Native Bee Hotel

Yesterday at the Blue Mountains Community Garden the Native Bee Hotel was installed. It's rather cute, don't you think?

The gardens are taking part in a native bee study around Sydney to see which species of native bees are populating different areas. So over the next few months we will be observing which bees choose to nest in this hotel. There are little holes drilled in the wood, and hollow reeds and hollow lantana stems that you can see in the picture below, so the bees have a choice as to where they want to nest.

The native bees that will nest here are solitary bees so they don't make honey. They make a little protein patty for the egg that they lay.

Even though they don't make honey, they are essential to have around for the pollination of fruit trees and veggies in our garden and they are also lovely to watch buzzing from flower to flower.

For information about the study, check out www.beebusiness.com.au

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Rainy Days

Here's one of Katie's pictures!

This week has been a wintery wet one. 

Stuck indoors, it's too cold to stay out side for too long.

One day this week we slept in and didn't make it to school, so we hung out at home in our PJs. The boys and I made an apple cinnamon cake, which smelled amazing when it was cooking. We also got our paints and paper out and got creative.

Mr F painted a sword.

I painted some of the flowers in the vase in front of me while Sian pulled on my arm, wanting my attention.

 

Here is Lou's picture!

And our yummy cake was washed down with lots of tea.

Lou's soup

Lou loves cooking and has been helping me in the kitchen. It has been cold and rainy for the last few days; good weather for a hearty warm lentil soup with kale and potatoes.

I've been collecting recipes on Pinterest 

and am getting a nice collection of simple nourishing recipes to try. 

The onion was a bit strong so goggles were a must for Lou!

Mr F joined in on the chopping (still in his p-js). 

The veggie patch is beaming with parsley and kale. I love kale and so do the green  caterpillars!

We're trying to eat the kale before the weather starts to warm up and the cabbage moths and aphids start attacking it and the other greens.

Lou's soup turned out well. He was happy with it and he ate it without picking any bits out the soup, unlike his brother who picked out the potatoes and carrots!

33/52 Baby Selfies!

Well, I'm not sure if I should be laughing or be horrified at how quickly the little one is getting a little bit too familiar with my phone. She was having a ball, with a little help from her brothers, taking baby selfies.

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I was having a lazy afternoon knitting and checking out blogs on the iPad, trying to get a second sock finished.

Sian thought she would help with my knitting while I had my back turned for a moment and distracted by the iPad.

Luckily I was on circular needles, not double pointed!

 

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Do you want build a snowman?

I got a text last night from a friend asking if we got any snow! A friend of hers who lives in the next town down from us had snow all over her car. I stuck my head out the door and to my surprise it was snowing. We all put our jackets and gloves on then went outside and played in the falling snow. It was only a dusting compared to some parts of the world,

but it was still exciting for us! Last year we had no snow.

The snow flakes were so big! I tried taking pictures but it was too dark. Katie managed to take a photo of her snowman that she built!

When we got up this morning there must have been more snow over night. There was a dusting of snow all over the yard that hadn't melted. The boys got up and checked out the snow.

Some of the greens in the veggie patch didn't seem to like the snow and my daffodils that have come up early look a bit worse for wear this morning!