Summer Nature Table

Summertime is here.

It sure felt like it today. It was a bit weird over a week ago - the upper mountains had a little snow - it's been weird weather.

First day of summer and I have a cold! I went to the doctors this arvo and I have to get a blood test tomorrow to see if I have whooping cough. WTF! It just feels like a chest infection. I took my boys to the local pool for a swim last Thursday and the next day I woke up feeling a bit crook with a sore throat. So I did a steam inhalation with some red thyme essential oil, thymus vulgaris (brilliant stuff). I find this stuff nips a sore throat in the bud. Hopefully, it is just a chest cold. This time last year I had shingles and that took me a few months to get over. I'm usually a healthy person. (LOL)

Anyway.... the Summer nature table. I had a great idea for the summer nature table. I thought, sand castle that was permanent so little fingers can touch it with out it falling apart. So I googled summer nature table sand sand castle to get ideas and came across Seasons Natural Toys .

There, I found a recipe for sand clay to make a permanent sand castle. So I got some sand from Mum when they went down the south coast, cornflower (the recipe said corn starch - I'm assuming it's the same thing), cream of tartar and a sand castle bucket for a mould. I was set.

I mixed it all together and left it in the garage to set for week. Anyway, a week later I checked on it. It had a crust on the top. I couldn't wait to see what it looked like so I cleared the kitchen table, got a board out to put it on, flipped it over and took the bucket off.......

Oh, my..... the smell. It stunk like a bucket of dead fish (LOL). This was a flop - it had only set an inch and the rest was like a smelly, fishy, sandy jelly. There had been a bit of rain here for the last week or so, and humid too. Maybe that's why it didn't set properly. I had to open all the windows in the house to get the smell out. Luckily, I was right next to the back door and out it went. So.... that didn't work. Maybe next time I'll use washed sand for sand pits instead.

So, plan B........

- a nice needle felted mermaid sitting on some beach rocks with some shells and driftwood ;)