Verona Strauss.comjust because life is fun! …

My pretty tattoos - a cat and a bee

I went to my friend’s school fete and had these tattoos done of a cat and a bee. The lady said they would stay on for two days, but this photo is five days later. In the end the cat came off, but the bee lasted for about 10 days!

I think bees like me a lot which is why my tattoo stayed on. They come in the house and play on my fairy land, we have a nest in our neighbours garden that we are helping to look after, a nest in the bank outside our house and the other day we saw a swarm looking for a new home.

I think they like me because I’m kind to them and I’m not scared of them like some people are.

Bees don’t sting very often; especially if you are kind to them and we like to look after them because they are endangered. That means they might become extinct if we don’t look after them. A bit like the polar bear if we don’t stop throwing things away and using lots of electricity.

Mummy planted a bee garden this year to help feed the bees and they love the thyme and comfrey.

We learned about reasons why we should look after bees:

• If we don’t have bees any more, then lots of the food I like to eat won’t be around either because bees help to pollinate them - like apples, almonds and vanilla. Bees help us with about one third of the amount of food we eat.

• Bees make honey and I eat it during the winter to help keep me strong.

• Mummy uses beeswax to make things that help me; like hair dressing, lip balm and cream for sore skin.

• Some people use beeswax for candles and things like furniture polish. Ladies have beeswax in lots of their makeup.

• Bees pollinate cotton too, so we might not be able to use cotton any more.

I like bees; they are cute and furry and everyone should plant things in their gardens that they like.

Here are some of their favourite plants from our garden:

• lavender

• standard rose tree

• thyme

• comfrey

• chives

What bee friendly plants do you have in your garden?

My Rocket potatoes!

This week I ate some potatoes I had grown! I dug up one rocket plant and had 370gms of potatoes. Later in the week, when I had eaten them all I dug up a Vale Emerald plant and had 610gms of potatoes! There were so many; they just kept on coming out of the earth!

Now I wished I had planted more. We’ve been eating some of Mummy’s broad beans as well. I didn’t think I liked broad beans until I ate these; they are so yummy with nice, soft skins and a creamy texture.

Mummy has been eating beetroot too, which is one of her favourite things. I don’t like them; they are too sweet for me; but I’m so excited about my potatoes and am having some more for tea.

Later in the week I’ll dig up some more to eat and see how many I get.

Next year I want to grow lots of potatoes, some broad beans of my own and some french beans. I love french beans.

My sweetcorn is getting big now, but I don’t think we are going to get many peas. My mint didn’t grow, but we have lots of it in the garden and I ate my radishes. I’m not sure I really liked them, so we didn’t plant more.

On a nature walk with acorns and my new wildflower swatch book - Sweep found the most things!

I set up a club called ‘Acorns’, suitable for any age. Sweep, me, Mum and Dad are members. Acorns is where you hunt for things like wildflowers, insects and anything else in nature.

Mummy bought me a Woodland trust wildflower swatch - it shows you pictures of wildflowers and a description about them on the back.

This morning we went on a wildflower hunt. We found bugle, herb robert, red clover, white clover, meadow buttercups, daisies, docks, forget me nots, wood spurge, and bramble. We found three other flowers, which we are not sure about. Mummy has some herb books which we will take with us next time.

She thinks one could be woodruff, but there is a yellow flower we can’t find in her books at the moment.

If you are ever in our area, you can come too and help us with our mysterious yellow flower!