Little Cotton Rabbits

May days

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

May has been a beautiful month here, with just the right mix of sunshine and rain showers to provide perfect growing conditions. As a result the countryside is now abundantly green and lush with new growth. At the orchard I was a little late to see the apple blossom in all it's glory this year, by the first week of May most of it was just confetti on the grass, but the forget-me-not carpet under the trees was in full bloom and in the small wood the wild garlic was at it's pungent best.

Back at home we've had some new garden visitors. Most days we see a couple of red kites but on one day this month there were 20 or more of them circling directly overhead, it was quite a sight. We've had lots of small birds on the feeders, the robins busily feeding their family, along with blue and great tits, sparrows and goldfinches. This little blue tit fledgling was resting in the bush after the exertion of leaving the nest, hopefully he made it.

I've embarked on a 'befriend a crow' project and it's going well with this intelligent bird now recognising my signal for food and flying down to claim it once I'm back in the house. We've named him Edgar Allan Crow and I'm interested to see if he'll eventually trust me enough to fly down whilst I'm still outside.

And, most excitingly of all, we have 2 new foxes visiting daily. Though this is tinged with a little sadness, as it does mean that Kit is no longer around, either having been ousted from her territory again or having passed away, I would not like to say for certain which, seeing as I have already once written a eulogy for her only to have her reappear. These two new vixens are youngsters, their muzzles as yet unscarred by fighting and catching prey, (Kit and Kira both had quite scarred muzzles). They are either den mates or perhaps sisters, as they arrive together and mostly tolerate each other in the garden, though there is often some loud squabbling over food. The larger and most beautiful of the two is Kenzie who has a very sleek, glossy coat and light golden eyes. Katsue is the smaller vixen, with a sweet quizzical expression and a cheeky personality, though sadly she does seem to have a damaged leg which she cannot bear weight on but otherwise this does not seem to trouble or impede her. Obviously I have taken about a million pictures of them, so I will most likely write a blog post about them in more detail soon.

It's been half term week here this week and now there are only 3 weeks until Toby finishes his 'learning for living' college placement. We've still not managed to fully fill his week going forward, but we have found 2 fabulous outdoor settings specifically for adults with learning disabilities which have welcomed him with open arms, one on a community allotment and one on a small holding, plus there is one other setting which is prepared to offer him a 4 week trial period. I'm so grateful that we at least have these to help fill his time now that college is finishing.

See you soon with probably too many fox pictures :)

PS: I've updated the previous post with details of the winner of my lamb giveaway (number 213 which is Gretchen), I'm not able to concentrate well enough for pattern writing right now and instead I'm enjoying making finished animals so I do hope to have more giveaways this year, I'll keep you posted, J x

 

Spring, maybe?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's been so wet here, rain has fallen for weeks on end and many of our familiar pathways through the woods are now well beyond muddy and are completely flooded and impassable. It's been mild too, we've only had a few frosts here this winter and everything now seems to be sprouting and proclaiming the arrival of Spring. Hopefully it's not too soon and there are no snow storms just around the corner.

The old plum tree in the garden is currently in blossom, though with all the rain it's been hard to get good pictures. Usually I post with pictures of it's beautiful frothy white blossom against bright blue skies, but this year it's rain soaked blossom. It's still a lovely sight though and has been a magnet for the growing local population of green parakeets, who've been enjoying feasting on the unopened flower buds, sometimes 6 of them in the tree at a time.

We've also had daily visits from Squidgy the squirrel who now scrabbles at the back door to get our attention each morning and who loves Brazil nuts best of all. Up until a couple of weeks ago Kit was also visiting frequently and always in daylight. Now however it seems as if we have a new friendly fox, who always visits in the dark. It's so unusual for a wild fox to tolerate being visible to humans, usually as soon as they see or hear you they disappear into the shadows and are gone. But this new fox is much bolder and, like Kit, stays in the garden when we come out of the house, she sits a safe distance away, ready to run if the need arises but looking hopefully for a snack of one of Toby's cocktail sausages, which I'm more than happy to share with her. Amy has named her Kira and she's been visiting every day for the last week. I'm not sure if that means Kit has been turfed off her territory again (a while back she disappeared for many months) and we are wondering, because of the bold behaviour, if Kira is actually one of Kit's cubs that were raised in our garden in 2020. No way to know of course, I'm just delighted to be able to see these beautiful wild creatures up close.

In between planning for Toby (hopefully we're nearing the final stages of that all now) I have of course been knitting. I've been wanting to knit a lamb in spring green colours, I'm so drawn to green as a colour at the moment, but am dithering about what shade to knit in, I find it's one of the more difficult colours to choose tonal shades in. Hopefully I'll reach a decision and finish a spring lamb soon.

Hope that you're finding small joys in your days, J x

 

Early Autumn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It still feels like Autumn is waiting in the wings here, poised but not quite ready to make the dramatic entrance that the season is so loved for. There are inklings though of what will come; whisperings in the treetops, rustlings in the hedgerows, glimmerings in the undergrowth. The leaves are losing their vibrant summer green and are becoming dry and brittle. Each breath of wind sets free a flurry of seeds that twist and dance on the breeze until feathering gently to the woodland floor. The birds are gathering too, preparing for long migratory journeys, skeins of geese honking over the house in the first light of morning and flocks of finches that come looping and twittering into the garden, 30 or more at a time, and empty the bird feeders in a matter of minutes.

I've been out to the woods a few times on my own, hunting for photogenic fungi. As yet I have found very little, but I have enjoyed the quiet peace under the canopy and visiting the friendly red poll cattle that graze the woodland and a sweet, scruffy pony that lives in the field at the edge of the wood. And I came home with pocketfuls of beautifully fat and glossy chestnuts, I'll be sharing some with the friendly squirrel that visits our garden and roasting the rest later. Our other friendly visitor has been here frequently too, beautiful Kit the fox.

Here we are still settling in to term-time routines, it always takes a while for Toby to adjust and we have had a few wobbles, which have resulted in him being home a little more than expected or planned for. And the older I get the longer it seems to take me to settle in to concentrating properly. There's been a lot of knitting of course. I made a little rabbit for my friend to auction off at a charity masked ball that she organised to raise funds for the wonderful, inclusive playscheme that our sons both attended when they were younger. There has also been some simple weekend and evening sock knitting, as a welcome contrast to working on the patterns, which is at times fiddly, frustrating and takes a well-rested morning brain to tackle properly. I'm planning more simple wristwarmers and socks with the lovely autumnal coloured yarns bought from The Knitting Shed (I might be just a wee bit obsessed with their yarn at the moment).

My 'work-day' knitting is still all about my cow pattern, and I will show you more of how I'm getting on with that soon, but above are a couple of Highland cattle that will be making an appearance.

I've also spent a few months updating some of my existing patterns and have hopefully now sent out notifications of these changes to all Ravelry buyers. Below is a list of which patterns have been updated and in what way. If you use Etsy and you'd like a new revised copy of any of these patterns you'll need to message me via your Etsy account, as Etsy does not provide me with a way of sending you an automatic update in the way that Ravelry do. It's a very good reason to buy via Ravelry if you are able to, as I am planning a few future updates and extras to some of my other patterns. I've also added revision notes to the bottom of every pattern page on Ravelry so that you can quickly check when each pattern was last updated and what the errata/revisions were.

• Small 7 inch mouse pattern: Correction to Page 15, row 12, there was an extra P1 at the start of the 3rd line, which has now been removed
• Both 9 inch Horse patterns: Page 21, rows 9, 11 & 13, Ktog should read K2tog
• 9 inch 'boy' patterns for fox, elephant, mouse, monkey, bear, cat, and sheep: All now have a revised version of the shorts that includes a ribbed waistband.

 

Well, that's all from me for now, but see you soon, J x

 

Spring into summer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last few weeks have been even more of a roller-coaster ride than usual here. There have been quite deep lows; Toby's challenging behaviours have been gradually worsening for a while now and the episodes of his self-injuring and violent behaviour have been escalating. He's been sent home from college on 3 separate occasions for injuring staff and I currently have multi-coloured grip bruises on both of my forearms to add to my growing collection. Like many other families caring for offspring with severe learning and behavioural difficulties, we live with the constant distressing threat of domestic violence from our own child. Working out what is happening with him is an almost impossible task and we've spent so much of our recent free time filling out ABC (antecedent, behaviour, consequence) charts and forensically unpicking details of incidents. On top of that I've had food poisoning, though happily short-lived and thankfully in the past now.

But it's not been all bad, we've had big highs too, the biggest being Amy passing her driving test first time. We are delighted for her and the newfound independence this gives her. She's now driving herself to work each day, which has made my early mornings so much easier and has given her such a confidence boost. 

And as always nature is such a balm for a troubled heart so I've been out and about soaking up the peace and calm that it always brings me. Hawthorn blossom and wild roses, white nettles and cow parsley, buttercups and butterflies and so much green, more shades than have ever been named or mixed on a painter's palette. May and early June are abundant with much appreciated beauty.

I've also been visiting the long horn cattle regularly, study field trips for my in progress cow pattern, but also delightfully entertaining as they are all such characters and there are 5 beautiful calves this year.

And seeing kit the fox is always a big high for me, she often seems to turn up when I'm feeling low and the privilege of her visits lifts me enormously. And yes, she did sniff my camera lens!

There's one more week until Toby finishes college for this academic year and then he'll be off for just over 2 months so we're planning very calm and predictable routines which we're hoping will help him find a calmer place within himself. I hope to be back periodically over the summer months, but as he'll be my main focus I might not get as much chance to hang out here as I'd like.

Until next time I hope you have a good July and August and that you too find ways to temper any challenges you are facing with something that brings you joy, J x

 

 

Early April, mostly in pictures

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Words have been eluding me a little lately. Toby has been going through a bad patch behaviourally and I'm feeling a little tired and depleted. Happily Spring is now in full swing and the progression of colour throughout the countryside is providing many small delights. Being out with my camera always lifts my spirits and I hope these photos are a pleasure for you to see too. And Kit visiting again is such a joy. She's been here once or twice a week and is no longer pregnant so hopefully there are some healthy growing cubs hidden somewhere safe nearby. You can see in the second picture of her that part of her belly fur has gone, I've been trying to read up on whether it's related to her recently giving birth - maybe kind of a 'brood patch' as the cubs can't temperature regulate for the first 3 weeks of life. If anyone knows the answer please do let me know.

Progress is being made with the horse pattern but it's slow going at the moment as we're now in the Easter break from college so I'm not getting much time to work on it. Hopefully I'll have something ready to show you in a few weeks time.

Hope that you're finding some small delights in your days too, J x

 

All is quiet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

January is often a quiet month for me and I'm grateful to be able to be able to slow right down and take everything as calmly as possible as I make my plans for the year. Especially so this year, because for a little while now I have been been feeling rather down and becoming at times overwhelmed with anxiety, so as a way of trying to cope with that I've decided to start a 5 year journal and record all of the positive and beautiful things to remember from each passing day. I think that I am very lucky because it is so often the smallest of things that do lift my mood and bring me joy, and once you start to actively look for these moments you find there are actually quite a few in every day. But such moments can often get forgotten and overshadowed by everyday life, so recording them is a good way to bring them to mind when I need to feel brighter.

So far I've jotted about red kites soaring over the house, goldfinches and robins in the garden, Toby's laughter, Amy's smile, H's hugs, the taste of a good cake, the delicious feeling of sitting in bed and knitting away a weekend morning, the quiet calm of a gently flickering candle, the glory of sunrises, the delicacy of frost, the gentle balm of music *, and the delight in deciding to finally use a much loved skein of yarn from my stash - this one has been treasured for almost 10 years and is irreplaceable as Asti of Juno fibre arts is no longer creating her beautiful yarns, so I'm enjoying some very careful pondering of what project to cast on.

But above all else there is has been one totally unexpected, unbelievable and utterly delightful moment - the return of Kit the fox!!

It has been over a year since she was last here and I had written here on the blog that she might have died - I secretly feared she had been run over on the main road as there have been a few fox corpses at the roadside in the intervening months. But no, we were joyfully so very wrong because on Jan 13th she sauntered nonchalantly into the garden, as though she had just been here a day ago, sat down by the garden table and looked expectantly at me through the kitchen door. I have never had a jaw-dropping moment before, but I did then. A snack of Toby's cocktail sausages was swiftly found and as I approached her to put them down, still slightly disbelieving that it really was her, she stood up and approached me, confirming without any doubt that it was. You can see from the pictures below that she's a little more scarred about the muzzle than when she was last here but otherwise is looking well nourished and cosy in her thick growth winter coat. I suspect that she is pregnant and has come back because it's been especially cold recently and she's has difficulty finding enough food. She's arrived every evening since, just after darkness has fallen and I am so utterly overjoyed to see her again, and she's featuring heavily in my new journal of happy things :)

I hope she sticks around for a while longer and I'll be sure to bring you further news of her if she does stay around. If you are interested you can see the story of how we became friends and see my previous blog posts of her visits over the last four years here.

 

 

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The 5 year journal was purchased from Mål Paper with some of my Christmas money, (thanks M & D xxx)

 

* my music of choice at the moment is  'Found' by Martin Gauffin which is playing in the background at the moment and I find especially uplifting