MIA

I feel as if I've been missing in action for a while. Easter was busy, and then I fell and hurt my arm - it's still sore, but there were only a couple of days when I didn't feel it was sensible to try to get up the ladder to the attic.
Today the weather was better than the forecast earlier this week, so we headed down to Rathwood near Tullow and spent some time looking at the owls and birds of prey, and then had a walk in the woods. We were lucky that the torrential rain and hail downpours all happened when we were either in the car or under shelter. More photos will follow...The little owl is really little - and must also be very light, as I didn't feel him at all when he landed on my back!

The oilseed rape is out all over the place, adding great splashes of colour to the landscape.

Off now to see how well my Salted Caramel Tart turned out - for starters I think I made it a bit large, but I don't posses an 8" flan ring.

Howth

Happy Easter!
It's a grey, rainy day here. We had hot cross buns for our breakfast on Good Friday, but I'm saving a lamb roast for tomorrow.
During the week I had to get a medical for work, and afterwards I walked on over to Howth to visit some relatives. As we were having guests in the evening I wanted to get home in good time, but I still had a bit of time to walk round the village on my way back home again.

I have a few more photos, but I'm still trying to get to the bottom of my computer problem. I'm sure it can't be good to get an error message every single time I shut down; next stop is to try a Windows repair as everything else so far has failed.

I saw this blackbird in the trees yesterday when I went down to the butcher. We were watching another pair hunting for worms in the front lawn this morning.

Cards

I don't seem to have too many favourite cards from March. I think I was too busy trying to fix all my computer problems.

And I did have a lot of fun working out how to make my own pop-up house instead of just settling for using a pre-made template. No point in having several paper-engineering books and not using them. I already know one thing I'd change if I make a parallel cube again, and the pitch of the roof is a lot steeper than I would want.

More birds

I meant to have included these tufted ducks in the last bunch of birds. They were quite far off on the lake, but it's still probably the best picture I have for showing the tufts. There are a lot of them at Farmleigh at the moment.

This pair of greenfinches were gorging themselves on sunflower seeds today - and as luck would have it, just when the sun was out. I need to clean the glass in the back door, though.

This sheep tea-cosy is my latest completed knitting project. I'm currently working on an Aran tunic-style sweater for myself, but I think something for my nephew is going to have to take precedence.

Papillon the Pig on Parade

Back in February Lorraine had a fun idea for celebrating her blogoversary and soon after that one pig flew in to Dublin.

I've never tried anything more complex than decorating simple shapes like boxes, so this was something of a learning curve for me, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Wings were optional but as Lorraine celebrates National Pig Day each year with Flying Pigs, they were to be preferred.

I'd bought some Decopatch tissue paper thinking I could use that, but it didn't take long to realise that this would be easy with a box but NOT with a pig. So back to the drawing board - and the gesso.

After three coats of gesso I used some blue and green distress inks and sponged the body to be like grass and the sky. Still thinking about what to do with the face

Then I stamped foliage all over using Versafine green ink. I added Liquid Pearls in red and gold Stickles for flowers. By this stage I was thinking of using some sort of butterfly for my main wings, so I also added some little butterfly stickers.

I tried several different types of butterflies for the wings - punched, stamped - and in the end, this one, the only large one left from a pack I bought about 8 - or more - years ago. I decided to sponge the face with pink, and used punches to create eyes. I thought she needed something around her neck, so I used some Mizuhiki cord threaded through a little clasp. This had the advantage that I could knot the cord in the back of the clasp and not have the knot show.

Then C suggested that she should really have a ring in her nose: no old brack rings in my cake-decorating box, any curtain rings I could find were too big, but a little gold hoop earring was just about perfect. And I remembered to curl her eyelashes up a bit for her final photo shoot.

I want to post while it's still Saturday the 31st in GMT, because like me Papillon likes to be punctual; but later on all the pigs should be parading over at Paper Vernissage.
Thank you, Lorraine, for giving me the opportunity to participate in this.

A Bunch of Birds

Various photos from the last week or so...
I'm not sure whether mallards use their feathers for nest lining, or whether this pair had just been fighting. If so, the one missing all the feathers certainly seemed to be the dominant of the two drakes, who were snoozing contentedly on the bank along with a female, until I walked along the path past them.

Mandarin drake

Redpoll

Redpoll

Goldfinch

 

I had a large heavy lens on my camera when I took this (from moon shots the previous night) so it's not as sharp as I'd like. But since this particular female robin calls to be fed from all over the place - next door, up in the trees, on the shed roof - I was happy to get any photo at all.

Moonshine

I tried posting this last night,but the internet was acting up all over the place. Yesterday (and today) we've had glorious sunshine weather - it's so warm it's hard to believe that it's only March. This would be good weather for July, even. Yesterday I spent part of the afternoon taking most of the compost out of the compost bin, which was coming apart at one of the joints. After removing a fair amount I was able to get the front panel back properly, and spread a lot it along the borders. I think that the mild winter must have made a big difference, because almost all of it was good compost, and I've never in my life seen so many worms in one place before.
The fine weather has resulted in clear (and cold) nights, so last night I was trying to capture the crescent moon. It was a bit hard from the back garden, but there'd have been a lot more light pollution out in the front. I was trying to capture the two planets that are near the moon just now, but one of them was just too high to frame in the picture with any success.

Spring Sunshine

Today was a beautiful, warm, sunny day. I considered going to the Botanic Gardens, but C was heading out on a motorbike run and in the middle of putting the screen back on his bike, a job that sometimes takes two. And by the time he was gone, I know it would have been hard to get parking. So I just went for another walk along the canal, and picked up some chicken carcasses that the butcher had put aside for me on the way back home again. I passed a cat enjoying the warmth of the sun; as soon as I stopped to take a photo he came over, but he was soon happy to lie back down and continue his sunbathing.

Spring is Springing

I had some rather disheartening news in the post yesterday, so in the afternoon I went for a walk along the canal and had a wonderful time listening to all the birds singing their hearts out, and seeing the signs of Spring. And this morning I had time to go for a good walk in the park after doing the shopping.

I've been noticing the chestnuts greening up nicely as I walk to the local shops, but this is the finest I've seen yet.

Front of Farmleigh, with cherry trees.

Snowflakes

Good grief - a tree peony on its way already!!

Love the acid green with the tulip

As soon as I stepped through the gate into the walled garden I could smell the viburnums. It's a shame there's not yet a way of sharing scent - at least video allows for sound.