Pony Rosette!

Last week at Pony Club I earned another rosette! This one was the Saddlery Rosette. To get it, I needed to know most of the parts of the saddle and all of the bridle! I thought it was really easy. I also remembered a few extra parts of the saddle as well!

This week we did something different, a Musical Ride. We had to steer the ponies around to make a little dance! It was really fun! I think next time I'm there we'll do it while trotting, which will be even more exciting!

 

Sleepover

Tilly came for a 2 night sleepover on Wednesday! There was no time for playing Minecraft, as mom kept us very busy with baking Christmas gingerbread cookies, decorating delicious gingerbread houses with a collection of sweets and making our own Christmas decorations for the tree!

Our amazing gingerbread cookies!

We sewed some Christmas decorations! I made a red and white cat. He's a bit too big to hang on the tree, so for now he's a cuddly toy. Tilly made a really cute Scottie dog that she can hang on her Christmas tree at home!

Making our felt decorations!

Our incredible houses! The one on the left is mine and
the one on the right is Tilly's!

Wet felting!

You know how a while ago I tried a bit of felting? Well, I've had a day of it!

At Gamlingay, there was a woman, Milly, teaching us how to make a picture out of wool.
We started out with a square of mohair and we teased it out to fill a small canvas-sized wooden mat. Next, we got our coloured wool and teased that out so that we could make the background for our image. We did this twice, the first time making the wool go horizontal, and the second making the wool go vertical! After we had done that, we covered the wool with a net and soaked it in water. We did this to get all the bumps out, making the wool smooth. Next, we rubbed the wool with soap until it was very bubbly! This makes the strands and fibres knot together to make a fabric.

Now it was time for the next layer of the wool!
I wanted to do a hilly landscape scene with a wolf on it, so I got some grey wool and began shaping him! It was then when I realised that a wolf would be almost impossible to make out of wool. With a bit of help from mom, I made my little wolf that looked a bit like a horse. Like last time, I got some water and soaked all of the wool.
Now came the difficult bit... I had to roll up the felt picture with the net and the wooden mat and roll it back and forth loads of times! Every now and again, I had to unroll it, turn it around 90 degrees and begin rolling again! By the time I'd finished, my arms were killing!

When we got home, we washed out the last of the soap with some cold water. It looks pretty good, but when I showed dad he said, "Ooh, nice horse!" so I guess it does look like a horse!

Eureka! It's almost Christmas!

I went to the Eureka home ed group in Norfolk today and it was so Christmassy. It was extra special because my friends, who I haven't seen in a long time were there and they had a new baby. I think she is the tiniest baby I have ever seen! My new friend from Pony Club was there too!

Like last time I went to Eureka there were loads of awesome tables set up around the room.We raced to the tables to try out each of the crafts. I made a Christmas Snow Globe with a jar, glitter water and you got to choose a little figure to put in the globe. I chose a cute penguin!
Next I made a little wreath from felt and tiny jingling bells. It was tricky!

My little wreath!

I made a lovely orange decorated in spices and sweet smelling cinnamon. I never really liked the smell of cinnamon but I do now.

The best thing I made was a Snowman! He was made from a white sock, stuffed with rice. He turned out well. Unfortunately he got a bit dirty on the way home because we put him in the bag along with the cinnamon covered oranges and pine cones, so he's not quite so white anymore!

After all that, it's definitely starting to feel like Christmas!

Bonfire Night Cupcakes!

In celebration of Bonfire Night, I made some deliciously chocolatey cupcakes and decorated them! I didn't want to use everyday icing, so I made some sweet, marshmallow fondant! I got the idea from watching The Great British Bake-off! A fondant is just a fancy icing, but it's a bit thicker and it holds its shape a bit better. To make it, I melted a bowlful of marshmallows in the microwave with a tiny bit of water.

The mallows expanded and puffed up. It was really cool to watch! Next I added icing sugar to the melted mallows and mixed it all together until it formed a dough. Then you have to knead it like you would knead bread dough! At first, the pink doughy blob was very, very sticky. To stop it from sticking to the surface or your hands, you just need to make sure that it's thoroughly drenched in icing sugar! I liked the kneading best!

Kneading!

Once I'd finished kneading it, I left it in the fridge overnight to cool. The fondant is easier to handle when it's cool. When I got it back out, I rolled it out quite thin and cut out some circles to lay them on top of the cupcakes.

I stuck the circles to the cakes with a little bit of sugar syrup

To make the cupcakes look more like Bonfire Night, me and mom got some writing icing to do some firework displays, bonfires and pretty patterns! The cakes are very sugary, but very tasty!

Fireworks!

A Day of Birds

I've always wanted to try my hand at Falconry, and today I finally got my chance!

Today, I  went to Baytree Owl Centre for a day with the Owls and the Raptors! There were only about 10 kids there, so it wasn't too busy and we got really close to the birds.

First, we saw the Owls. A guy flew some of them for us; they got so close I could feel the air rushing in my face as the owl raced past me!
We were shown 3 different types of owl. A Hawk Owl, called Luna the smallest owl in Britain, was the first one we saw. It was very noisy. The owls that are hand-raised screech when  they're hungry because they always expect their handler to feed them.   That's called "Imprinting". Imprinted birds see their handlers as their parents because they were raised by them. This means they can not survive in the wild. Wild birds stay silent so they don't scare away any prey while they are hunting!

The next owl was a very special one. He was a Great Grey Owl and his name was Kevin. His parents never taught him how to fly, so his handlers had to. They taught him to glide near the floor to save energy, how to land on the perches and most importantly, land on the glove. It took months of flying from perch to perch until, one day, Kevin finally landed on his keeper's glove and he's been doing so ever since!

Kevin!

The third and final owl was massive. She was a European Eagle Owl, called Minerva, one of the biggest owls in England. It's scientific name is "Bubo bubo"! How cool is that? Because she was so big, she couldn't land on  a glove, so she had to keep flying from perch to perch. It was quite easy to get a picture of her while she was flying because she was a lot slower than the others.

We had a short break, so we explored the rest of the birds and the other animals.
Recently, the Owl Centre has adopted a fox. Her name's Ruby, and even though she's tame, she's quite shy. She was very cute though!

Ruby

They have lots of pairs of birds so they can breed them. They are also breeding Red Squirrels because their numbers in the wild are so low as the Grey Squirrels are taking over!

There was also a very weird type of bird there, a Secretary Bird. He was very odd looking, but he just would not pose for a photo! He kept hiding in the darkest parts of his enclosure, so I didn't get a very good picture of him. I found one online though!

Secretary Bird!

After seeing the Fox, Secretary Bird and a few others, it was time to go back to the flying room to see the Raptor Display!
There were lots of cool birds that were flying, but the most exciting part was when we got to try a bit of flying ourselves! The birds are much better at flying than the owls.
Each of us had a quick turn at flying a little bird of prey from a perch to our arm and back again! It was really fun, but a bit scary. The bird was so fast I got a bit of a shock when it flung itself on to my hand! Of course, I had a glove on because their claws are very sharp.

After I had my turn at flying the bird I sat back down to watch everyone else. It was coming to the end of the little session when the bird flew right on to Jules' phone! She got such a fright that she threw her phone into the air. The bird must've got a fright as well, because it beat its wings in Jules' face!

Kevin again!

Lastly, I saw a Polar Bear!! Not a real on though. It was part of the Christmas Display in the Garden Centre!

Anyway, even if I didn't see all of the animals that were at the Owl Centre ( I missed the giant tortoise!!) I still really enjoyed it!