Messing about in the shed! Happy Christmas everyone!

Today (Wednesday) was our last meeting before the Christmas holidays. It was -6 degrees centigrade up at the shed and the snow was still deep! We put out more fat balls for the birds, topped up the feeders and sprinkled some seed on the bird table. Then it was our turn to eat! We had our packed lunches as usual followed by cakes and Coke left over from the french club party - thank you folks!! Or should I say "Ooo la la...merci bien!!"Danielle enjoys the face from the caterpillar cakeIt was so cold in the shed, Lewis's lollipop ("What kind of a lunch is that Lewis!!" lol) was steaming!! "...and how evil can one look eating a lolly?!" We didn't have cups, so shared the coke out into bottles. When the bell went, we all parted with another big "Happy Christmas" - see you all next term, in the new year!High energy for the birds.

Christmas Feast!

This week, we enjoyed our very own garlic and brussel sprouts cooked up with bacon and cashew nuts and served with mashed potatoes and gravy. So close to Christmas, we also had crackers with the meal and mince pies for afters.

We prepared the vegetables on Wednesday - and yes, you need to get revenge on Charlotte for this photo Lewis!!

The outer leaves of the brussel sprout plants are a bit brown after all the snow and cold weather (and were ravaged by those caterpillars earlier!!)

Some sprouts were quite hard to get off the plants - a strong twist was needed.

There is still plenty of garlic left (in fact, the shed is filled with its aroma!)

Whilst Catriona and Lewis prepared the vegetables, Charlotte cut the pots from the fat balls. They stuck together perfectly!

A rich store of energy for the birds to peck at.

Without the wheelbarrows, there's lots of room in the shed.

Cooking the sprouts, garlic, cashews and bacon in the staff room. Miss Swallow carried the hot food out to the shed in a wicker hamper.

Reading the instructions for the crackers - they were not the usual type!!

Everyone had a whistle with a number on it. We had lots of fun TRYING to blow them at the right time to play Christmas Carols on the play sheet!

There were some gardening jokes in them. What's a gardener's favourite magazine?? "Weeders Digest" of course!!

Notice the musical hats (and we are wearing our new aprons too).

We all tucked in - yumm! The food didn't stay on our plates for long!! As we were eating, it went very dark outside and heavy snow started falling which made it feel very "Christmassy".

Danielle and Catriona pull the last cracker ready to play the whistles!

As the bell went for the end of lunch, we all parted - wishing each other a Happy Christmas. In fact, everyone seemed sad not to be meeting next week (as we finish early on Thursday) but actually I think we should meet on Wednesday - we can just check and fill the bird feeders and then check out the blog if it's cold or snowing! So, if you are reading this folks - see you next Wednesday!!

Udate: as the afternoon went on, the snow kept falling and settling on everything. This continued through the night and Friday as well, so the school was closed on Friday.

High Energy Food for the Birds

This week we had a go at making fat balls for the birds. Things however didn't quite go to plan! "Why?" You may ask! We tied string through the pots and melted the lard. After adding oats, bird seed and our very own sunflower seeds, we spooned the mixture into a pot and the molton lard immediately ran out of the bottom of course!!

We added more ingredients to make it a bit thicker, but in hindsight it would actually have been better to not punch holes in the pots for the string, but just use something like plasticine to attach it to the bottom.

At this point, we thought it would be a good idea to use the snow outside to cool the pots as the mixture was poured.Once cooled a litte, we left the pots in the shed overnight to set. Next week, we'll cut the pots away and hopefully they will hold together well enough to hang up on the bird feeder!Also this week, our new aprons arrived. We bought them with money raised at the Invermoriston Christmas Fayre - they donated their raffle money to us - thankyou so much!! They will help to keep us clean all year round. We also ordered a "Christmas Hamper" with the money which hasn't arrived yet - a basket with many vegetable seeds, trowel and fork and other equipment in. Below, you can see our logo has been embroidered onto the aprons:

Feeding the Birds as Winter Arrives!

This week as you can see, the garden is buried in snow! We were off due to the snow on Monday, but we didn't let the freezing conditions put us off on Wednesday. We assembled a bird feeder pole (indoors where it was warmer).

On Thursday, we put it out (in a temperature of minus 6 degrees centigrade!) We also put out a bird table that Miss Swallow made using old bits of wood, slats from an old cot and timbers used to pack the shed when it arrived!! Thanks to keyline for the wood cutoffs. Also this week, a parcel arrived for us - seeds for the spring and an "enviromesh" tunnel to protect the brassicas next year. Below, Charlotte and Catriona are trying to get the pack open!

Talking of brassicas - there are lots of brussel sprouts waiting to be harvested under that snow! We will have another cookup before Christmas using a recipe with bacon and walnuts too.

Below you can see the development of the bird table as it was being built - let's hope we get to see lots of birds feeding at it.