#30dayswild - last day & going forward

Well, my last day didn't quite go to plan because my mobile phone suddenly died so I had to take it to the EE shop and lost my ability to take any photos. Luckily I have a camera but unluckily it was flat!!

Soooooooooo I have:

put together a photo of pictures that I haven't publish before but are from the last 30 days

Done my garden design base map which is for my permaculture design which I mentioned at the beginning of the challenge.

I have learnt most of my plants in my garden and I have added the ones I want to keep to this base map so I now know what I am working with.

It was good to see that most of the things that I want to keep in my garden have been added on purpose over the years since my Permaculture Design Couse (PDC)

There is a lot of work still to do but it is going well and I will be planting my tomatoes, squash and day lily plants tomorrow.

I have also started observing the sunshine that reaches which parts of my garden. This is a part of my garden design so I know where there are risks of frost, shade, too much sun, etc. I need to catalogue these properly but here are some photos from 09:30 on a June morning.

The other thing I have been doing is sorting out my internal house wilderness!! I have way too much stuff which is not being used properly.


As part of my permaculture journey, I have been challenging myself to a minimalist month every 4 months. A minimalist month is where you get rid of 1 thing on the 1st of the month; 2 thing on the 2nd of the month; etc to 30 things on the 30th of the month (read more about it here). I have combined this with the idea that if you can pick up a thing and respond to the question "does this bring me joy or enhance my life" with no then I get rid of it (here is a photo of some of the stuff that I got rid of in Feb.)

This last day of the challenge my children joined me and we took 4 bags worth of unneeded stuff to the charity shop and I sold 2 things to others who will get far more use out of them than me.

I know that I spend a lot of time every day tidying my house; dealing with clutter; losing things or misplacing stuff and having to find them, etc. If I can re-distribute the things that I don't need then I am going to waste a lot less of my time with these sorts of things.

Then I can use that time for something more beneficial such as #staywild!!

This challenge has been amazing and I have learnt loads myself and from the wonderful people on the facebook page. I will definitely be doing this challenge next year and would recommend it to everyone.

And here is the last picture I managed to take of the wilderness encroaching on the York City Walls before my phone broke.

#30dayswild day 29 - keep trying

Today was all about confidence and to keep trying and learning more. I have discovered over the last month is that perseverance is key whether it be with taking photos, drawing, gardening, trying to become more observant in this massively busy world or whatever else.

I have taken photo after photo; spent hours trying to video bees, birds, insects, etc.; tried sketching, tried sketching again.

My husband has set up his time lapse camera in our woodland so many times with no result but he keeps trying just in case he gets that magical shot.


For example, this photo of the York railway station framed by trees was the 3rd photo I took because I wanted to get the clock visible through the trees but the wind kept blowing!!

I took a landscape of the water on spider's web but it didn't show the water as well as the one above in portrait. As long as you are enjoying yourself or are getting something out of the experience it is worth it. All the 'failures' are worth it because you might get that magical shot or you learn something about yourself. I have discovered that my phone camera and camera have features on them that I wasn't even aware of before this challenge started.

I gave myself permission to experiment.
I gave myself the time to explore what I like about photos.
I gave myself time to find out more about the equipment I use for photos.
I decided to stop comparing myself to others - I don't have a fancy camera and, to be honest, if I did I am not going to take in on walks to work or taking my children to activities: I am just going to use my phone. My phone has limits so I worked with that.
I gave myself permission to take a little more time over observing my surroundings.
I gave myself permission to take a little more time to walk somewhere so I could observe and take photos or videos.
I took the time to explore different routes to places so I could explore more of the wonderful city in which I live.
I pushed beyond my comfort zone to try my hand at sketching.

I am sure there are many other things but these are the ones I can think of right now.


So today when I got home from town I got my lovely Caran d'Ache pencils, a 'how to draw insects' book and headed off to my friend's house to try my hand at drawing in colour.

It seems weird but I was more worried about the colouring than the sketching because whenever I have done any drawing it has usually been sketching in pencil or pen. I always feel I should leave a picture there and not 'ruin' it.

However the #30dayswild community on facebook gave me the boost I needed to give it a go and here is the result!! It's not perfect but it is mine and it has inspired me to keep having a go.

#30dayswild - days 27-28 - drawing, open door theatre, edible plants and bees again

Well, who would have thought it? Because of the #30dayswild challenge, I decided to have a go at drawing again. I have done some in the past but there has always been that nagging voice in the background: that voice from my art teachers at school: that voice that told me I couldn't draw. I did have one art teacher who told me I was ok because she taught a type of doodly art like this> and I really, really liked doing it but I also really liked the idea of sketching and I was definitely put off that at school.














In later life, I tried my hand at zentangle and again enjoyed that very much but I always wanted to sketch, draw and maybe even do a bit of coloured drawing!!















So thanks again #30dayswild challenge because day 27 I picked up a pen and had a go at sketching. I then posted the pictures to the facebook page to see what people thought and I have been blown away by the response!!


To date, I have 175 likes/loves and loads and loads of fantastic comments. I will be trying my hand at more sketching tomorrow as I am off to an arty friends house for the day and it will be #30dayswild inspired art!!!

Day 29
Today couldn't help but be a nature inspired day because my dd's home education theatre group performed a short version of Midsummer Night's Dream in the York Museum Gardens. The weather didn't hold up which was a shame but luckily we were under trees and nothing could dampen the enthusiasm of the children or all the adults watching. It was fantastic and such a fantastic city center venue in which to perform!!

Another great thing that happened today was that the York Press did a great double-spread piece about home educating in York which featured some of the performers in the play. You can read it here.

One of the reasons I home-educate is because I think children should spend more time in nature. It seemed pertinent to the #30dayswild challenge.

My dh had never been through the relatively new edible wood mentioned in #30daywild blogs here and here so before the performance, we took him there so he could have a look.

I got to take some more photos and try some plants!!

I am hoping to get my hands on some of these types of plants for my garden and I might well be getting an edible daylily from my arty friend tomorrow which I am very excited about.
I love eating daylily nearly as much as nasturtiums.


I also tried to get some pictures and videos of the bees on the lavender but again didn't do too well. I do love the sounds in the background of the video of children in nature and this bee picture didn't turn out to badly.

#30dayswild - My Bee Movie - day26

Today has been a lot about bees. Having noticed that we had bees under our decking I spent a lot of time trying to get pictures and video of them. It wasn't as easy as I thought as can be seen by my very flaky video!! Enjoy the bees as well as the bird sounds regardless!!

I did manage to get other wild pictures and pictures from a different perspective which was fab. And I got to do with this all with my whole family which is rare!!

We visited the York City Art Gallery as they were doing a deal whereby York residents could get in for free.

As has been a strange theme that seems to have taken hold whilst doing this #30dayswild challenge I took pictures of nature finding a hold on the city walls near the art gallery. I did this whilst standing on the decking getting a fabulous new view on this section of city wall as shown below.

...

I was also able, whilst standing on the decking, to take pictures of the edible woods mentioned in this blog here after taking photos of these nature-inspired pieces in the art gallery.

I loved the rainbow coloured pieces.

I also loved that as part of the war exhibition my dd wrote that she thought that growing more plants and trees would make the world a better place for everyone.



Whilst sorting out my photos I found these lovely pictures from Newby Hall. I hope I will get more from there next week when I go there again.

I love patterns in nature like in these plants.

#30dayswild extra post - Children's University and Yorkshire Rows encouraging kids to get outdoors

I was at the Children's University Summer Festival last Thursday as I mentioned in my blog post here. I attended with my 2 children who were collecting their latest certificates.

As part of the ceremony, in-between the different groups of kids being congratulated on their achievements, the main talk was from 2 women who were part of the Yorkshire Rows team who rowed across the Atlantic starting in Dec 2015.



It was an inspiring talk and fantastic to see 'older' women supporting each other to achieve such a massive accomplishment: the four of them became the oldest women to cross the Atlantic achieveing a new Atlantic Record and Guinness World Record.

One of the many reasons I home educate is because I want my children to not associate learning with school but have an innate awareness that learning is something that can be done at any age, in any place, on your own, in a team, etc. These women were a great example of that: they decided to learn a new skill together, learnt it and then went on to do something amazing together. They raised money, broke records and one of them even appeared nude on national TV (by mistake.) They were also very humble at the ceremony: taking the time to congratulate the children on their achievements and encouraging them to try new things.

It got me thinking about the great things that people do if they don't limit themselves by ability (these women couldn't row a few years previous), by age (they didn't let their age stop them), by gender, by status (they are all mothers) or by anything. What a great example to everyone and fitting that I attended this whilst also doing the #30dayswild challenge: you can't really get wilder than rowing across the Atlantic encountering sharks, whales, turtles, flying fish, negotiating a hurricane and dealing with 40-foot waves.

I am not going to add doing that to my list of things to do this month or even next year but it has made me think and my children seemed inspired as well. And that is the other thing I wanted to add in this post: the Children's University are a great organisation which has a specific category for outdoors learning as well as having learning partners with Forestry Commission and English Heritage. In other areas of the country, Forest Schools are also a recognised learning destination.  So Children's University is encouraging wilderness activities. Maybe the Wildlife Trusts could become a learning partner with them?

#30dayswild days 24-25

Day 24

I was working all day so during my lunch break I decided to do a bit of clearing up at the back of  my work. I took all the recyclables home and binned the rest.

Then I did my usual walk but decided to take crazy pictures of nature breaking through pavements, walls and other spaces. I didn't want to do my usual collage so I tested out a new thing for showing pictures. I got it by using this website here and I quite like it.
Unfortunately the website in question deleted my photos when my free trial ran out so you cannot see the photos anymore. Here's a different one!!

Later on I went for a walk with my gorgeous dh and couldn't resist the usual sunset photos on the way to the shops and then again on the way back.

Day 25

Another day at work and I didn't want to do the usual walk at lunch time around the fab York City Walls so I decided to walk down by the river. Having done the plants through pavements photos yesterday I noticed the plants growing through the walls along the riverside. I took some photos and thought I would display these scrolling gallery style (again using the cincopa website.) Again the website in question deleted my photos.

There was a family of geese near where I was so I got photos of them too!! You can scroll through the photos to see them.

I found a feather by the front door of work when I got back as well as 2 on the way back which I created worktop desk art with!!

It was fun working next to feathers for the rest of the afternoon.

I then got this lovely picture from the back of where I work on the way home.

Walking home I really appreciated walking through the Poppy Fields that I blogged about here. And then was really pleased when even though it looked like it was going to rain (see below), it didn't and I got to take this picture of starlings.

Before this #30dayswild challenge I wouldn't have even noticed the birds, let alone have known what type of bird they were!!!

#30dayswild days 21-23 - walking around York

The last 3 days of the #30dayswild challenge has been mostly about noticing more of the nature around my home city of York. I have found that since starting this challenge I am more aware of the green that we are lucky enough to have around the city which maybe I hadn't really noticed before.

I have been trying to tweet via instagram as I have gone along but I thought I would also get my pictures logged here as well!!

Day 21

The pictures below are from my walk around York City on the North West side.

Day 22

Walking into town again along the river when we witnessed a huge branch breaking off a tree.


The noise it made as it broke was amazing!!

This picture shows the gap and the hanging branch.

We then spent 2 hours in the fantastic Museum Gardens which I have mentioned before in my #30dayswild blog here watching my dd play in nature with her friends!!

I snapped a picture of this squirrel but mostly just enjoyed the sun and chatting with my friends!!


Day 23

Whilst my kids were at their weekly Parkour class I took the opportunity to explore the natural wonders of my local business park and was surprised to find 2 ponds which I didn't even know were there. I also collected 3 feathers on my walk and made natural art!!

For the 3rd time in 3 days I needed to walk into town to watch my kids collect their certificates at the Children's University Summer Festival. This celebration has been planned for a few months now so I decided to take the #30dayswild challenge into account and parked up at a friends and walked into town from her and her kids.

This meant that my children and I got to experience a different part of York - photographed below - and I got to eat lunch in her garden (top left.) My friend thinks the big blue tube is something to do with gas. Her daughter thinks it is excellent to climb and I thought it made a great urban-meets-nature photo.

We then came home to another fantastic sunset (with added balloon) 

AND I managed to do 14 out of 14 hours of over 250 steps on my fitbit. 

#30dayswild - day 20 - celebrating the Strawberry Moon

It had to be done didn't it? Celebrating the Summer Solstice Strawberry Moon with the virgin fire in our chiminea? I thought so too so that is what we did. I also took some pictures of the lovely sunset as well!!!

Dh, dd and I all wrote the things we wanted to put behind on and burnt them.

We then wrote the dreams we had for the coming year and burnt those too. You can see the paper in one of the photos!!

I then sat and listened to the dusk while the fire went out.

I stayed up to get a photo of the full moon but it was too cloudy. So I stayed up a bit longer and got some very blurry pictures.

So I switched from my camera to my phone and tried out some different modes and managed to get these few photos whilst also remembering I had also taken the sunset ones on my evening walk.

I love the moon reflecting on the skylight on the roof of my house!!

Still don't quite get a clear picture but I think they came out better than on the camera even though the camera is more powerful.

At least I managed to find some different modes on both my camera and phone which meant that these are better than any I have taken before.

I think these were taken in night mode and you have to hold the camera or phone for a few seconds before it starts processing the pictures. Not easy when you are leaning out of a velux window. Good fun though discovering more ways to take photos!!

And great that I remembered my sunset photos!!



I always love taking pictures in this gap in the houses as you get to see the sky.

This sounds strange but in York it isn't easy to see the sunset because York is very flat and there are lots of houses. To see any sunsets I usually have to go into my attic room and lean out of the velux.

So I always try to add this road to my walks to get a good look at the sky. It always pays off.