In the Jewellery Studio!

I don't have a proper jewellery making studio of course, I just use our living room.

I now have a little helper, this brass bunny, which I've had for a while but I just recently realised it could act as a weight to hold down half completed necklaces etc, here it's sitting on a work in progress, which I though was going to be a beaded lanyard until I noticed that the wire was too short so it became a choker necklace!

I have enough of the metallic beads to make a lanyard, possibly two, both of which, alongside the necklace will soon be in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop. Here's a photo of the completed necklace

I popped into a second hand shop today, one which often has a good selection of craft supplies. I bought a bag of 'broken' jewellery, which was full of lovely beads and other things. I've already made this bracelet and earring set, which is already in my Etsy shop here.

Dancing with Tex by Lynn Sanders and Sergio Drummond

Dancing with Tex, subtitled The Remarkable Friendship to Save The Whooping Cranes is a lovely picture book based on the true story of ornithologist George Archibald and how he danced with rare whooping crane Tex until she laid a fertile egg.

Tex had been hand reared and so was more used to people than to other cranes and had been very reluctant to interact and wouldn't breed. It took several years of dancing but eventually Tex did lay an egg and when this hatched the chick was named "Gee Whiz" and went on to father 15 chicks!

The book tells the story in an entertaining manner, with the illustrations really bringing things to life, especially the dancing! George and Tex seem to be really enjoying themselves!

At the end of the book there is a fact file about cranes, a biography of George Archibald and ideas on how readers can help to save endangered species such as whooping cranes.

The only thing that would improve this book would be if there was a young child dancing with Tex at some point as young readers do tend to relate better to young characters. Having said that, it is based on a true story that involved University students and adult scientists!

Well worth a read for any youngsters out there interested in wildlife or even more importantly for those youngsters who like to dance but are not yet interested in wildlife!

Dancing with Tex by Lynn Sanders and illustrated by Sergio Drummond, published by Difference Makers Media.

Speckled Wood Butterfly in the sunshine

It's very warm today! Plenty of butterflies were enjoying the sunshine at Musselburgh, though only this speckled wood allowed me to take a photo

Summer in the Dells

We've been promised a heatwave this week and this being Scotland, we have no idea whether this will last longer than a morning! It certainly was lovely and sunny in Colinton Dell this morning and not too hot. I don't like it to be too hot when I'm wandering round picking litter, pruning overgrown plants (I prune back plants or branches that are either trip hazards, poke in the face hazards or are blocking the path).

The lime trees are no longer in bloom but they're still beautiful

and the hornbeams are sprouting their chandelier fruits now

The wildflower meadow in Spylaw Park is still beautifully in bloom

and the bees and hoverflies love it, including this Syrphus sp hoverfly

this footballer hoverfly (Helophilus sp)

and this little solitary bee, they're called solitary bees because they live by themselves rather than in hives, there were actually quite a few solitary bees in the wildflower patch today, possibly two species were represented.

This wildflower meadow is part of Edinburgh Living Landscape, which you can read more about here.

I wrote a piece on the value of different types of wildflower meadows on this blog recently, you can read it here.

For Nature Notes.

Beaded lanyards

Crafty Green Boyfriend discovered some old lanyards in his office, which weren't going to be used again so I reused the lanyard attachments and made several more beaded lanyards, which I'm slowly adding to the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop.

These beaded lanyards are a stylish way to wear your ID badge if you need one for work (and if your office isn't strict about needing to wear the corporate branded lanyard!)

I really enjoy making these lanyards, I like the design element and it's very relaxing threading beads. The lanyards also tend to sell reasonably well which is a good incentive for making more of them!

Here are the most recent ones:

 which you can find in the Crafty Green Poet Etsy shop here

which you can find in the shop here 

Help the Woodland Trust to protect Ancient Woodland

As many readers of this blog will know, I regularly volunteer with the Water of Leith Conservation Trust to help look after Colinton Dell, a beautiful area of ancient woodland along the river. (The photo above shows the orchid meadow surrounded by trees.)

Ancient woodland is defined as woodland that has been continuously wooded since 1600 (1750 in Scotland). Before those dates, planting of new woodland was uncommon, so a wood present in those years was likely to have developed naturally. The ancient woodlands of the UK are our oldest native woods and contain our oldest and most impressive trees. They are our richest land-based wildlife habitats but have, in their own right, no legal protection against inappropriate development or poor management.

The Woodland Trust works to protect the UK's forests and woodlands and has launched a new campaign to ensure that our ancient woodlands are given more protection so that they can flourish into the future and continue to offer homes for wildlife and enjoyment for people.

You can find out about this new campaign here.

One specific area of ancient woodland that is threatened with inappropriate development is Smithy Wood, near Sheffield. Local developers want to destroy this wildlife rich area of ancient woodland to build a motorway service station. You can find out more here.

Ancient woodlands are too valuable to let them be destroyed. These special places need proper protection - now.

Full Body Burden by Kristen Iversen

Subtitled Growing up in the Shadow of a Secret Nuclear Facility, this book is part a memoir and part investigative journalism. Kristen Iversen grew up near Rocky Flats, a secret nuclear facility in Colorado. At the time she and most people in the area who didn't work at the facility thought it produced cleaning products. Anyone who actually worked in the facility was sworn to secrecy.

Her childhood wasn't easy, her father was a very difficult man, but she wandered the countryside on horseback and loved the land, never realising the dangers that lurked around her. Gradually people became more aware, and a very large proportion of the local people developed cancers and other illnesses as a direct result of living near the facility.

As Iversen herself became more aware of the truth about the plant (due in part to a stint at working in the plant temporarily while studying) she began to research. The plant made components for nuclear weapons and security and health and safety were woefully poor (put it this way, Homer Simpson seems a paragon of an efficient, competent safety inspector in comparison).

This is grim, but necessary reading. The catalogue of mistakes (from small fires to two full scale disasters) made by the plant combined with official lack of concern (awareness of plutonium levels would kill the housing market in the area and cause bad publicity so all the authorities, including health authorities, stayed quiet about the truth) are very sobering indeed. And given that it takes plutonium thousands of years to decay, the land will effectively be contaminated forever.

Nuclear weapons don't just kill the people they're dropped on, they can slowly kill the people who make them and those who live in the vicinity of the plant.

"Many inescapable decisions have been forced upon us - decisions about nuclear weapons and nuclear energy that will have far reaching consequences with sometimes dangerous and unintended results. To speak out or to remain silent is the first and most crucial decision we can make."

Renew Trident anyone?

Full Body Burden by Kristen Iversen published by Vintage (2013). and printed on Forestry Stewardship Council certified paper