Rosie's Wall, and other progress

It's been a fair while since the last update however I'm back and this'll probably end up long so grab a brew before you start reading... I'll wait...

... sorted? Good, then I shall begin.

The great artwork of our time begins

A puts the first handprint on

Rosie loves getting covered in paint

All of our hands make up the tree

Beginning to draw the circles on the wall

Filling in with paint

Half way to complete

The grand unveiling of the full project

Rosie just loves looking at her wall

A busy addition

First of all, Rosie's Wall. A had a great idea when we were planning Rosie's bedroom and playroom; that she should paint something on one of the walls. I think there may have been a few different suggestions for what she would actually do however in the end she settled on a hand tree, and a load of bubbles or circles. And what a great idea. You can see above the progression of the work, and the reaction of Rosie to it. This is still an ongoing project as even today A just added a little bee above the flowers that Rosie adores.

Rosie and her dinosaur wall

The Thassos Memory Board

Rosie dancing around her new bedroom

A well stocked library is a must for any baby

At the other end of the room, underneath the window and up the sides, we have stuck dinosaur stickers from a pack that I picked up from Lidl a few months ago. Rosie also really loves these and goes to see them whenever you ask her "where are your dinosaurs?" I have also got the Memory Board for our Thassos holiday completed and it is hung above the play room door - you can see a video of how I made it by going to this link if you are interested. With all this progress of course we also put time into getting her bedroom set and you can see just how happy she was; the first day in there she struggled to sleep for her afternoon nap but by the night she was settled and slept right through. It's so good that she her own space now.

A small settling of snow

Gone pretty quickly however

About to tackle this thick lush grass

Quite a dump of snow in very short order

Sunset through clouds and with strong winds

The sun is out but it was still very cold at this point

Rosie just loves coming down here, as do the girls

The front is all mown, finally!

So other than that, we've had some very varied weather. The day after the men were here in such atrocious conditions the rain and wind turned to snow but not that much and it melted quickly. It got nice enough that I was able to get the mower out and clear some of the really lush grass below the humanure collection points (which shows just how much goodness there is in them). A couple of days later, and after A had planted her spuds, the weather changed again and suddenly there was many inches of snow. It didn't stay, however, and I didn't even get time to make another Sammy before it melted. Since then we had strong winds and some rain and then finally it has settled and been pretty glorious for a few days. This has been lovely as we've been able to get outside with Rosie every day and she LOVES being outside as much as I do, maybe even more. Her swing(s) and slide have gotten heavy workouts and she has developed a love for walking down to the gate and then back up again. Today after a lot of effort I finally got the whole of the front mown for the the first time, which included a LOT of raking yesterday over where the brambles had been removed. I'm pretty tired from that I can tell you.

Is this a Sparrow Hawk?

The first lizard of the year

Two Eagles, or are they vultures?

A lovely moth

Tortoise that I thought was a rock at first

He moved, and I found him again while mowing

Now for the wildlife and it has returned as Spring has well and truly sprung. First off a bird of prey, maybe a sparrow hawk? A spotted it and I got the first video on my phone so it's a bit rubbish but when it flew off it only went up the side of the land so I was able to get the big camera and get a good picture, and some more videos. Next up is the first lizard of the day, on the side of one of the raised beds. I've seen another couple since then. On the same day while down swinging Rosie we saw these two birds of prey, maybe eagles or vultures, sweeping over head. I got a video again but it's hard to keep steady at really high zoom. While walking across the patio we spotted this moth that was a bit groggy on the floor. We put it on the windowsill in the sun and it was gone later in the day and I'm saying it flew off and wasn't eaten. Last but not least is this tortoise that I nearly raked up not once but twice over a couple of days. I hope the place I found him in today is a good place as I've covered it with some boards to protect it from being disturbed again.

The Super Moon rises

Zoom in to the super moon

Lots of lovely bulbs coming up

And so I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of the Super moon from this month and the tortoise garden in full bloom - Rosie is totally enamoured of this as there are loads of "buzzzzzy beeees" and she loves bees!

She's a good'un.

Thanks for reading; the men are supposedly back tomorrow so expect a shorter update tomorrow, if they show of course.