Nature is a wondrous thing

ART
Peta Boyce was born in Australia, spent her childhood in Papua New Guinea and then moved to Queensland as a young adult. Peta for many years cared for injured and orphaned Australian native marsupials and birds, in particular some of the smaller species of birds. And this is where her interest in them as subjects for her paintings transpired. html

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Pale Headed Rosellas

Little Bee Eaters

Easter SpineBills

Peta is a self-taught artist working mainly in Gouache. She has also co-authored and illustrated the book "Wild About You-Friends With Feathers", a collection of short stories about some of the birds Peta had cared for during her years as a wildlife foster carer. Peta has spent many hours at local schools educating the children of the flora and fauna in Australia. She is by all counts a keen gardener, planting most of the acreage that she lives on with Australian native plants. She is also a big supporter of conservation and back in 2009 she fostered an orphaned baby elephant from the David Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage in Kenya.

I love the vibrant Gouache colours she uses I can only find one website for Peta, so here is the link if you want to learn more or even buy a painting.

BEER
Beavertown Brewery 8 Ball Rye IPA

I pour the 8 ball straight out into the glass, not sure I should have tipped it all up as there looked like some yeast sediment floating around, it had been laid sideways in the fridge for sometime.

Didn't really wait for the sediment to settle, I got stuck in straight away. I tasted Pea shoots or freshly grown sugar snap peas straight from the vine. Recently I've tasted some of ours beers with this fresh pea taste and I wonder, were pellets add to the FV after fermentation? If you've had this taste before, or, know why I taste this please tell me. Or do I I have a strange pallet? I do like that taste though! There is also a little dryness which I don't mind either as it prepares me for another slurp.

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I quite enjoyed this beer.
Find out here the hops and malt that went in to creating this beer.

Here's Black Betty and Neck Oil I have reviewed from Beavertown.
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Which beers from Beavertown have you tried? And what did you think? Leave a comment below.

COVERED IN WEEDS

After wondering for two months if I had managed to kill my Bleeding Heart plant, on the 30th March it peeped into life. I must remember that whilst the shops are already selling them and all you southern folk are shouting about the loveliness of them, up 'ere in't North they take a lot of waking up.

I bought the plant from the Orange DIY store that frequents all the UK Retail Parks for a steal at £5 - in full bloom. So this year is the first year it has probably survived being outside in the winter. I loved watching it grow because every day I looked at it, it had grown considerably as though it had been stood in Miracle Grow, or, the fairies had been sprinkling it with growing dust of an evening (wish they'd sprinkled it over me when I was a kid).

I'm quite pleased with myself as my “Is it dead yet” corner is starting to become a thing of the past (hopefully). In fact I've moved it and put alive plants on it giving it a positive mental attitude.
Lots of things are starting to come to life and over the last two days my Dahlia's (which never ever get dug up and wrapped up in a cosy shed over the winter) has sprung into life. Not sure on the other two yet as I'm pretty sure one dried up and died and the other – well only fate can tell what will happen.

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MUSING

Nature is a wondrous thing, working at the Brewery in the setting we are in every day I get the Great Tits, Blue Tits, Dunocks etc chirping away in out little courtyard (which was once the kitchen of this ruined fortified house. A couple of week ago I was having Lunch in the sunken garden opposite the Pine trees and I'm watching a Red Squirrel jump from tree to tree. I loose sight of it and as I walk back to the brewery I spy it spying on me. I actually manage to get close enough to take a photo with my phone (was only 1 metre's away).

But then a week later I am working away in the courtyard and I catch two brown things falling to the floor. A t first I thought it was the Blackbirds cavorting about. Realising that actually what had fallen hadn't flown off I went over to investigate and then I get dive bombed just as I spy a little fluffy duckling, and then another and as I go to retrieve them a fifth falls out of the sky!

The nest was actually quite high up on one of the hall's ruined ivy smothered walls. They fell at least 5 metres from the nest. I had to go and rescue them as where I was working there was washing chemical and I had steel toe capped wellies on (didn't fancy standing on one) and to be fair nowhere for them to go. Except in to the Fermenting Room or the Brewery itself – where three had wandered. Put them in a bucket and kept them as close to the nest as I could for the mother to come and fetch them. She was seen half an hour before it rained ducks waddling off down the road, and never re emerged.

The RSPCA was called later that day and my Boss who has Chickens and used to have Ducks took them home to look after them till the RSPCA guy could pick them up. They came the following morning and after a ten minute hunt in the boot of the Bosses car for the fifth duckling I found him nestled right at the end of the nose of an Orang-utan hand puppet, off they went to their new home to then be released back in to the wild.

Tunes of the week

The Monkees - Pleasant Valley Sunday 
These were one of my favourite bands when I was smaller than I am now. I'd occasionally catch their show on a Saturday/Sunday. I had a small crush on Davy Jones too. Apt that David Jones was actually David Bowie's real name. May they both RIP.
The Animals - House of the Rising Sun Anyone would think I was born in the early sixties looking back on some of the tunes I like. But I'm a seventies kid who was born and grew up around lots of musical influences.
This next one is for my friend.
The Beatles -Norwegian Wood This one was in my mum's record collection - the only Beatles album (aside from a  gatefold greatest hit)

As ever thanks for dropping by.  Have a great week, feel free to leave a comment, or, share. Hope the sun shines where ever you are this weekend.