#30dayswild days15-17 - nettle tea, recycling, rose and alliums

Wednesday 15th June

I was going to York University to attend the One Planet York Launch so I decided I would do an observation experiment with myself by walking to the Ron Cooke Hub from the York University Library one way and walking back a different way.

I discovered very interesting things such as I do actually have to pay attention if I want to notice things. I was talking to my wonderful brother for part of the journey in the morning (hence the longer walk because I went round and round the campus whilst still talking to him.) It meant that I wasn't observant at all. I did however notice that there was way less bird song on the campus and wondered if this was due to lack of trees.

The transition between walking on campus and then onto Field Lane was a noticeable increases in birdsong which surprised me. The gardens on Field Lane were filled with flowers, hedges, trees and this seemed to encourage wildlife way more than the green on campus.

I still love it on both campuses because there is a lot of green and water which is great. However at present I prefer the West Campus just because of the diversity of green with trees, bushes, lawns, wildflowers, etc.

I spotted Jack by the Hedge on the way back so now I have nailed that one I need to move onto another edible plant that I can try and recognise out in the wild!!!

I also discovered this bug in my filofax and managed to get a picture and with the help of facebook and instagram friends discovered it was a ladybird larva so thanks #30dayswild - I learnt a new thing today!!!

I then started my Ecology online course whilst waiting for my dh to finish up at work.

It looks really good and shouldn't take me too long. I have been meaning to learn more about ecology for ages so thanks again #30dayswild for giving the impetus I needed to actually just get on with it.

The link is here in case you are interested yourself.



Thursday 16th June

Today was about learning the plants in my garden which I mentioned at the beginning of this challenge in this blog post. Whilst the kids were busy playing with their friends I took the opportunity to check if I could remember the plants that my Mum had told me about 2 weeks ago and I didn't do too badly!!

I checked under the trampoline and got my photos.

Obviously I know that this plant to the left is Jack by the Hedge and although it is growing ok here some of the plants nearby at struggling without support so I thinking that they should be moved to over by the fence. However I definitely recognise this plant now even in the wild which is great.

The eaten plant to the right is wild garlic or ransoms and I thought it had disappeared last year but it came back this year. It isn't faring too well probably not helped by the wild geranium next to it.

And then we have this other variety of geranium (Geranium phaeum) near by with the purple patches on the leaves. The chickens love eating this. Then there were the yellow and red poppies. Pretty little plants on the edge of the trampoline.

Trying to discover what plants are edible isn't always easy so resources like this or this are really helpful.

It was then time to chop up my dried nettles and store them ready for a cup of tea. Oh and then have a cup of nettle tea in my wonderful see-through glass infuser tea mug from Marks and Spencers here. Well worth the £7.50 I spent on it. See below.

Friday 17th June


A home education trip to meet fellow home educators at Castle Howard resulted in watching kids playing, having a picnic, trying to get fresh water oyster shells out of the lake, photographing peacocks, chatting and generally having a good time.

The weather held even though it had promised rain and the sun even came out once we had left the playground area and gone to admire the walled gardens.

I am not normally a fan of roses but I took the time to smell all the roses as part of #30dayswild.

It was really fun working out the roses that I actually like the smell of - namely The Nun to the right (which smells like a typical rose but not too overwhelming) and the Leander rose which smelt like peaches and is now my favourite rose.

I also learnt about alliums and get some lovely pictures on my phone including the purple one in the middle with a lovely, very yellow bee on it.

When I then started writing this blog I wondered whether ransoms (also being of the onion family) also had an allium name and they do - allium ursinum. I love alliums!!!

They were all so beautiful and the one in the left corner made me laugh by being called allium purple and round - genius!!

I then did my bit for the wild by making sure that I collected and brought home as much recycling from the youth club I volunteer at as I could and putting it in my recycling bin.

And bringing back the tuck shop emptied for my son to store his lego pieces in.

All in all a fab few days of #30dayswild moments and pictures.

January Juicy Jewels

Let's start with a wonderful example of how we are so down on ourselves about our appearance and not being good enough - watch here.  Notice how the women describe themselves in negative terms but describe others in positive terms.

Fantastic beach art - view here.

Watch a free diver spend four minutes holding his breath and diving into an abyss.

Watch the Centre for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy's film Enough is Enough here.  It is the based on the book 'Enough is Enough' by Rob Dietz and Dan O'Neill.  It is a book about the need for a new kind of economy.  Due to the overuse of the earth's finite resources and excessive consumption failing to improve our lives Dietz and O'Neill give us a realistic alternative to the perpetual pursuit of economic growth. "They explore specific strategies to conserve natural resources, stabilize population, reduce inequality, fix the financial system, create jobs, and more – all with the aim of maximizing long-term well-being instead of short-term profits."

Silliness that resulted in 3 men being charged with removing food due for landfill from an Iceland skip.  Read here.  Luckily after much petition signing the case was dropped by the CPS.

Ashton Kutcher's Teen Choice Awards sppech - watch here or read the good bits here -
"I wanted to share [some] things [which] I think helped me be here today. So, it’s really 3 things. The first thing is about opportunity. The second thing is about being sexy. And the third thing is about living life.

So first opportunity. I believe that opportunity looks a lot like hard work. When I was 13 I had my first job with my Dad carrying shingles up to the roof, and then I got a job washing dishes at a restaurant, and then I got a job in a grocery store deli, and then I got a job in a factory sweeping Cheerio dust off the ground. And I’ve never had a job in my life that I was better than. I was always just lucky to have a job, and every job I had was a stepping stone to my next job and I never quit my job until I had my next job. And so opportunities look a lot like work.

Number two. Being sexy. The sexiest thing in the entire world, is being really smart. And being thoughtful. And being generous. Everything else is crap, I promise you. It’s just crap that people try to sell to you to make you feel like less, so don’t buy it. Be smart, be thoughtful, and be generous.

The third thing is something that I just re-learned when I was making this movie about Steve Jobs. And Steve Jobs said when you grow up you tend to get told that the world is the way that it is, and that your life is to live your life inside the world and try not to get in too much trouble, and maybe get an education and get a job and make some money and have a family.

But life can be a lot broader than that when you realize one simple thing, and that is that everything around us that we call life was made up by people who are no smarter than you, and you can build your own things, you can build your own life that other people can live in. So build a life. Don’t live one, build one. Find your opportunities, and always be sexy."

Scary music video where a woman gets photo-shopped throughout the video.  Watch here.

An interesting article about why phonics don't work - read here.

Five foods that are costing the earth - read here but if you don't want to, they are bluefin tuna (bluefin populations don't stand up to heavy fishing pressure), conventional coffee (substantial use of herbicides, pesticides, etc.), factory-farmed beef (replacing tropical forest for corn and soy to feed the cows), genetically modified corn (violates many sustainable boundaries) and palm oil (rainforest destruction).

Great fake underground signs - see here.

Fantastic artist - she does charcoal with her whole body - see here - it's amazing.

Fab acrobatic gymnastic routine - see here.

Look at the state of the world through pictures of where different children around the world sleep.

Mapping emotions of the body - see here - happiness and love look pretty good.

"He doesn't wear shoes, doesn't wear shoes and brushes his teeth with a pine cone" - read about Mike Dodge who lives in a rainforest here.

Wood, potential mushrooms plus Zopa update

We went for a walk along York river and here are some of the bits of wood we found along the way.  Very happy with that and also think we found a good place to go mushroom hunting in Autumn as well.  

Sad news that Flapjack the last of our three original chickens died during the night.  That means we are down to 3 but we seem to be getting enough eggs from them not to consider getting any more at the moment.

More good news though - the money we put on Zopa that I mentioned back in October has all been loaned out to people!!  Really chuffed about that as when I checked before Christmas we had only lent out about 20% of the money we had put in.

I'm a bicarb babe and mushroom forager

Well I gave in this morning after nearly 14 weeks of not washing my hair with shampoo.  I washed it with a bicarb of soda solution as it was not looking like it was ever going to stop looking wet so that was that.  I am now a converted bicarb babe as it worked really well.  Not sure how often I am going to have to use the bicarb but will keep you informed as I go along.
Looking freshly hair-washed I attended my last acupuncture session.  It went well and was relaxing as ever but due to it being my last session I had to get them to take a picture of the needles in my back as I wanted to see what they looked like so here is the photo.

I then zoomed home and went on a mushroom foraging walk with Jesper which was brill.  I would highly recommend this bloke as he is fun, informative and great with kids http://www.jesperlaunder.com/.  We found loads of mushrooms and had a great feast at the end of the afternoon.

Hopefully going to do some more walks with this guy over the next few years as he does herb walks and foraging stuff.  I now have a list of things that I need to do with the load of non-edible mushrooms we came home with.  We have loads of hoof mushrooms which can be used for tinder as well as dried out and used like leather (I could do with a new wallet after getting burgled last week!!)  We also have loads of the birch polypore mushroom which we used on the walk as antibacterial plasters and can be used as a knife sharpener and tinder.  Watch this space to see if we manage to use our collection of mushrooms for any of these things!!

We even found some elderberries on our walk which you can see in the mushroom photo above and we also collected some wood for our wood-burning stove.

And here is our first mushroom plaster made from one of the birch polypores we brought home.  Zack was most impressed (although you cannot really tell from this photo!!)  How cool that I got to show you that before I had even finished my blog entry and the plasters self-stick.

Anyway I am signing off to go and eat gluten free apple crumble made from our cooking apple tree crop which is nearly coming to an end :-(  XxX

isn't nature abundant - free food and herbal recipe

Been major busy since the last post and doing that busy stuff has meant I have lost 4 lbs of weight.  As I said in my previous post I am not doing the diet thing but it is nice to occasionally get on the scales and find that some weight has disappeared whatever.  My 6 weeks of elimination diet has actually finished but I am not rushing back to wheat and diary any time soon.  I did eat a piece of swiss roll the other day and woke at 3am in the morning with a gurgly tummy and couldn't get back to sleep so not sure if that is a coincidence or the wheat.  Got my appointment with the nutritionalist on Monday so will see what they say about everything.  Definitely going to cut back on wheat though and probably try and eat a lot less dairy as I haven't missed it as much as I thought I would.  How long this idea will last we will see!!!  

Well went to an event on Wednesday and learnt some interesting stuff about herbal medicine and foraging.  Here is a mindmap of the info I learnt.

Here is one of the recipes we learnt when we were there:  onion syrup for coughs or colds.  Here goes ->  sterilise a jam jar and lid; layer chopped onion at the bottom of the jar; then layer sugar (or honey if you want more expensive/posh stuff LOL); then layer onion; then sugar all the way to near the top ending with a layer of sugar; seal the jar and leave for 24 hours.  You can start getting syrup off and using after 12 hours but after 24 hours strain the onions off and start using.  It will keep in the fridge for a few weeks.  You can add other things like ginger, cloves, etc but the basic recipe is just onion and sugar and who doesn't have those ingredients lying around?  The lady doing the workshop managed to cram alot into an hour - I was very impressed.

Today we went out for the day and this is what we came back with for free - result!!  How awesome - you have to love food for free.   So Dave is going to be making pie, cake and crumble all weekend!!

The only sad-ish news recently is that I am not doing my Open University (OU) course starting tomorrow as I feel it is the wrong time to start more stuff.  I am looking to do something more general and more fun maybe in February depending upon what else I am doing at the time.  My choice though and I do have a tendency to overdo stuff and therefore end up getting overwhelmed.  Also I could just get a computing book and learn from that rather than waste money on another OU course.  I am however helping a few people set up websites so that will keep my hand in computer wise so...all is good