Steel Kitten

Happy Thanksgiving to you all in the USA

Photo credit: Joe Blake

Have a wonderful day with your families and friends!

The big brain-sucking box in the corner is no more (for now)

 In 1961, Newton N Minnow - a member of the Federal Communication Committee - said the following in his speech "Television and the Public Interest"

"When television is good, nothing — not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers — nothing is better.

But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.

You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you'll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it."

Very little has changed has it?

Last night Martin and I sat in front of a fire listening to music and discussing satellite TV and TV in general. For a while we've been intending to get rid of our paid satellite subscription in favour of a free service  and tonight we compared the channels we'd receive from the various providers. And then I made a throw-away comment which (as throw-away comments can often do) made us stop in our tracks.

"It really doesn't matter how many channels there are - more often than not there's still nothing on them to watch."

Big silence while we absorbed that. So many times over the past few weeks we've ended up watching a film or switching the TV off because they just hasn't been anything remotely interesting on. So it doesn't matter whether you have 5 or 500 channels, if there's nothing on, there's nothing on.

So, we've set ourselves a challenge for the next three months - no TV. It does not go on. I'm rooting out an old analogue radio from the loft to listen to instead of listening through the TV and sorting out a throw to put over the TV itself. I'm quite excited at the thought that when you walk into our living room the first thing you'll see is the fireplace and not the huge screen. And we'll be canceling the satellite subscription.

We genuinely cannot think of anything we would miss about not having the TV on. But we can think of plenty of things we miss out on by having it. Conversation is one. Evenings out are another. Keeping in touch with people. And then there's reading books, which we shoehorn into a few minutes before bed instead of giving them the proper chunks of time they deserve. I could go on and on but you know what I'm talking about so I'll stop.

Let me finish this post with a little more of Newton's speech, of which the last sentence is perhaps the most poignant:

"Why is so much of television so bad? I've heard many answers: demands of your advertisers; competition for ever higher ratings; the need always to attract a mass audience; the high cost of television programs; the insatiable appetite for programming material. These are some of the reasons. Unquestionably, these are tough problems not susceptible to easy answers. But I am not convinced that you [broadcasting companies] have tried hard enough to solve them.

I do not accept the idea that the present over-all programming is aimed accurately at the public taste. The ratings tell us only that some people have their television sets turned on and of that number, so many are tuned to one channel and so many to another. They don't tell us what the public might watch if they were offered half-a-dozen additional choices. A rating, at best, is an indication of how many people saw what you gave them. Unfortunately, it does not reveal the depth of the penetration, or the intensity of reaction, and it never reveals what the acceptance would have been if what you gave them had been better -- if all the forces of art and creativity and daring and imagination had been unleashed. I believe in the people's good sense and good taste, and I am not convinced that the people's taste is as low as some of you assume."

UPDATED AT 5:40PM TO ADD: The blogger over at Frugal trenches has completed a two-week TV fast on 18th November so I'm in good company!

And the winner is....

Over a cup of tea this morning, I drew two names as winners of my two giveaways.

The names entering each giveaway were written on bits of paper, folded up tightly, given a good shake in a bowl and tossed onto the floor. Then I scabbled around with my eyes shut and picked one name from each pile. Sophie the cat watched on in mild amusement.

The winner of the blog banner is....

 
 Karen Sue from Just Twiddlin

And the winner of the Books and Seeds is...

 
Rhonda from Down to Earth

Well done! I'll email the two of you about your prizes later on today!

Poor Blossom is back with us

***If you haven't entered the giveaway yet, you have until midnight TONIGHT (Friday 20th November 2009) GMT to enter here by leaving a comment. Tell everyone!***

It was a sad day yesterday. We had to curtail the freedom of Blossom the hedgehog and bring her back into the house for the winter.

We'd done a soft release with Blossom weeks ago (soft release means putting a hog box full of warm stuff and the hog into a pen so it can acclimatise to the outside before complete release). Every day we'd put down food in her pen and each night it would be eaten. We stacked up extra hay, straw and fleeces inside the pen and she dragged them in. We wind-proofed that corner of the pen as well.

Three nights ago the food wasn't touched. The next night it wasn't touched. Had she hibernated? We weren't sure, but we knew that the hog box wasn't designed to be a hibernaculum - it's just a halfway house. Ideally she needed to make her own nest somewhere based on her own instincts of what she needed.

So yesterday afternoon we brought the hog box into the house to gently check that she was alright and was warm enough. We removed some of the bedding and gently put our hands in to see how warm it was - it was stone cold. Now we were worried. 

Could Blossom be dead?

We went deeper and deeper into the multiple layers of straw, hay, newspaper and fleeces trying to find her. Eventually a very loud hiss let us know she was alive and not hibernating. Much relief, but she wasn't as warm as she should be and hadn't eaten for a couple of days. I popped a hot water bottle under the box to heat it up and periodically refilled it during the afternoon. Early evening we began to hear sounds of scrabbling and knew she would be out soon, so we put her - box and all - straight into a rabbit hutch in the conservatory with some food. Tomorrow, we thought, we'll build her a very large nest in the hutch, but for tonight we'll leave her alone.

It was not to be.

Hedgehogs have an amazing ability to climb and squeeze themselves anywhere, but they lack intelligence to know that their spines might not let themselves get out of something they've squeezed into. Petal amply demonstrated that by squeezing her head and arm through an air hole in her plastic box and almost strangling herself when her spines didn't allow her to reverse. Now Blossom had decided to have a go and rival Petal's daft accident.

Martin went to check on Blossom and Twinkle before we went to bed as he always does. All animals are checked last thing and first thing when Martin gets up at 5am. Suddenly Martin's shouting for me.

"SARAH! SARAH! FLAT HEDGEHOG.HELP" 

I zoomed into the conservatory thinking "Oh God. She's got out and he's trodden on her" But quite a different sight greeted my eyes.

Blossom had climbed and squeezed herself between the wooden hog box and the front of the wire of the hutch, a gap of about 1.5 inches! She was completely flat and stretched out with her furry belly outward towards us and all four paws fully stretched to the corners and hanging onto nothing. Her nose was poking out through the mesh. She was well and truly stuck.

While Martin open the hutch door, I put my hands under her to catch her as she fell. She was fine, if not a little indignant at having been on display for the world to see, and we quickly arranged a new bed for her and removed the wooden hog box. Then we weighed her. She's lost nearly 50g from when we put her outside. She huffed and hissed and puffed at us as she wriggled her way into her new nest.

The morning light revealed she's not really eaten anything overnight again so today we start tempting her to eat and building her back up with cooked chicken.

We are very disappointed the release failed, but it's more important to keep her alive as the population has taken such a bashing in recent years and we want to give her the greatest chance of living a long life as a mother of many baby hedgehogs.

Some of who will no doubt end up in our conservatory being over-wintered one day ,but c'est la vie!

Walnut shell floating t-lights

This is the first of my Christmas crafty projects. I saved the walnut shells from the last time we had some and already had the t-lights in a drawer. I bought nothing specifically for this project at all - even my melting equipment was just a saucepan of boiling water with a trivet on the bottom and a clean glass jar.

 

Step 1: Split the t-light in half to remove the wick and stand...

 

Step 2: Put the wick and stand inside the walnut half...

 

Step 3: Heat up the water and pop the split wax discs into your glass container to melt...please make sure you protect the glass from the sides and bottom of the saucepan, as direct heat can shatter the glass. Also keep an eye on the water level and never let it drop too low. Once melted you can add essential oils to the wax - I added about 10-15 drops of Ylang Ylang - but you can use t-lights that have already been fragranced.

Step 4: line up your walnut halves - I used an old grill rack (with newspaper underneath) as the shells sat nicely and firmly between the spokes and didn't tip over. Next is the tricky bit: be careful not to burn yourself with hot wax. Remove your glass jar from the pan with thick oven gloves and rest it on a thick tea towel or pad. Then tip the jar at an angle with one hand so you can get a teaspoon in and fill up each shell with around 3-5 teaspoons of wax. You will have wax left over as each walnut doesn't quite take a whole t-light's-worth.

 

And there you have it - walnut shell floating t-lights!

The let the left over wax set and will keep it for another project another day....

And it shall be festive....

I am of course talking about Christmas. It's no good. I've held back since August and I just can't hold back any longer. I'm going all out for it now. Yes, the time has come for CHRISTMAS PREPARATION.

Just you put down those rotten tomatoes down for a moment and let me explain!

Every year I say THIS Christmas will be different. That THIS Christmas will finally see me swanning back and forth dishing out mulled wine and home-baked mince pies like a domestic goddess. This Christmas I will be organised and efficient enough to get the Christmas cards out not just on time, but each with a little personal message. This Christmas will be the one where home-stitched decorations hang from the tree, and the house is full of the smell of orange, mixed spice and woodsmoke. And where Martin will be allowed to play his dreadful festive tapes of Christmas music and I will finally remember to tune into a carol service on the radio and be reminded of what Christmas is supposed to be all about.

I'm tired of frantic shopping, last minute wrapping and over sleeping Christmas morning because I'm so frazzled. Of finding out hubby has posted all the cards, including the ones without addresses on. Of me standing gormlessly with hot pans burning holes through my oven gloves because I've no worksurface to put them on so I finally dump them on the tile floor.

Nope, this year I'm going to make a festive, relaxed and joyful Christmas if I have to drag it kicking and screaming.

So without further ado let me begin.

I spent a most enjoyable morning the other day with cups of tea and all my old Christmas Country Living magazines gleaning some inspiration and taking photos along the way. I'm particularly interested this year in two things a) doing things differently and b) doing it homemade using things from my kitchen cupboards, the garden or hobbies stash! And this is what I found (very image heavy from now on and all photo credits to Country Living):

Decorations

Easy to make non-edible cinnamon decorations

  

A use for last year's Christmas cards besides the usual tags

 

Oh wow is all I can say to this wreath! This is hand-made and not plastic and I do have the components in the garden and the fridge to make this

 

Check out the paper chain made from velvet ribbon!

I have a few ugly baubles that could do with a makeover like this

 

Easy peezy!

 

I live with a sweetie fiend and I have bucket loads of royal icing

 

Bit of wild card this one. It would be too costly for me to do but I love it! A florist's sponge ball with moss and mistletoe poked into it.

For all you knitters out there, check out this link to making a miniature yarn ball (with needles) decoration for the tree! I think there's probably an easier way to do it by leaving out the bauble all together. That way you can re-use the yarn if you want to.

Homemade pressies

 

 

 

 

And of course you could also knit or crochet tea cosies, gloves, dishcloths, scarves, cushions covers, blankets (squares), lap warmers, socks...the possibilities are endless!

Advent calenders with a difference!

Super easy

 

Baby's first advent calender?

Food

I love this!

 

If you don't fancy the turkey or for someone who is pesce-vegetarian

Ahhhh cuteness!

Ooooo....sweet stuffed red onions...my favourite...

Raspberry and chocolate roulade...yum, yum, scoff, scoff, scoff

Living room style

I adore the patchwork stockings!

 

 

 

I like the teeny tree!

The festive table

 

Doesn't this have a nostalgic 1940s feel to it?

 

 

I love the great big rope of fragrant rosemary down the middle of the table with lots of apples and nuts

Well..I hope you're still with me and enjoyed this little piece of inspiration. I've been gathering supplies together to start some of these projects and finished one at the weekend.

But that's to show you another day!

A giveaway update

What a wonderful response! Thank you all for coming over and taking part. If you know anyone who needs a blog banner or could do with a little boost to their veg growing, point them here. They've got until the 20th November to leave a comment here.

I thought I'd take the opportunity to answer a few questions and comments that have been raised so far:

Rhonda from Down to Earth

I'd like to enter your draw please, for the John Seymour book, although I am a long way away and the postage might cost a lot. Let me know if you'd like me to change my preference.

No way! Wherever you are I will pay for postage.

***

Charlotte

By the way can those gloves be converted to legwarmers? ;-)

I know, I know, I'm such a bugger! I promised you a pair of legwarmers ages ago. I started them shortly after doing the gloves but realised after about 80 rows they were absolutely enormous. I'd doubled the number of stitches and it just didn't work.  I will do them honest. I'm having a crafty weekend in the studio this week and will definitely sort them out. 

***

Katie from Katidids

I would love to enter both and will gladly pay postage to the US!

I've got the postage covered if you win, so don't worry.

***

Terry from Corum Web Designs

Can someone in the USA enter the contest?

Absolutely. Anyone, anywhere in the world can enter.

***

Zannah from Zannah and Zippy

Our vegetable growing isn't going well at all at the moment - the weather seems to be all over the place.

Tell me about it. Whatever is growing out there is being drowned or frozen. Or eaten by my motely crew of beaked friends. I didn't think chickens were supposed to eat onions??!!

***

Jennyff from My Life In Flip Flops

Love the wrist warmers, they are fantastic but those are not the hands of a self sufficient gardener, far too glam.

Welcome home! In my defense, that nail polish dried in 60 seconds and was very good at quickly hiding my dirty-ish fingernails for the photo after a spot of impromptu weeding round the baby turnips. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

***

Sharon at Clover Cottage

Who knows, we may meet ay the Bicycle Basket Bazaar one day!!

For anyone out wondering what this is, it's:

"...the most cutting edge craft fair and the best flea market you have ever been to, with a little bit of village fete thrown in for good measure. We would like you to load up your bicycle basket with the finest produce, whimsical curiosities or handmade goods. Your stock must be either: handmade, vintage or home grown by the seller. We will not accept any new goods. This is an unique opportunity to clear out your drawers or empty your pockets and sell your unwanted junk, beautiful handmade treasures or surplus home grown produce whilst remaning carbon neutral."

The Bazaar is held once a month at the Old Fish Market off Market Square in Northampton. The next date is on the 28th November between 12-4pm and this is the website to find out more!

***

Now I feel it's only fair to warn you, the next post will either delight or disgust you. It either can't come soon enough for you or you'd rather it arrived like February 29th - every four years. You either skip happily towards it or run screaming.

It's Christmas

You have been warned.

300th post blogiversary and a giveaway

Check out the new Steelkitten blog banner above! Isn't it wonderful! The superbly talented illustrator Kat Whelan over at Shoestring Garden did this design for me. It was my present to myself - this is my 300th post since I started this blog back in April 2007. And I'm in the mood to celebrate and say thank you to you all for reading (and not running away screaming) with two little giveaways:

1) A blog banner by Kat Whelan. Kat will work with you to decide the three main elements that most represent you and/or your blog and which would work well in the final illustration. She'll then put her talents to work creating the perfect blog banner for you. As Kat owns the copyright on all the final artwork, she provides you with a high resolution jpg of the final illustration which you can resize for your blog.

2) A copy of John Seymour's Guide to Self Sufficiency and Joy Larkom's Grow Your Own Vegetables  plus a stash of non-hybrid seeds (Kitchen Garden and Salad Garden Collection) from the Real Seed Catalogue (If you live in Australia or another country with strict laws about importing seeds, I'm happy to sort out a seed order for you from a preferred seed supplier within your country.)

The giveaway will run until midnight 20th November 2009.

All you have to do to enter is leave me a comment below and let me know if you want to be entered into one or other, or both giveaways. If you don't have a blog, please leave me an e-mail address so I can contact you, but don't worry - I will keep it confidential and it won't be published with your comment.

I'll be pulling the names out of a hat on 21st November 2009. 

Good luck all!

***

Now, before I forget, I must say a big thank you to Fiona and Danny over at Cottage Smallholder. Do you remember I said I won their competition? Well, they are clearly mind readers, because these great seed envelopes turned up the morning I was sat in the living room sorting out my motley collection of seeds from the garden. 

I'd been making do with a flimsy assortment of envelopes. 'Making do' mostly involved grabbing the envelope, forgetting seeds were in there and tipping them all over the floor. There are notable food crumbs among my seeds now after scrabbling around on the tiles and under furniture picking them up. I've dropped my delphiniums twice, but no more. Not with these sturdy little numbers. 

Thanks Fiona and Danny. Much appreciated!

***

Nope, you don't have double vision. There is now a second chicken who looks remarkably like Marybelle. Except her name is Georgia. She was Marybelle's pen mate at the poultry centre and we bought her as Marybelle looked a bit lonely and scared trailing after Bisto and Oxo.

And this is Dusty and Lulu, 16 week old White Sussexes. We just wanted them because they're white and they looked so scared in the poultry centre!

All six chickens are now forgaging and sleeping together. The frantic pecking and pained yelps have calmed down now they have arranged their pecking order. The hysterical forays into next door's garden has stopped. Harmony reins. Oxo and Bisto are moulting. Oxo has no feathers on her head and the subject of much mirth between me and Martin. She's all beak and baldness.

***

Isn't this such a cute picture of Blossom.

Both her and her brother Filbert have made the weight for winter and were released into the garden over the last couple of weeks. Twinkle still remains and although doing well at 488g, will not make the 600-700g weight before the really cold weather sets in. So once again this winter we're constructing a warm hibernaculum in the conservatory for a hedgehog.

***

Finally, I got up close and personal with my knitting machine again recently and these were the result. Long fingerless gloves - literally fingerless.They just roll over my knuckles and I love 'em.

I even wear them in the house. It's like having extra long jumper sleeves. Fabulous.