Art and little quacking creatures

Click here to create your own painting.

Ben discovered this "create your own mood painting" on www.bored.com (yep, he was at the time) and we have all had fun creating our own mood on-line and then later for real using paint, pastels, crayon, etc., etc. to produce some nice work.

Ben's "the colourful circle"

Continuing with the arts and crafts Ben has started a lovely big cardboard castle and when it's completely finished (just needs painting now) I'll take some piccies.

Katie has been making more wool ponies for herself and for friends. She also came across this fun drawing pad website.

Remember reading on Lucy's blog sometime back about Manga drawings which Katie wanted to have a go at. Not sure if Lucy provided this BBC website or if I discovered it, but it's very good and Katie produced some lovely Manga style piccies.

Finally, on the art theme, for anyone who enjoys creating doll like avators that may just (in my dreams) resemble yourself, Photobucket/Meez now have an option to do this. Creating a free account and making the avator was fun, exporting it took me a while to figure out. I was probably being blind and/or stupid, but in the end it seemed I had to go to "Home" and then click on "Export" on the top bar. Good luck and have creative fun.


We are continuing to read about the wildlife in our garden. This week, with the arrival of the ducklings on Wednesday, we've been looking at ducks and found this site really useful. Hoping, if the ducklings continue to visit us, we'll be able to follow their progress using all the information we've come across. Katie was the first to notice some changes in the four ducks that we've known since we moved in 4 weeks ago. We reckon the ducks must still be quite young as their feathers, beaks and voices are changing daily.

Laid back Allie couldn't help having a go at stalking one of the ducklings today. Luckily mum duck was on the ball and gave Allie a noisy chase back into the house. Since then, he's moved well away from the kitchen door whenever a duck wanders by!

We've also noticed a pair of goldfinches have made a very feathery nest in our plum tree. Unlike the blackbirds in our previous house, the goldfinches are very nervous if we approach to take a (distant) glance at them nesting. Hope we'll see some little ones soon.

We've been busy planting tomato (thanks T) and pepper plants and quick, re-growing, salad (used this last year, it was so easy to grow and continues to grow whenever you chop some off to eat). We also plan (time permitting) to plant some carrots and late potatoes in large pots. Our next door neighbour is going to help prepare a small veggie plot for me ready for next year.