How to Make a Pot

Last year Mama got a wooden pot maker. We started making newspaper pots with it to grow seedings in for our garden. Here is how you can make them.

1. Buy a wooden pot maker. Get some newspaper.
2. To make three pots, use one page of newspaper.
3. Cut a 4 inch strip of newspaper.
4. Roll it around your pot maker. Leave some hanging off then. Fold the excess newspaper down over the bottom of your pot maker. Press the top part with the newspaper on it, onto the bottom part. Press and turn.
5. Take it out, and tape up the sides.
6. Put soil in it and plant your seed.
7. Water it and let it grow.
While we were were hearing a story, I decided to make these pots, and grow something, because it is getting close to spring. I got one page of newspaper. I cut it and put it on the pot maker and made three pots. Then I got some soil and a seed package. The seeds are Sweet William Seeds. I like Sweet Williams. They are pretty. I planted two seeds. One on each side of the pot. I put the pot in the window sill.

Sew Crafty Friday - Hearts and Cards

I made pink fleece for CeCe my kitten. I got some fabric scraps. I used a heart pattern Mama had. Then I started sewing away by hand because Mama says I'm not old enough to use a machine yet. It took me 4 days to do it. I made one mistake though. I didn't turn it right side out. So you have to see the edge and stitching, but I don't think CeCe will mind.

I've given it to CeCe and she really likes it. She likes to sit on it, or lay on it, or curl up on it and take a nap.

I made a card for Mama. I wanted to do something with paper because my sister was doing things with paper. I cut out a piece of paper and glued it on another piece of paper. Then I cut out a heart and glued it in the middle. Then I cut out 4 small hearts and glued them on. When Daddy finished reading me a story, I gave it to Mama. She liked it.

Excellent Blog Award

Autumn Grace at Nature's Sanctuary, has given me an amazingly giant E for an Excellent Blog Award. Thank you Autumn Grace. It makes me feel very happy. I really like the big E. It is so much fun! It is my first blog award.

Crocus Hopes

Today Mama and I went outside. We had fun looking for flowers and we found some crocus buds.

The crocus buds were little buds. It was really cold outside. It was really windy too. They didn't have any sign of the flower except the for the bud. We just had a snow on Sunday, and there are still patches of snow in places. Before we found the buds we found the crocus leaves, and then we looked closely and saw the precious little bud that will bring a flower.

Daffodil sprouts. The same time we went outside we went found daffodil sprouts. They were big and green because they had come come up before the crocus. They were tall and wide, but they still had their precious little promise of a flower; they had their leaves. Soon they will have a bud, then the bud will grow taller. It might even grow an inch in a day. I remember last year when we went to church, there was just a bud, and when we came home, there was a flower. I remembered that before the flower bloomed there was just a plain bud on the stem. When the day was over, I went to show Emily Rose, and it had grown an inch. It kept growing about an inch a day.

Narcissus sprouts. The same time we went out, we saw some narcissus sprouts. They weren't even 1/8 of an inch tall, but they were there. They were still yellow. They probably didn't poke out of the ground more then a day ago. They didn't have any sign of them ever having a flower. They were just closed leaves. But soon they will have taller leaves. They grow about the same rate as daffodils. They are so pretty. I think they look like happy children smiling with bright sun around them. They are they are cutest of bulb flowers. They are my favorite. I like how the leaves look. They aren't as dark as daffodils.

Dandelion bud. When we were starting to walk inside. We saw a dandelion bud. It was half open. You could see the yellow petals even. It look cold. Maybe it was shivering. Maybe it had woken up too early, but it still was there. He was probably wondering where his friends the honey bees were to polinate him. But he will wait a while before the honey bees come. There was almost no insects out there at all. We did find a few box elder bugs, but they don't do much polinating.

Queen Cleopatra, The Great!

Patty Cake is our newest cake. We got her from the Humane Society Shelter in the middle of December. It was a special day when you could adopt a cat for free. A nice lady in town paid for all the adoptions that day. Our cat Hunter had been run over by a car. Read about Hunter from my sister's perspective here and Hunter's life and death here, and Hunter and the fish escapade here. He was my sister's cat. My sister was really sad. We needed to get her another cat. I already had CeCe, and my sister wanted a cat of her own once again. I wrote about CeCe on my first post on this blog.

We chose the cat because she was kind of nice. There was another cat that I liked better, that wasn't as skittish. But more people in the family wanted Patty Cake because she was soft and gentle, and needed a home.

We found out that she was first adopted for the Humane Society when she was a wee, tiny kitten, by an elderly lady. That lady kept her for a long time, but got too old to take care of her, so people brought her back to the Humane Society. She had been there for quite a while, and needed a new home.

Actually, her name at that time was P.C. or Precious Cat. But mom couldn't stand a cat being named after a computer. I liked the name P.C. Computer, but I was the only one. We thought about a name for a long time. We finally decided to give her the name Cleopatra, because she carriedherself in a queen-like way. Then we gave her the nickname Patty Cake, which goes with her first name. So really her name is still close to P.C., but we call her Patty Cake.

Patty Cake is a skittish cat. She can get scared easy and run to hide under the closest bed, and she can be cuddly too. But only two people in the house have got to cuddle her though, mama, and my sister.

CeCe likes to tease Patty Cake. She bats at her tail, and even sometimes tries to tell her what to do. If Patty Cake goes on a bed, she tries to get her to go off, by batting at her, even though Patty Cake is 7 years old and CeCe is only 7 months old. CeCe really wants to play with her, but Patty Cake is not agreeable! Patty Cake just wants to take a nap in peace. She yawns and stretches and says, "Good night."

Patty Cat is a cat.
She likes to hide and sleep.
She likes to sleep
and keep
CeCe far away from her.
She eats and sleep and meows a lot,
But now she is getting bolder
And hisses when CeCe gets near,
For she is the queen of the house.
She sits in royal majesty,
on the throne in our carpeted house.

She meows for this,
She meows for that,
She meows to be let in.
And if we don't respond quite quick,
She'll meow again and again.

The Dandelion that Turned Too Many Pages

Mama is hosting a Wildflowers in Winter theme on her blog. I have written a story so that I can participate too. I hope you like it! You can see what others are posting by taking a look at her blog.

The Dandelion that Turned Too Many Pages
By Forest Zoo

Once upon a time there was a dandelion. On New Year’s Morning the little dandelion realized that it was the first of January. So he walked over to his calendar and turned what he thought was a page. Soon he decided to take a nap. He was supposed to take a nap for a few months, but said to himself, “I don’t want to sleep for that long. I want to take a nap for one or two days instead.’

So he snuggled down in his downy pillow. In a few days he woke up and looked at his calendar. He said, “That’s odd. It says it is May. “

His best friend, Billy the Busy Honey Bee, turned the pages of his calendar every month through out spring, hoping that Dandelion would bloom when he saw the page that said May. He bloomed only when the pages said April, May, June, or July. If they didn’t say that, he just went to sleep, until they did say that again.

But when he woke from his nap, the calendar did say May, so he decided to bloom. He said to himself that he must have taken a lot longer nap then he thought he would. So he sent up his lovely yellow flower, Then he noticed that none of his dandelion friends were blooming. He said, “That’s odd, because they usually bloom at the same time. He didn’t see Billy the Honey Bee flying around. He felt the air temperature. It was way colder then it was supposed to be in May. He thought that it might have been an extra long winter and that it hadn’t warmed up yet. Maybe Billy was somewhere else today. But Billy had hundreds of more friends. At least one was flying around in April and May searching for fruit tree blossoms, or dandelions. He scratched his head.
“HMM. That’s odd.” He had never not seen Billy the Bee out, and he had lived for at least five years. He was one of the oldest Dandelions around. He was much older then all the bees in the whole hive.

Before long he felt something oh, so very cold on his bright yellow blossom. He shivered. He shivered again. Right away another fluffy white cold thing land on his blossom. Then another and another followed. They kept falling and falling out of the sky. He wondered what was wrong. Everything was different. Before long everything was white and oh, oh, so cold. He was shivering , shaking and shivering his dandelion teeth. He was now starting to be afraid. He wonder what was happening. He had never experienced this before. He was dumbfounded and didn’t know what to do. He knew that he didn’t get help soon, he was going to die.

“What was that?” It looked something like his friend the fly. He lived up in the sky. The fly looked down at the poor little dandelion. “Why are you out now. It is January 3. It is too cold for flowers. Why don’t you go back to bed and wait for spring?”

But the flower protested. “But my calendar says it is May. Oh, I remember, it was New Year’s Day. Maybe I turned too many pages. Maybe I should go back to bed.

So he went back to bed and slept until Billy the Bee came and turned the page to April, and woke him up.

The End.

Birds on the Deck

Last week I put some sunflower seeds out on deck railing for the birds. Oregon Juncos came and ate it because there was about 2 inches of snow covering the ground. I kept putting little bits of seed out for them, then I put some right down on the deck, and they came and ate there. It was a new thing for the birds to be so close to the house. They were very cautious, but soon more more birds came. There were house finches. They are not ground feeders, so they were very scared. Mom was very happy to get a picture of the house finch because they usually fly away. Then some white crown sparrows (mature and immature) came and took over. I thought they looked pretty, but the house finches were the prettiest because they have a red breast. Every bird really liked the seeds oh, so much.

Sunday was the day it snowed 8 inches. It started out raining and freezing rain. They had fun slipping around on the deck trying to find seeds. Then it started to snow. The snow flakes didn't stick at first, but when they started to stick they really stuck and piled up. Before for long the birds had to dig for their food. They walked over a place where they thought there was seeds, they tried to dig up the seeds with their feet. Only occasionally did one get a seed or two. They got tired of digging so they flew over to the other feeder, under the eves of the house. They don't like it as much. Most of the birds went over to my green feeder hanging from the tree. They like that one better, even though it isn't sheltered.

Sometimes you would see a slate colored juno. They weren't as common as most of the birds on the deck, but they came. Occasionally a morning dove came and scooped up a few seeds. A flicker flew down and pecked at a seed. Even sometimes a goldfinch would come fluttering down and eat a seed, but they liked the thistle feeder the best. They all thought I was a very hospitable man to give them so many seeds. There were so many birds I couldn't count them. No one knows how many birds there were. The birds ate the seeds so fast I had to keep putting them out. The snow is melting, but even now the birds are still coming to eat seeds on the deck.