Scratching Post

Our cat was around six months old before she began to stretch out her claws and pull them against wood to sharpen them. At first it was a small scrape against the fence then against one of the apple trees and finally it began in the house. I heard a a rustle and a scrape and a soft prickling sound, went to investigate and there she was scraping her small little razors up and down the linen basket. That was when we invested in the scratching post.

A host, of golden daffodils

Although it is February we are having many spring-like days with bright sunshine which is encouraging the flowers to bloom up to six or more weeks earlier than usual. Many of the daffodils are now fully out. However, some plants appear to be holding back and look as though they will flower later than anticipated.

We are very lucky to have wild primroses in our garden. A baby wild primrose was given to me over twenty years ago by an old country couple that lived in the wilds of Worcestershire. Their cottage backed on to craggy fields and they had wild primroses in their borders. This little baby primrose has only settled into one spot in my garden and has only spread approximately 6 inches. Here is a picture of it ... as you can see the leaves are especially short, so far, this year.

What's lurking at the bottom of my garden?

There are two compost heaps in our garden. One is an old-fashioned standard wire and wood surround whilst the other is a square plastic modern construction that is completely sealed with a flap-off lid. When I say completely sealed that does not account for the small slots just above its base.

A few weeks ago some type of creature began to enter the plastic compost bin through the small open slots. It tunnelled its way through the mounds of vegetable peelings and pulled some of them back through the slots. A mound of soft dark loamy earth appeared between the small garden shed and the compost bin.

So far, although I have poked about in the bin, looked in the space under the shed and generally glanced around and about I have not been able to discover what this little (it must be little to have squashed in through the small slots of the bin) creature is. The cat has taken a particular interest to this part of the garden and regularly does an early morning sprint to this spot. Yesterday she ran straight to the back of the shed where she patiently sat. After an hour or so she began to play "peepbo" with every member of the family that entered the garden ... but there has still been no sign of this mystery little creature.

Snails - hibernating

So far it has been a mild winter. We often use old house bricks to balance the flowerpots on. This serves two purposes - it increases the height of the pots and helps prevent them from being attacked by slugs and snails (at least sometimes). We have been cleaning out around the pots when this clutch of snails were spied squashed in the airspaces of one of the bricks. This is the first time that I have ever witnessed snails hibernating!

MORI - Survey

Never say never! I never fill in surveys but when one recently arrived on my doormat from Mori and it contained questions regarding the NHS I thought I would fill out this survey. I completed and posted it. You can imagine my surprise when this morning I received the exact same survey yet again addressed to me.

This duplication has now caused my belief in the results of Mori surveys to completely dissolve. I wonder how many other people have perhaps completed duplicate surveys and could even have filled in particular surveys more than twice! May be I shall receive the same survey for a third or even a fourth time.

I have never been a fan of surveys but now have no faith in them either!

Raw Milk - does it offer hope to ALL ailments?

There has been much talk of late with the health benefits that Raw Milk may bring. It has been inferred that children brought up on farms that have had occasional drinks of Raw Milk have access to more of the antibody called immunoglobulin E (IgE), which it is claimed boosts the human immune system (allegedly also reducing occurrence and symptoms of asthma, eczema, hay fever and other such allergy ailments). If this is true, then it surely would make sense to see whether Raw Milk would offer health benefits to anyone with more serious illnesses. Raw milk also contains 'good bacteria' that help the human digestive tract to work more effectively. The western world spends millions of pounds purchasing yoghurt and live culture drinks, etc to bombard our bodies with 'good bacteria' perhaps more should be done to tap into the natural resource of untreated milk and milk products.

Most cows milk today is sold either as pasteurised, homogonised or ultra heat treated (UHT). To pasteurise milk it is heated to 71°C for 15 seconds then immediately cooled this process kills off all of the harmful and good bacteria, as well as some of the vitamins. Homogonised milk has the fat particles 'blasted' evenly throughout the milk where they remain in suspension (the cream is unable to float to the top of homogonised milk) it also is pasteurised. Allegedly claims have been made that this type of milk is difficult for the human digestive tract to process. Ultra heated milk (UHT) is similar to sterilized milk. It is heated to a temperature of 135°C for 1 to 2 seconds which gives it an unusual flavour.

Raw milk does have concerns that need to be considered - it needs to come from herds of cattle that are free from tuberculosis and brucellosis and it must be collected and bottled in complete sterility to avoid infections such as E-coli being passed on.

NOTE: RAW MILK IS CURRENTLY ONLY AVAILABLE DIRECT FROM A FARM AND IS BOUGHT AND CONSUMED AT THE PURCHASERS OWN RISK. I HAVE YET TO TRY SOME - SWEET THOUGHT ...

Perfect 10

The family cat is 10 years old this year although you would never realise with some of the kitten-like poses that she has. These are the latest pictures of her, taken this week, lying in her basket.

American dreams turned sour

Beckham has been left out of England's latest side which effectively means that he will not be gaining his 100th cap any time soon. When Beckham decided to go to the USA to play football, many in England wondered why. Some however thought, why not.

Well those who sat on the sidelines are now finding out why some were vehemently against the idea. He apparently is short of practise and not match fit to play on the England side to gain his 100th cap. He needs access to games on a regular basis to have any chance of winning his way back into the team.

There are those who believe "for old times sake" that he should just be allowed to play so that he can gain the precious 100th cap but surely this cannot be right. Each place on a team really needs to be earned and each game needs to be played to the best of a teams ability so that at least we all know that they have tried their utmost to win. If, with the very best and fittest team members they then go on to play their very best and lose at least we as onlookers do not feel cheated!

Why won't we let them play?

Over the years it has become more apparent that children spend less time playing than they did in previous generations. Each year, there are less and less children playing outside ...

Is it through children's desires that less time is spent playing or is playtime thought to be unnecessary by those who administer to children's needs? The main fault is the fact that children go to school. They receive lessons and begin exercises very often being asked to finish what they haven't completed in class at home. Often there are homework subjects on top. What isn't finished off during the week is left for the weekend. So when do these young people have time off to play?

No wonder populations from all over the world are becoming obese and unhealthy - it's about time we allowed our children to be children and have time to play.

Blender

A member of my family stumbled across a program that is useful for anyone who enjoys art or creating things. Blender is a superb program that allows the user to create drawings and animations to a professional quality. The creation of "Ginger Tom" below has been created by a member of my family. This is the first thing he has done after reading through the tutorial. The fluffy cat was created from an oblong shape for the body, a squashed round shape for the head, four oblong shapes for the legs and a snake like curve oblong for the tail. After adding a fur texture the result is the shape above.

The eyes have to then be created. In this case a basic round blue eye was made then a variation of this as the colour was changed and the pupil lengthened to resemble a cat's eye. A nose and mouth shape also has to be made and added to the basic cat form.

Then a variety of colours may be introduced to make the finished creature more interesting.

(See below.)

Ginger Tom

The above ginger tom cat was made using Blender which was obtained from http://www.blender.org/. It enables you to be able to do professional quality cartoons and 3D modelling such as film quality CGI ....

To show a further illustration of how to use the blender program there is a tutorial on YouTube - it begins with showing how to create a dragon from a sketch:

Step 1

Step 2

To follow further steps on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Dragonrose&search=Search

Life v Death

What is the difference between what is classified as a civilised country and one that is not? The first priority has to be the way it regards its citizens. Does it offer them the right to be treated for free if they become ill? Or can it only provide cures and treatments for those who are wealthy enough to be able to afford payment? Does it offer free education to the young? Does it give payments to those who are unable to work for a living? Does it provide shelter for those without a home of their own? If a country cannot cherish its people then surely it cannot be regarded as civilised.

If a country cherishes its people then it cannot choose to cherish some more than others. All life must be regarded as important and equal. If there are people who break the law, then somewhere in their past that country has failed them. Whether it is through badly educated parents not knowing how to bring their children up correctly, lack of supervision during their adolescence or poor teaching during their schooling. Somewhere, along the line, someone hasn't done quite enough to make a human being act responsibly and within the boundaries of the law of the land. But what if, at some point, even when a country may have done all that it can to keep a person on the straight and narrow - they have deviated? They may have done something so despicable that it makes us all recoil in horror. What should a country and its people do then?

When I was very young people spoke about execution and hanging as the answer to those who committed murder or other heinous acts. People, in those times thought that it was the correct and only way to deal with those who committed dreadful crimes. It no longer is an option in my country. It still is regarded as normal practise in some. Though as you gain more knowledge in life, how can it be right to snuff out someone's life as payment for their crime? Surely then you too become the same as them. You certainly cannnot be regarded any better for by using any form of execution as a punishment you then become a murderer. Currently, peoples freedom is taken from them as a punishment. Sometimes, this is for the rest of their remaining life on earth and sometimes it is for just a few short years.

Unusual recipe

Meadowsweet Cake

Ingredients

2 heaped tablespoons of plain white flour

2 heaped tablespoons of rolled oats

1 heaped tablespoon of ground almonds

1 heaped tablespoon of desiccated coconut

2 tablespoons of granulated sugar

4 oz of butter

2 medium eggs

Splash of milk

Splash of carbonated mineral water

Drizzle of olive oil

2 teaspoons of baking powder

Small pinch of salt

Marzipan

Method

Place the coconut into a small dish and add one teaspoon of sugar, drizzle of olive oil and splash of milk and stir into a paste. Put the flour, rolled oats, ground almonds, sugar, baking powder and pinch of salt into a mixing bowl and give a quick stir. Add the softened butter using a small round end table knife to cut it through the mixture - once it is a crumb like appearance add the eggs and coconut paste and the splash of mineral water. Using the knife quickly mix all the ingredients together - mix vigorously. Add extra liquid (either milk or carbonated mineral water) if the mixture appears too dry.

Lightly grease a small flat cake tin - place approximately one third of the mixture into the tin evenly across the bottom. Thinly slice the marzipan into small portions - place these across the whole of the cake mix so that all of the mixture is covered. Spoon on the remainder of the mixture evenly spreading over the marzipan layer. This can be left smooth or a small mixture of ground almonds with a little sugar can be sprinkled on the top. May be decorated with a few marzipan shapes if desired (very effective in the shape of a daisy flower).

Place in a moderate oven - gas mark 4 - 180 °C - 350 °F for approximately 45 minutes. Allow to cool if eating as a cake, but can be eaten warm as a pudding.

Long life expectations

It's a sad reflection on the entire human race to think that there are great swathes of people who still do not receive an education. There are perhaps even more that do not receive as much education as they should. Worst of all are the millions who just accept a basic school education, whatever country they live in, never trying to increase their knowledge or abilities.

Perhaps the most successful person is one that is almost wholly self-taught. This takes an inner strength and patience and an unseen sixth sense - a mixture of obstinacy and endurance. There is an old saying "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" it is a saying that has the ability to hold people back from their aspirations for to deny ourselves of knowledge keeps us teetering with our other primate cousins.

The American Dream

The American Dream is difficult for the rest of the world to comprehend. When we look at America from our television screens it appears that to attain "the dream" would require the rest of us to have major surgery to re-sculpture our bodies. Familiar faces that stare back at us from a corner of the room all seem to have similar characteristics as they all allegedly have plastic surgery. At least many of those in the public eye seem to have face lifts where their skins are stretched as tightly as permissible before a tear might appear to pull the whole appearance in two. Many seem to use jet black hair dye or perhaps wigs and hair pieces. Their eyes shine with confidence as they flash open mouthed smiles with two rows of teeth the colour of Xerox paper. No longer could you use the poets language and describe these teeth as pearls! What would Leonardo make of it all? The lines of wisdom attained through years of learning, screwing a forehead whilst deep in thought. Squinting at lines of print by a flickering candle. Straining at the horizon to determine a shape in bright sunlight. All this living, all this knowledge ironed out of the countenance in the pretence of everlasting youth.

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Random fun video ~

Keepon dancing to Spoon's "I turn my camera on"

Are these for sale yet?

Yes Ma'am - I met the Queen

She was much larger than expected. It was two days ago and a cold, damp, dark and dismal evening - the cat charged through the kitchen leaving the back door wide open. All at once, neatly attired in yellow and black livery, the queen in all her glory came passed my face, missing me by a whisker. She headed straight for the small twisted bright light bulb and forced her way through the woven metallic shade. Backwards and forwards she moved not showing any signs of wanting to go out the way that she came. I rolled up a sheet of newspaper and gently tried to persuade her to leave the light and step onto the sheet. I turned off its brightness but still she persisted and hung on tightly with her light, neat, feet. She was unbelievably silent as three members of the family tried their utmost to show her to the door. Eventually she climbed onto the rolled up paper and was quickly evacuated outside only to buzz away at speed like a wraith.

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The Queen of wasps should really have been hibernating until the warmth of the Spring wakes her up like Sleeping Beauty after her long Winter nap.