Collecting Useful Plants

In between the showers, Brother Barnabas and I went to the herb garden, where the herbs were looking fresh and tasty.

First of all we picked some marjoram to put in a salad

'Now we need something orange to go with it!' said Brother Barnabas. (He gets very excited about salads in May and June, because they taste especially good.)

'What about these pot marigolds?'

Brother Barnabas agreed that the petals would taste and look very nice in a salad with the bright green leaves of marjoram.

'And this woad will dye my habit a nice deep blue' said Brother Barnabas

There was only one more thing to gather for the table and that was some pretty flowers to put in a jug in the middle.

'These Pinks will be perfect!' said Brother Barnabas

They are his favourite flowers as they smell deliciously sweet and put everyone, even the grumpy Abbot in a good mood!

Busy in the Garden

Collecting May flowers in the sunshine

At last the sun has come out after all the rain! I have been so busy in the garden cutting all the grass and pulling out the weeds which grow at a hundred miles an hour with sun and rain.

Tomorrow I am gathering some dye plants to dye cloth for our habits. Bye for now!

Rainy Day Horses

Today - Sunday, it was a very wet day. It was so wet that there were big puddles everywhere and some ducks came and thought about making a nest in the garden. In April all the sparrows, blackbirds, wrens and robins are making nests, but when it rains, that's when the ducks come to stay.

It was good that it was raining because I had planted out some chard and some chervil and the water would help it to grow. But it wasn't good to go out in the rain because Rufus and I got very muddy very quickly and the wind made us cold. So we decided to make something indoors.

This is what we made

We made this horse from a cork that was in Brother Barnabas' collection of stoppers he uses for mead. We made four holes at the bottom and pushed in some little sticks. We made his head out of  a very thin piece of bark cut into the right shape. And we made his mane and tail out of strands of wool. Then we painted him. 

(You could make something like this using thin card and cocktail sticks cut in half.)

Then I said to Rufus, 'Shall we make up a story about the horse?' 

Rufus was half asleep but he thumped his tail on the floor to show he thought it was a good idea. First of all we needed a name for the horse, so we decided to call him Willow.

Willow lived in a field in a valley. Usually his field was full of lush green grass, but because it had been raining and raining, all the grass had gone underwater and he couldn't eat it. This made him very sad because he was hungry. He was also sad because his feet were always wet. But when Willow looked up to the high ground on either side of him, he saw that there was fresh green grass up there. So he splashed and squished and sploshed his feet until he got over to a place where the fence was a bit broken and he kicked it and kicked it with his hooves until he could get through and then he gave a great leap and climbed up on to the higher ground. And there he found there was no end of lovely green grass and not only that but there were small trees covered in tender leaves that he could eat as well. Willow stayed up on the high ground until the water his drained away from his field at the bottom of the valley and when he made his way back there, he found that the grass there tasted better than ever.

After I had told Rufus this story, the sun came out and we went into the garden and all the birds were singing because they were so happy the rain had stopped.

Brother Barnabus' Pancake Recipe

Last week it was Shrove Tuesday and that meant making pancakes to use up all the flour, eggs and milk we are not allowed to eat in Lent.

It was a lovely sunny day and all the daffodils were out...  

 

It was nice to see them against green for a change. Last year the ground was covered in snow.

I wrote a little poem:

Gently falls each flake of snow, six-pointed like the daffodil

In white it covers up the ground, around each stem a little mound.

That's one thing about gardening, you can think about things as you work!

Last tuesday Brother Barnabus came to the garden, looking for something to add to the pancakes to make them a bit more tasty. I've written down the recipe in case you want to try it.

It's in three bits as I couldn't fit it all on one page!

Hope you can read this!

 

We had such fun making them!

Time to Turn the Compost Heap

It was a fine day for a change. The sun was out and the birds were singing.

'Come on Rufus!' I said, 'let's turn the compost heap.

The compost had been rotting all winter and it had changed from green to dark brown. I put a big fork into it and turned it and shaped it into a shape like a steamed pudding - it was steaming too!

(Because compost heaps get hot even when it's cold.)

But there were some things wriggling in the heap - lots and lots of...........

WORMS

The Robin had a proper feast.

Then it was time for Rufus and me to have our lunch too!

What happened to the Fish in February

In the Monastery garden, there is a pond where fish are kept. In the winter there is not much to eat and sometimes Brother Barnabus has to come a catch fish in a basket for the monks to eat for supper.

One morning Brother William were walking past the pond when they noticed something strange.

There were no fish in the pond! (But if you look carefully you might be able to see them on the grass.) The wind was so strong it had blown them out of the water.

Brother William and Rufus had to gather them up and put them back in the water.

It wasn't that easy as they kept wriggling out of their hands...

But at last they were all back in

"Thanks goodness" said Brother William. "Woof" said Rufus.

All the fish safely back. Let's hope it doesn't get windy again!

Leaf Shapes and Colours

Here are some of the shapes and colours of leaves that 

Brother William has been collecting. 

From left to right: silver birch, lime, cherry, hornbeam and rowan.

These leaves are made from cut-out paper