After our family bereavement on day ten, I’m sad to say that our #30DaysWild enthusiasm waned somewhat. I’ve tried to catch up but the longer it takes, the more pressure I feel I’m putting myself under. I don’t want to just abandon the whole thing though so I’m going to put the remaining 15 days …
Day 15: Looking at the Peregrine Falcon On day 15 of #30DaysWild I was looking for some inspiration. Luckily, the #30DaysWild campaign has a handy little app which came up trumps by suggesting I watch a wild webcam. I found a brilliant one atop Derby Cathedral watching Peregrine Falcons, and spend a considerable amount of …
Foraging is something I really want to learn more about. I have very limited knowledge of foraging and if ever there was a subject on which solid knowledge was important, this is it. One misguided decision to eat something in the wild could have dire consequences. One thing I do know how to identify though is …
It’s a very odd feeling, watching someone slip seamlessly from this world to the next. It’s a waiting game. A game you don’t want to play but can’t walk away from. When my time comes, I hope death takes me like it took my Auntie Eva today. In my sleep, pain free and when I’m …
I’ve never had very green fingers. In fact, most everything I try to grow just dies a sudden death. My husband, however, is better and so he and the boys have a few things growing in the back yard. On day 9 of #30DaysWild we are looking at how our plants are doing. We don’t …
My children are now 5 and 8 years old and spend quite a lot of time in and around nature and wild places. We have tried to teach them to appreciate their natural environment and to take care of the wildlife around them. We’ve never really focused on the more formal side of things, rather we …
We took a picnic by the river on day 7 of our #30DaysWild adventure. It was a bit of an impromptu dinner as the forecast hadn’t looked great, but I decided to throw caution to the wind (and the rain) and chucked our food into bags. The boys were delighted at the sudden change of …
There have been some incidents in our local area recently where children have come into contact with Giant Hogweed. Some have suffered burns as a result. A park nearby has Giant Hogweed growing along the riverbank, so people who aren’t aware of the dangers of the plant have had their skin come into contact with …
For day 4 of our #30DaysWild challenge Louis wrote a poem about his favourite creature: the bat. We have spent a lot of time as a family looking at and talking about bats. We even sponsor one in Louis’ name through the Bat Conservation Trust. We have visited all manner of sites with our bat …
The boys are very interested in life and death, with how things work and how things come to be. The imminent arrival of their baby brother has probably heightened their interest too, so I thought we could take a look at life cycles. I thought it best to start with something small. We opted for …