A Spring recap!

 

 

February was Ownie's first Birthday. The Birthday Ring that Opi brought back from Germany came out. It's still mostly me that gets a kick out of seeing it...though both kids liked blowing out the candle.

 

 

A rather unprofessional-looking robot cake was made. Tasted good though! 

Woolly pants were worn...mostly by Ownie thank god. Children grew and played and learnt to walk...

Some of us briefly channelled a "Miami Octogenarian"  look for a while....thanks Mam!

 

Flowering red current (one of my favorites) blossomed outside the house. Smells like cat wee but it always remind me of the time I was falling in love with my husband...am not sure what that says about us!

My best friends came to visit!  They've been multiplying too!

 

Ownie and I had a fantastic trip to Cornwall. It's such a cool place. For instance at the town where my friends live they have a bubble room just for babies (and their tired Mothers). Some of my favourite people live there too!

To cap it all off a purple hen came and laid a bunch of colourful eggs on our table! Hope she comes again next year, although all that messing with dyes and three year olds wanting to be involved and dyed eggs being thrown across the room I'm not sure she will...

What doing doing?

When Maisie was younger a common phrase that was heard throughtout the day was 'What doing!?'

Then it turned into 'What doing doing?' (much to the amusement of our friend Labhaoise!)

So here's some stuff she's been getting up to lately......

Halloween!

Halloween went by in a blur! I knitted Maisie's witch's hat last year and knitted, then felted her witch's skirt for this year. When I find my scribbled notes, I'll stick them up.

She loved her costume and looked darned cute, might have to make her another, not black, one!

We had a fun day, dancing in the puddles, feeding the ponies down the road from my parents house and admiring the berries and litchens becoming visible on the trees. Then some last minute pumpkin carving happened followed by trick or treating with Maisie for the first time. Such fun!

puddle photos thanks to Hugh!



Hope you had a wonderful Halloween!

It's the little things.....

• Beautiful handmade gift (my favorite sort!) for Maisie on her Birthday from my dear friend Rebekah of snap it stitch it stick it. Check out her lovely blog! 

• Exploring our new surroundings

 

•  New work on the needles for a new "little thing" arriving the end of Winter!

• Getting our toes into the (rare) sunlight whenever we can.

• Finding new favorite trees.

• Birthday celebrations that last a week and family-get-togethers.

Especially these days, still surrounded by boxes and the general chaos that moving house brings, it's the little things that are making my day!

Cupcake heaven!

Using the cupcake recipe from The Gentle Art of Domesticity we made some cupcakes for Dada on Father's Day! I wanted a little something extra for the icings so after some rummaging around the cupboards and some experimentation a new icing recipe was invented....

Icing for a Special Man

1 cup icing sugar

2 tbsp ricotta cheese

 a few drops of maple syrup

coco powder/zest and juice from an orange

1. Sieve a cup of icing sugar into a bowl.

2. Add the ricotta cheese and the maple syrup.

3. Mix in either the sieved coco powder or the zest and juice, a few drops at a time!

4. When cupcakes are cool, spread on thickly using a knife.

5. Hide immediately if not to be eaten straightaway!

 

We decorated them with roasted almonds, marshmallows and choc chips and then had to take precautions as a certain someone decided she didn't really want to wait for Dada to come home before tucking in!

Our St. Patrick's Day.

Our St. Patrick's Day was a full one with a busy morning in the house, then off to see the local parade then having family over that evening. Full and lovely!

My sister made us these shamrocks for our coats, matching ones for us all, to wear to the parade..... 

And Maisie wore her St. Paddy's seed pod hat.

The parade was cool, there were lots of tractors.....and also some green horses!

That evening we had our Mum's yummy Irish Stew, a perfect end to the day.

Hope you all had a good one too!

St. Patrick's Day Seed Pod hat.

Some last minute crafting happened on the evening before St. Patrick's Day and in the few hours before the parade the next morning.

I had in mind a pixie type hat for Maisie....but it turned out more seed pod!

I should have paid more attention whilst I was knitting and I should have jotted down the pattern as it popped into my head... but I do admit to having a lazy streak! This is roughly how it happened: First I knit a band, sewed it end to end, picked up some stitches then decreased quite quickly until I got to the 'stem' bit. Once I got down to three stitches I just kept knitting. 

My sister cut the shamrock from some felt and turned a Spring seed pod hat into the perfect St. Paddy's Day attire. And my little girl? Well she wore it pretty much all day, indoors and out, so I guess she liked it too!

Beannachtaí Lá Fhéile Pádraig!

Happy St. Patrick's Day from the Mountain Fox!

Bakery window display on Shop Street, Galway.

Seachtain na Gaeilge!

Dán le Liam Ó Flaithearta do hSeachtain na Gaeilge.

A poem by Liam Ó Flaithearta for Irish Week, translated by Pádraig O'Catháin (my Dad!) into English below. 

Na Blátha Craige 

Adúirt mé leis na blátha:
‘Nach suarach an áit a fuair sibh
Le bheith ag déanamh aeir,
Teannta suas anseo le bruach na haille,
Gan fúibh ach an chloch ghlas
Agus salachar na n-éan,
Áit bhradach, lán le ceo
Agus farraige cháite,
Ní scairteann grian anseo
Ó Luan go Satharn
Le gliondar a chur oraibh.'

Adúirt na blátha craige:
‘Is cuma linn, a stór,
Táimid faoi dhraíocht
Ag ceol na farraige.'

The Rock Flowers

Said I to the rock flowers:
‘Isn’t it a miserable place you've found
To be out in the air,
Stuck up here at the edge of a cliff,
With nothing beneath you only the bare stone
And the bird's droppings,
A wretched place, full of fog
And sea spray,
The sun never shines here
From Monday to Saturday
To enhearten you’.

Replied the rock flowers:
‘We don't mind, sweetheart,
We are spellbound 

by the music of the sea.’

St. Bridget's Day (and Bridget's Cross tutorial)

Yesterday we prepared for St. Bridget's Day. Even though it was grey and windy, we knew we had to venture out to collect the rushes for our St. Bridget's cross. As well as being a patron saint of Ireland, Bridget was also a pagan Goddess. On this day, Bridget the Goddess of nature and growth, heralds the start of the Spring. And it remains a tradition to make crosses from wild rushes in many parts of the country.

First, collect your rushes.

Then pick the longest straightest rushes from your bunch.

              Pick two of these to begin, A and B.

           Wrap rush B around the rush A.

Turn the two rushes 90 degrees to the left and wrap rush C around rush A.

Turn the cross another 90 degrees and wrap the next rush around rush C.

Turn the cross another 90 degrees and wrap another rush. Keep going in the manner until your cross is the size you would like.

Bind the ends of the cross with string or yarn and snip off the untidy edges.

    Hang up in your house as a little reminder of the green that is to come....
                                 Happy St. Bridget's Day!