Time for T on Tuesday

Time for T on Tuesday at Elizabeth and Bleubeard's place, and here is another mug, a real cutie which is very small but just holds the 200ml of hot chocolate I have these days. I recently tried hazelnut drink ("milk") and it is delicious, not sure my gut approves, but with the gorgeous Spicy Hot Raw Chocolate this makes a really scrummy hot chocolate. I get the spicy hot chocolate from the lovely Paula and Dan at Elements for Life, they also do raw chocolate kits and more. I took this photo last Tuesday, it was a lovely day and warm enough to sit out, unlike today which is wet, very cold and I can't get warm!

Last Tuesday we went blackberry picking, this was the view from the top of the field, down to those houses I showed you last week, abandoned and up for sale.

Sooty and Alfie got a bit bored of blackberry picking....

....and suddenly ran off to the other side of the field! Shaun called them back and Alfie came but Sooty found the path and went right down to the gate, out of the gate, and back along the little road to the car, naughty Sooty! I worry when they go out of the gate, there is some traffic on the road sometimes, and one time they got out of the gate just ahead of us, a car stopped and some people started chatting. They said they saw the Schnauzers and stopped because their mother in Holland had one, but for all we knew they could have been planning to grab the dogs if we hadn't showed up when we did! Shaun doesn't think so but I do!

We were joined by a beautiful butterfly, who knew they liked blackberries? It fluttered round us and the fruit, and was joined by a wasp then flew away.

On the journey home I made Shaun turn the car round and go back so I could get some photos of a flock of starlings on overhead cables, this cat was sitting on the pavement when we stopped.

This shot shows how many birds there were! I got some closer shots but they don't show all the birds, I was thinking these would make a great silhoutte stamp!

These are the blackberries we picked, a week later there are still some left, I am getting through them and sent some to Mother in Law yesterday. Now we need to pick some more!

 I could show you more of the sparrow flock feeding, they have been here today, must be 12 or more all fighting to get onto the feeder which only has 4 perches. Maybe I should get a bigger one! I am refilling it daily at the moment, today I have seen greenfinches, blue tits and the sparrows but a few days ago we had this little bird, the one on the right. Which I thought was a Coal Tit, but...

Coal tits are supposed to have a white patch (or nape) at the back of their head, and this oen clearly doesn't...

see what I mean? So could it be a Willow Tit or a rarer Marsh Tit? I am puzzled because it does have wing stripes and the photos I have found suggest that is a Coal Tit feature, but because it is missing the white nape how can it be? Have I found another new species? Apparently scientists didn't know there were different species, i.e. Willow Tit and Marsh Tit, until fairly recently, they assumed these were all Coal Tits. I read that and can't remember the year, 1970's or 1980's I think.

Another place we go walking is near to Iford Manor, and this is a photo of the Peto Gardens taken from the old bridge. You can pay and go round Iford Manor gardens and the Peto Garden, and there are lots of evening events held in the gardens, concerts and plays. The valley is a beautiful place to walk too.

Sparrow in the rain.

Finally we were Kenny sitting at the weekend, he loves the stepping stones. He wanted to go into the garden all the time, one time he gave me his shoes and sat down waiting for them to be put on because he wanted to go out and play!

Time for T on Tuesday.

First of all I must apologise to T on Tuesday visitors last week, I have been so busy with family here since Thursday, and so exhausted that I still haven't got round you all and the WOYWW people too. I will try and get round you all but I can't promise how soon that will be!

This is National Trust Tea, we took Bethany to Dyrham Park today. Shaun and Beth walked down the hill to the house, I caught the little shuttle bus! My knees aren't up to walking that far downhill.

There was a real wasp problem, there were traps all over but still loads of them buzzing round the tables and food. I don't thin they like peppermint Tea but I had a tast of Beth's juice in my cup before.

Beth and Shaun while we wait for food. Shaun was glad he chose jacket potato not cream tea with all the wasps, but they were after the chutney!

They did my jacket potato with plain prawns, I didn't want the dressing, yum!

We ate then went round the house, and then walked round the garden.

Beth and Shaun are sat by the lake, they are the furthest away, I went for a wander to get butterfly and swan photos.

Meet Humphrey!

Finally I was so lucky to snap these Long Tailed Tits on my feeder, shame they are a little out of focus.

If you want to join in hop on over to Elizabeth and Bleubeards's place.

WOYWW #219

It's Wednesday, so it must be time to nosy round lots of people's desks, projects and rooms!

Because you liked the sparrows I managed to get a shot of more of them, and a robin supervising! I sat at the new (old) table eating and reading and found that the sparrows ignored me so I could take their photo better than sneaking out of the back door!

Action shot, 5 sparrows.

 On the floor where I need to get to my workdesk is - Sooty! He loves this rug.

For Elizabeth and Bleubeard - I tried to get a close up of the white horse, it is many miles away, maybe 7, there is a footpath along the tip of his ear where we used to walk, haven't been up there for years!

Sooty again, often found in the cupboard where the dog food lives, foraging for spillages! He has been shut in from time to time, when we haven't noticed he was in there!

I wasn't going to show you my desk, but hey, this is how it is right now. I am attempting to copy the idea that Ms Dunnit copied and blogged about die storage, but now I need more magnetic sheets, and I bought the magazine holder to alter, it has sat on the floor with magazines in it - now it will be transformed (at some point).

Tother end!

I had to show you the eBosser, I got Shaun to cut me some plywood platforms, I will not be defeated by the lack of platforms, so I hope to be using the dies and folders that I haven't been able to. Already managed to use the A4 folder that wouldn't work before.

I have a load of dog walk photos that I will blog seperately or this post will be so long I will get shouted at!

If you want to join in the fun, visit like minded people, get lots of comments on your blog then go to The Stamping Ground where the lovely Julia Dunnit hosts this now world famous weekly event!

Oh I nearly forgot to say, those of you who have struggled and suffered to leave much appreciated comments on my blog will notice that the problem is now fixed, hooray! Read all about it here if you want to know how after all this time!

Country Life on Facebook

Why have I got dragged into yet another game that is addictive, and just as I get into it all my buddies have moved to the next game I ask myself?
Well as if Farmville was not enough with its outdated graphics and constant crashes and bugs, I have taken on Country Life.
This is what I have learnt in the few days I have been playing:
Like Farmville you start with a small square of land, unlike Farmville you get a cow right away, you also get some plots with clover growing (from memory). The cow is a 3d animated cow and wouldn't look out of place in Shrek movies. The cow in in a pen with a feeding trough in front of it, and when the clover flowers you harvest the clover then click on the cow to feed it. Crops are in small squares a bit like Farmville, you click to plant the seed, you don't have to plough it first,  you click to harvest the crop and there is a move tool that can be used to move plots around. You use another tool to dig more plots, there is a sell tool.
Unlike Farmville the cow chews the food.
Like Farmville the crop can be sold but (not like Farmville) not for as much as the milk the cow produces; for every square of clover the cow eats it produces a bottle of milk, handy that, you don't have to milk it.
Things work in 3s here, you can feed 3 lots of clover to the cow max, it produces 3 bottles of milk at any one time max, if you don't harvest the milk it won't produce more.
If you buy a beehive the bees will pollinate the clover which turns yellow, and produce a jar of honey, you get extra coins for honey and the cow will then eat the pollinated clover and still produce the same milk which can be sold.
If you are really lucky someone will gift you a cheese wiz; then you can harvest the milk and click on the cheese wiz to fill it with three bottles of milk at the most, and it will whirr away and produce three cheeses at the most which you can harvest then sell (haven't worked out if there is another more lucrative stage like sandwich production).
You can move up the levels quickly and you can grow a greater variety of crops and buy more animals and give better gifts the higher you go and if you get enough neighbours you can expand, just like Farmville.
There are other gadgets, like a tomato sauce maker, a weaver for the sheep's wool, jam maker and all of these make the crops you produce more valuable to sell.
If you buy another animal it will be fussy about what it eats, chickens eat corn, three lots and lay three lots of eggs, though I never saw that chicken sit on the nest the eggs appeared there as if by magic. Sheep eat only wheat. Both crops take a whole lot longer than clover to ripen, and the sheep looks at you as if to say "where is mine then?".
You can also buy trees that fruit in the same way as Farmville trees do and sell the fruit, maybe you can make it into something else when you get the right gadget.
You can buy buildings, you have to get people to give you the materials then unless you have ranch cash or money to burn in spending actual money to get what you need. I am building a greenhouse where the crops will be ready quicker if I get it done, so more functional than Farmville here.
One tip on the beehives is once the clover (which is all they are interested in) has all flowered they go to sleep, and when you harvest the first square they wake and come and pollinate, but if  you leave just one jar of honey unharvested you can harvest that as soon as the clover is ready again and you won't lose out on that one first jar of honey, unless like me you are click happy and accidentally harvest the unpollinated clover next to the pollinated clover, or worse, sell your clover by mistake so your cows can't make more milk........
Well maybe the attraction is to see how far I can get or if I can score higher than my friends, it has taken over my life. so with that I better see how both Farmville and Country Life are doing in case I am missing out.