Looking Back to Stay at Home or In the Garden: Safety Net

After 6 Weeks of “stay at home” the life is slowly changing and the rules are less strict.

Compared to other countries we (in Switzerland) cannot complain: we were allowed to go out for walking, for shopping and to meet people (maximum group of 5 items).

We have to be careful and we will change the recommendation of “stay at home” to “stay safe”, this will be our safety net.

“Stay save” and “stay positive”!

Spider Net with sunlight and dark background:

Stay at home posts: https://artandkitchen.wordpress.com/category/nature/stayhome/

Stay at Home = Stay in the Kitchen

Stay in the Garden = Enjoy the Nature

Day 43 Stay at Home or In the Garden: Purple Allium and Large Bee-Fly

Purple llium with Bombylius major (commonly named the large bee-fly or the dark-edged bee-fly).

In the garden you can let you mind stopping from the busy routine, realise that a few square meter are an entire world, discover new plants and animals, listen the song of the birds, be amazed by the beauties, understand how fast everything is developing and finally you find rest and relief.

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Day 42 Stay at Home or In the Garden: Yellow Roses

Yellow scented roses on the wall of our garden for our eyes, for our nose and for our hearth!  🙂

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Day 41 Stay at Home or In the Garden: Deaf Adder

Even a small pond of little more than a square meter is like a small universum. We discovered an unexpected guest in our mini-paradise. the deaf adder (Anguis fragilis).

Every year we saw a few deaf adder here or there, but we never saw them disappearing under the roots of our yellow iris around the pond.

These legless lizards (no snake or worm, please) are also sometimes called common slowworms,  blindworm, or regionally, a long-cripple.

These reptiles are mostly active during the twilight and occasionally bask in the sun, but are more often found hiding beneath rocks and logs. They are carnivorous and, because they feed on slugs and worms, they can often be found in long grass and other damp environments (in our case near the pond).

Useful links:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/anguis-fragilis

https://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Anguis_fragilis/

Day 38 Stay at Home or In the Garden: Iris

 

Gardening is wonderful relaxing way especially when you find your way to keep it easy.

As we started with the garden, we did not really know which plants are best suitable for the soil and which one would grow and bring us the best without spending a lot of time and money in order to have a nice garden.

In our case in spring, iris flowers make our garden beautiful with almost no work and we know that next year they will be here again!

In the photos: Iris Pseudacorus (Yellow Water Iris) and  Bearded Iris (Iris germanica).

 

Day 35 Stay at Home or In the Garden: Alpine Newts

 

In my privious post Day 30 Stay at Home or In the Garden: On and in the Water

we could present you the fist pics of the life in our garden.

This post is for our fist video of newts underwater, it’s not the best video, but when we will have the opportunity, we will add more photos or videos. It’s really amazing and it makes me happy to seat near the water and discover what’s going on…

 

Day 32 Stay at Home or In the Garden: Four-Leaf Clovers

Today I would like to explain you how to find 4 leaf clovers!

Since I was a child, I was used to find 4-leaf clovers again and again! My method was to spot the angles between the leaves (120 degrees for 3-leaf clovers and 90 degrees for 4 leaf clovers).  Most 3/4 leaf clovers have a light part in the leaves; in these case the 3-leave clovers show triangles and 4-leaf clovers a square!

For the other ones (plain green leaves) I see a cross into the 4-leaf clovers and in this way I saw the difference.

Another tip is: if you find one, look near to this, very ofter the genetic mistake produce more of them so that the probability to find more is much higher! You may also make yourself a note of the place and after one week or so, check again the same place!

More and more you look after 4-leaf clovers, more and more you will be able to find some in a few minutes!

According to tradition, finding a four-leaf clover brings luck to the person who discovers it, in my case it’s only fun, but I love to dry from time to time some of them for making good wishes cards.

I’m lucky, very lucky to have a garden, if you don’t have this possibility now, you may exercise virtually and have fun with these links:

https://newbiefarmergirl.com/2018/03/16/find-the-4-leaf-clover-%F0%9F%8D%80/

Can you find the four leaf clover? Good luck

How to find a 4-leaf clover

Find A Four Leaf Clover

Two 4-leaf clovers in the picture

How many four-leaf clovers do you see?

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Day 31 Stay at Home or In the Garden: Busy Bees

It’s high season now for our bees! Plenty of flowers around and a lot of sunshine.

It’s almost one month we did not have a real rain, therefore we were afraid that the nectar production of the blooming fruit trees, could be too slow.

We are lucky, now our little bees have enough to do!

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Day 30 Stay at Home or In the Garden: On and in the Water

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It was time to arrange a little bit the garden and the almost abandoned pond came out to light again and, now after 4 weeks almost without rain, it needed the addition of some fresh water.

It was a more than pleasant surprise to see how much life we could notice on and in the water; the alpine newts are my favourites. I hope I will learn how to catch a few more pics of them.

Day 29 Stay at Home or In the Garden: Colored Easter Eggs

An almost impossible event: Easter breackfast in the garden; and this at our latitude. 

We celebrated the event coloring our eggs in a natural way, super easy and always welcomed.

Unlike to other years we spent our Easter at home with our family, we event did not go shopping for this event, but those eggs and litttle decoration made this day special again.

The bread we enjoyed this moring was: Beautiful Challah (Sourdough Version)

with butter, honey and homemade jams.

Color Variations:

Blue using red cabbage, yellow using turmeric, brown with coffee, maroon with beets, bluish gray with blueberries, green with spinach boiled spinach leaves and the rust color with paprika.

Colored Easter Eggs

• Servings: 6 pieces
• Time: active time=30 min; cooking and resting time=30 minutes
• Difficulty: easy
• Print

     

Ingredients

• 6 eggs
• 4 onions(dried skin only or other ingredients), preferably red onions
• herbs, leaves and flowers (or wax)
• 6 short nylon socks
• vegetable oil, optional

Procedure

1. For reddish brown color: Crunch the onionskins into a medium saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let sit until the water is a rich reddish brown. Keep the solution warm, but not hot.
2. Clip the herbs and leaves into small lengths and individual leaves.
3. Place herbs and flowers around the first egg in the nylon sock. Fix the flowers and the leaves stretching the nylon sock around the egg and tie it tightly with a knot or twist tie to hold the leaves in place. Note: leaves on an egg will block the onion dye from reaching the area covered by the leaves.
4. Load the eggs into the coloring solution taking care that they should stay completely covered. If necessary, add just enough water to cover them.
5. Bring the pot to simmer, cover, and remove from heat. Let the eggs soak in the dye until the whole pot comes to warm room temperature.
6. Remove the eggs from the solution, snip off the knots and rinse off the eggs, discarding the nylons and herbs.
7. Pat the eggs dry, and rub them with a bit of vegetable oil to bring out the shine and brilliant deep reddish brown color.

Autor: https://artandkitchen.wordpress.com/