Introducing Muriel

I would like to introduce you to Muriel, the twin sister to Ruby Rose, whom you met last post.

Muriel is a rather unusual character, lovable in her own special way, but she doesn't have the natural charm and poise of Ruby R.

Muriel has decided it's time to step out of her sisters shadow and find out who she really is.

She's a little bit, hmmm, what shall I say here? Quirky, eccentric, zany, obsessive an interesting character to say the least!

She's a 'try hard', a square peg in a round hole, but that doesn't stop her from 'having a go'

Muriel is gracing the front of two book covers.

She's likes to think she's a bit of a trend setter, whether these trends 'take off' or not remains to be seen........

She decided to join the 'blue rinse' brigade, well before her time.

She thinks the colour suits her particularly when she puts on her new 'op shop' glasses.

She's planning on joining the local book club and thinks she will fit in nicely........

She also has a slight obsession with Peter Pan collars and puff sleeves. They bring back happy memories of matching candy striped party dresses her mum used to dress her and her sister in.
Harking back to her childhood, when she was carefree and happy and never worried about what people thought of her or if she fitted in or not.

Muriel will no doubt be making more appearances in the future.

I found these two photos on the camera when I was down loading and would like to share them with you.

No1 son has taken them and I love the softness and subtleness of the colours.

Two different evening skies and colours Muriel would approve of!

I whipped up a new bunny for my stall at the weekend and sold it before I even thought to take a pic of it, doh!
Just had to make another as I rather enjoyed putting him together.
I wanted to post before I went to work so here he is not quite finished but you get the idea.

Using a recycled woollen blanket and some vintage style fabrics. Love the colours and his little Suffolk puff cotton tail.




As you can imagine with Spring here and bucket loads of rain the garden has been taking off along with the weeds.
I decided to check out what the cherry trees were up to and imagine my surprise and delight when I found these little beauties amongst the leaves.
Last year during the drought we had a measly 3 cherries on each of the 3 trees and then to add insult to injury the birds ate them, grrrr....
This year it's a different story and between the 3 trees there must be close to 100 cherries. BUT if you click on the pic you will spy some nasty, slimy little cherry slug.
Whilst they don't appear to harm the fruit they do damage the leaves and there's no way I'm going to spray this close to the fruit being ready to eat, even if I use something organic.
The trees aren't netted, so chances are we will be sharing some of the fruit with the birds. But I will keep an eager eye on them to make sure we do get a taste!!

Along with the cherries, the berries are also cropping abundantly. They have only been in for 3 years and once again this year is a super duper crop.

With regular weekly downpours, the berries are filling out and colouring up beautifully.

Once again some nasty little sap sucking critters have decided to help themselves.

For the first time, we have those little green shield bugs, which suck the juice and goodness out of things.

We are using the natural method of picking them off and giving them the 'size 9' treatment (crushing them under our boots!)

One of the chooks has taken a liking to the taste of them and as soon as we head over to the canes she is right by our side, waiting for the feast to begin.

They seem to give off a smell much like coriander, which I actually love, so I don't mind picking them off the plants.

Hopefully, we will be able to keep on top of the problem and harvest enough fruit to make some jam.

If anyone has a natural method or product they know of to eradicate these nasties please let me know.

I started my morning with a wander round the garden, basket and secateurs at hand and dead heading the roses and picking some to bring inside.

I filled the basket almost to overflowing, I love roses and filling vases with them to place around the house.

There's a mix of Camp David, Radox Bouquet, Mothers Love and Lady of Megginch (David Austin and new this season) in the photo.

Forget your expensive arrangements of exotic flowers from the Florist (nice if you are sent some though) I'm happy to pick them from my garden even if some of them are a little too sun kissed.

Can't forget a little posy for the bedside table, rosebuds, lavender and parsley flower heads for added interest. The bees are loving the parsley at the moment and I love the shape and texture of the flower heads.

Mind you there's no parsley as it has gone to seed, but I am quite happy to leave it there for a little bit longer to enjoy.....

It's been a little while since my last post, I was busy sewing for my market stall last Sunday. The weather was perfect so we expected a bumper crowd.

But due to the weather being so nice it seemed the crowds were elsewhere. Never mind that's the nature of markets and there were still quite a few visitors and the usual locals.

I sold quite a few things and was very happy with the outcome, so will be once again beavering away at the machine making things for next months market.

All's well here in the Sweet Birdy Love household.

The weather is warming up, not sure how I feel about that. Doesn't take much to work up a sweat when you are out in the sunshine, but at least we will have lovely juicy berries and cherries....

The Lavender walk will be haze of purple shortly and the bees will be creating a daily hum. The orchard is filling up with apples, pears and nashis and in the back orchard are nectarines, peaches and plums. Not the biggest crop as heavy rain and wind have knocked alot of flowers/fruit off the trees. I love summer days when you can walk out to the orchard and pick a sun warmed peach straight from the tree. Bite into it's juicy flesh, let the juice run down your chin, mmmm..........

There are things I love about summer and that's some of them.

Well, thankyou all for stopping by, having a read and leaving a comment if you have time.

I hope you are all having a good week,

until next time, take care,

Claire X