then added almost the same amount of sugar and some ginger. You could use root ginger or dried powdered ginger. I just did it to taste. Then I boiled the mixture gently until when I tested it on a saucer it was starting to set. I seem to remember my mum showing me that a drop of jam on the saucer when cooled slightly will wrinkle when you push your finger along it.

I washed my jars and dried them in the oven putting them in cold and then turning the oven to a low heat and leaving them there a while to dry out and sterilise.

I allowed the jam to cool a little before putting it in the jars, and then - the best bit for me - finishing touches- I made some pretty labels.

A handy hint for jam makers - If you are going to put sticky lables on your jam, just use ordinary paper and fix them to your jars with PVA water based glue, so that when you want to re-use the jars again, the labels will soak off easily and not leave any sticky residue.

..and I finish off todays post with a little peek at our baby House Martins. They are chirping away beside my kitchen window.

moths

We were honoured by the visit of two lovely moths yesterday. This one is a Large Emerald, and it chose our study door to perch on. ( I am rather embarrassed now I see how dirty the door is. That is on my list of jobs for this afternoon!)

It looked funny when my little girl peered through the glass at it! And this rather grand specimin is a Buff Ermine. He was really fluffy. This is the first time we have seen either of these varieties, so we were pretty excitedly flicking through the books trying to identify them. What a treat. They stayed all day.

In my garden today...

Mr Pheasant is strutting though the garden like he owns the place...

...and here we see the second layer of Mrs Swallow's nest, right outside my kitchen window.

Tomorrow, I'll try and get a shot of her building the next layer. Or better still, I'll get Naomi to take a shot of her!

A lovely walk...

We went for a long walk on Saturday, just me and my girls. Actually, it was a lot longer than I had intended - about 3 and a half hours. I'd forgotten how long the route took - and we only read the information after we'd been on the walk. We managed to keep the little one going by bribing her with brambles. e.g. "If you make it to that next tree, you can have another one! " It worked quite well, but my feet were really sore when I got back. The walk was in an amazing place called Monadh Mhor which is a pine woodland that has been transformed back to its original Pine bog woodland Habitat. There is a circular walking/cycling track around it, and it is very beautiful. We saw many species of dragonflies and butterflies, and the wild scabious and heather were purplicious! Photos by Naomi.

This was my husband and son passing us on their cycle trip.

Brambles

I can't believe that the brambles are ripening already. Where has the year gone to?

BRAMBLE. Isn't that a lovely word? It's sort of makes me think of going for a country walk and getting purple stained fingers and lips, and listening to birdsong....I guess a country AMBLE...So we picked some brambles and Naomi made us a delicious bramble and apple pie.

Here you can see it cooking, but it didn't last long - so sorry no photo of the finished pie. Well, I have to say, this blog post was a bit of a RAMBLE...I'm off !

W.I.P.

As I am currently in the middle of so many things and have nothing very exciting to show you, here are Mr Owl and Mr Peacock from a trip to the Black Isle Wildlife Park last month.

Not only have we not finished Naomi's bedroom yet, we have now ripped apart Ben's shower room as the shower wasn't working, the toilet was leaking, and well, it is just a grotty little room, and it was time for some action. I'll try and get some before pictures for you so that I can do that whole 'before and after' thing for a change.

Sightseeing

It seems a shame that we live in such a lovely place yet only really take time to appreciate the beauty when we have visitors and we take them to do some sightseeing.We recently visited this beautiful waterfall. These are called Rogie Falls.
It was very Lord of the Rings-ish at this spot.
We visited Loch Achulty. The water was crystal clear and the surrounding views breathtaking.

It always feels like a holiday for us too when we have visitors. It was such fun. This time it was my three lovely nieces. Such charming young ladies. Haven't laughed so much since, well - the last time we saw them. Not surprisingly, we haven't had much time to finish of decorating Naomi's room yet. Had yet another leak fixed yesterday! Hopefully that's all the hold ups for that room over with for the time being!

Decorating Blues

I've been rather splattered with paint lately as I am in the process of decorating Naomi's bedroom. Alas, nothing ever seems to go quite as smoothly as one would hope. I lifted her old carpet today to discover that there is water coming in from the shower in the next room. Everything is now on hold while we try to locate and fix the problem.

This is a totally unrelated picture - I didn't think a damp patch on the floor made for great blog photos. This amazing looking moth caterpillar is chomping his way through my golden hop plant. But that's OK, because it is a rather energetic specimen - the hop that is. I am always having to chop it back because it strays all over the place.

Summertime, and the livin' is easy...

It's been a most enjoyable time lately as we have been out and about, spending time with my brother and sister in-law and family who were up for their annual Highland holiday.

We've visited the park...

...had plenty fun and fresh air...

...been to see the Moscow State Circus - that was really cool!

...and meantime, the garden continues to bloom and flourish. Already we are collecting seed heads for next year from some flowers. These seed heads are from some pretty purple violas. Exquisite don't you think?
Remember the pot I painted back in this post? Well here it is planted up with Alyssum and Osteospernum.

Beach fun

On Saturday we had a wonderful afternoon out at Nairn beach. Soft golden sand, sunshine and sandwiches. A perfect combination, (until the sand gets into the sandwiches). My lovely 18 year old still enjoys digging a big hole at the beach, and here is my 3 year old checking it for depth. Nope, still not quite deep enough.

Anyone seen my little girl?

We also flew our large kite which we bought years ago, and had never had out the bag. It was the perfect spot for kite flying. Miles of open space. It looked really stunning against the blue of the sky.

I've been tagged - here goes....

I have just been tagged by Gifts of Creation.

This is the 4th picture in my

4th picture folder on my computer.

It was taken about a month ago when

we were out for a walk at a local park.

I am now supposed to tag 4 people to also

post their 4th picture from their 4th picture folder.

so....hmmmm...who shall I pick on ?....

OK...I tag....

Alys Paterson

Gigibird

Kathryn Estelle

Lil Kim

Happy 2009

Greetings to my readers.

I hope you have had a happy and healthy holiday.

It's been kind of busy here lately,

so I haven't been blogging so much,

but I have been dreaming up some tutorials

for you, so look out for them this year.

The photo is of Mrs Blackbird having her breakfast.

Every morning Gabriella sits at her

window to do a spot of birdwatching.

She already knows many of the names

of the different birds. Smart girl!

Frosty !

I don't think I've ever seen such lovely frost!

This is the road to our house.

Freezing fog everywhere.

It's a good day to sit next to a roaring fire!

I hope you are all enjoying your holidays.

Morning light and munchkins.

This was around 8:30am

That is frost not snow.

It's the view from my kitchen window.

I wish I could capture how beautiful it was.

The photo isn't as good as the real thing.

My mum made a little pullover for my munchkin.

I sewed a little felt cat on it this morning.

Gabsy chose the colour.

on a cold and frosty afternoon...

My husband took these pictures last Saturday afternoon.

Such beauty everywhere.

Even thought the flowers are gone,

the seedheads remain, and they look stunning.

And today, it is snowing again, and

somebody is desperate to go outside!