Saturday - 12th June
We went away at the weekend and spent some fab time walking around College Lake, watching lightning, listening to thunder, making metal leaves, walking up Ivinghoe Beacon and generally having a great time with some of my family.
It was lovely visiting another Wildlife Trust place and watching my kids sharing the wildlife with their younger cousins. It was also amazing seeing a red kite fly just overhead whilst eating what looked like a fish. It was a shame I didn't manage to get a picture of it though but I did remember to tweet about it!!
Again I realised that I normally miss so much and that the #30dayswild challenge has made me appreciate the beauty of nature more than I realised. We only ventured up Ivinghoe Beacon because I wanted to get some nature pictures and we went even though it was raining. It was so much fun though!!!
Monday 13th June
I snapped the picture of the overgrown ditch in Berkhamsted (above, top right) because I am now more attuned to seeing green.
I spotted Jack by the Hedge at College Lake which I already knew about but I now recognise because I am trying to learn more edible plants. I am especially trying to learn about the ones in my garden and I have Jack by the Hedge underneath my trampoline.
I enjoyed making the metal leaves so much I bought more wire so that I can make some at home or in the woods!!
I even remembered to use my other camera which has a better zoom.
It was the only way I could get a decent picture of the chalk lion on the side of the hill near Whipsnade Zoo from the top of the beacon.
Again being more attuned to nature I got some rubbish video of the fabulous sunny, stormy sky on the way home. Watch and marvel at my videoing skills below!!
Tuesday 14th June
Today I decided to do my #30dayswild task by watching some of the webcams and it was great. Until doing this challenge I didn't even know there were such things that you could watch for free.
Here are some of the photos I got but it really is better if you go and watch them yourself here and here.
We went to Moorlands Nature Reserve again today after the rains and it was wonderful to see all the plants with water on them.
It was also fascinating to see the humidity it was creating as can be seen vaguely in the picture to the right.
Having been to the same place last week on day 3 of the #30dayswild challenge (blog and pictures here) is was interesting to see that a fair few of the blossoms were already gone and were scattered all over the path. Again I found myself trying to identify bird calls which seems to be my thing as part of this challenge. I found a little pond whilst the family walked off and got some lovely video of raindrops causing ripples in the pond whilst the birds were singing all around (see below). Although Moorlands is a relatively small woodland it is amazing how many plants, ponds and birds there are as well as carvings, seating areas, a treehouse and great trees for climbing. It is definitely a family favourite and it was great to see it whislt there were still lovely, colourful rhododendron blooms before they all go.
Just before getting back to the entrance of the woodland I heard these baby birds chirping for food and managed to get a video of them being fed which was great.
Day 11 of #30dayswild
I knew day 11 was going to be a tricky day because I was working a half day before heading off to see family down South which would leave very little time for wilderness stuff. Luckily I used the #30dayswild app before going bed and was told to write a haiku!! I love poetry so thought I could manage that whilst on the 3 hour car trip. However I didn't have to wait until then because I was woken up by birdsong at 5.40 am and I decided to write haiku about the birds that heard. Here are my attempts:
5.40 bird song / awake too early, so wrong / wake up call ding dong
6 o'clock birdsong / exchanging calls like ping pong / all still going strong
Now film ref birdsong / the crows singing bring it on / up where we belong
6.40 birdsong / small birds are still going strong / singing on and on
6.50 birdsong / a pigeon's cooing along / filling in plainsong
I then came across the road crossing geese on the way to work which shows you that even in central York nature is all around.
They made me chuckle because they crossed the first road (1st video) and waited to cross the double carriageway when it was clear (2nd video). This is something they have obviously done before!!
I took the opportunity on day 8 of the #30dayswild to walk a slightly longer way to my appointment over 3 miles away so that I took in 4 of the green spaces in York between my house and my appointment. I also decided that I would take this opportunity to be more aware of my surroundings.
Fishponds Wood is a nature reserve between Danebury Drive and Rosedale Avenue quite near my house and is the big green space on the map below. There are various ways that you can into it but it is a lovely green space right in the middle of Acomb, York.
There are always loads of birds singing there which is fab and because I knew it was going to take me just over an hour to walk to my appointment I set off extra early to make sure I had time to enjoy my suroundings on route.
What I also love about this nature reserve is that there are various different ways you can get out of it so you can always walk through it even if you are heading along Danebury Drive as I was - it is definitely nicer than walking along the road!!
Then is was on to Acomb Green which I skirted around the edge capturing this lovely picture of a laburnum and cherry in blossom before heading onto Hob Moor. Having spotted so many concreted driveways walking down to Fishponds I decided that along one stretch of road I was going to do a survey of drive ways.
It was quite depressing to be honest as there were more driveways concreted, bricked, paved with hardly any signs of plants or grass than there were flowers, hedges, greens. As you can see from these 2 pictures nature was trying to make a breakthrough in a fair few cases but I find it sad that people aren't considering the health impacts on paving over their front gardens. It is so much nicer/healthier to come out of your front door and see some plant or grass. I know people have to park cars but we have compromised on our driveway by using the plastic grass filled stuff - golpla - rather than extra paving. It works really well if anyone comes to stay and needs to park a second car and it means that we get grass, clover, dandelions, etc in our front garden.
Having done my little survey along one stretch of road I was over-joyed to view the following:
There have recently been a lot of murmurating (is that even a word?!?!) birds very near where I live but these were much bigger birds so thought I would get a video. It turned out that they were a group of homing pigeons that lived nearby. I didn't even know pigeons could flew like a starling murmuration!!! I know it wasn't as impressive as a large starling murmuration but it was fab to see at 12pm on a Wednesday.
Anyway on to Hob Moor which is right behind Lidl and is a great green space where I have done a forage with York Timebank before. Cows graze there which is always funny to see especially when they are right up at the fence next to Lidl.
Again I was greeted whilst I was walking with a lovely bunch of birds that were flying together very close to the ground, landing and then flying off again. My apologise for my appalling camera skills but I did at least capture the birds!!
There are some lovely trees on Hob Moor but this was my favourite.
What I also like about Hob Moor is the fact that right on the edge nearest the Knavesmire the railway goes goes by and there is a patch of woodland. Normally I walk right past there but today I thought it would be a great place to observe birdsong and I luckily captured 2 trains going past and then the birdsong on the video below:
I was sad not to capture the chiffchaff singing as they are favourite bird and I had heard one before the trains went past but I thought it was a lovely contrast between the trains and the birds.
So on to the Knavesmire and Knavesmire Woods were I enjoyed walking across the grass after so much concrete.
But soon it was back to pavements and my final destination.
You can see my map from Strava showing my route below and if you are someone who uses a fitbit, strava, mapmyrun or anything like that you might want to check out Bounts (and if you use my referral code to join you will get 100 free points which you can use on M&S, Starbucks, Waitrose, etc -> chamberlin-kidd183)
Day 9
I had a lazy day today because I have a house full of ill people and wasn't feeling great myself either. So for my #30dayswild challenge today I stood outside once it had got dark and listened for a while.
My main reason for doing this was that last night laying in bed with the velux windows open I swore that I heard an owl. Owls are not something I have ever heard on the edge of York before but maybe this whole "being more observant for the #30dayswild challenge" is actually paying off because I did indeed hear an owl as I stood outside in the dark!!!! Amazing end to the day.
Ok. I was supposed to be posting way more often than this!!! But as always life seems to get in the way. At this precise moment I am supposed to be doing week 5 of my Open University (OU) Design course but here I am writing a blog post!! I haven't eaten lunch yet because I have just had to capture 2 escaped chickens AGAIN. There are a list of other things that I am supposed to have done today or yesterday or last week. Does any of this sound familiar?
Let's turn it around though. I have sorted out about 10 home ed outings for the coming months. I have just captured 2 chickens and put them back in their coop. I have got my daughter to have a long overdue bath this morning. Over the last few months I have made a video of our family trip to see the Dr Who experience and Cirque de Soleil (see here); started my OU course and just about kept on top of the work load; tutored someone in maths so that their predicted grade is now higher than it was when I started; started my Shamanic Practitioner course and started the ball rolling with getting the electrics and kitchen conversion done on the house. I have also enrolled on a PTLLS teaching course so that I can maybe do more tutoring, oh and I have been doing a pole dancing class!!
As part of my Permaculture Diploma I wanted to make sure that family videos and photos didn't just get lost in the digital ether out there where no-one will ever see them so I am really pleased with the video of our day trip to London. I am hoping as I get more proficient with the software these will be become easier to do - the London one took me 4 hours!! I still have one to do of a tobogganing day we had with our neighbours.
The Shaman and teaching courses are trying to get me to a place where I can get back into working and earning money but more flexibly than a 9-5 job.
The pole dancing was just another way of trying to get fit but in a fun way and I can say that it is fun but really, really hard work. I haven't ached so much since I first started hula-hooping.
I have also been trying to get some Gaia University courses over here to the UK and the affiliated European Branch of Gaia called the GALA (Gaia Action Learning Academy) are doing some training courses in June that I am helping to organise. If you want to know more visit here and pass on the information to anyone you might know.
The courses are: Life Designing is a workshop designed to give you the opportunity to gain the skills, knowledge and tools to implement your visions and goals. This course would be a good place to start if you want to kick-start your Permaculture Diploma where the Project Management course is more geared to starting a eco-business or Transition Town movement or something like that. Integrative Project management - transferring the eco-social Permaculture way
of thinking into project management - looking at how our
organisational processes and our actual project results can be designed
to manifest our Permaculture Ethics. We will explore how we can
‘obtain a yield’ to make ourselves, our projects & our
organisations more effective through design.
So I have been busy - hence the no posting on my blog. Glad I got this post done and now off to have some lunch!!
Tuesday 14th June 
