The Frugal Freedom to Observe Nature

 

Mama Badger

Frugal living can mean many things to many people. Some think of it as being mean and penny-pinching, ohers think thrifty and moneysaving but for many of us, frugal living simply means living well within our own means so we can afford to do things we enjoy without incurring debt, no matter how low our income. Based on certain Government 'ideals', I happily live not just below the poverty line but below actual destitution level, based on my income. I don't claim any form of benefits, I have the prviledge of being able to do what I do simply because I can. Everything else goes into savings and investing in the future, living in hope that the future will be kind to those who follow in my footsteps, be they many or few.

Bunnikens

Some people crave travel, different weather, different scenery, different climate, different people and different places in order to try and satisfy a lack of contentment. This leads to the hamster wheel of spinning out income to keep up with the costs of all these things and then, even when working flat out, that income may not cover all of the above without living in debt. Debt is the enemy, no mater what anyone tells me otherwise. Yes, I agree that if you borrow capital to invest in a business venture then that debt is good debt while the business is solvent and adequately profitable. The bigger the business, the bigger the debts and the bigger the risk of getting out of it with absolute financial security. How much is stress costing you in financial terms? If you have 'gone public' then yur business is only worth the paper it's written on if all the shareholders decie they'd rather keep their money elsewhere. Where do we invest?

3 Spot the pine marten

We invest in property and invite new tenants from nature - the wildlife. You don't need hundreds of thousands of acres of land, or forest, moorland or woodland. You can create your own tiny haven or find that haven nearby. If you are fortunate enough to have a garden, dedicate it to nature and wildlife, even if that wildlife is the smallest of creatures. Observing them in nature is worth every penny invested. If you don't have or can't find space nearby, research your local conservation projects and get involved at whatever level you can. Frugaldom now offers a monthly subscription to enable virtual participation for those who can't actually visit but for those who can, we welcome them anytime.

Foxy

Yes, we even welcome the regular visits by the fox. It's a mini jungle out there and amazing to see some of these animals interacting. The pine maren avoids the fox for good reason but the badgers don't seem to mind the company. Most of these photos are being captured on trail cams that cost less than £25 each so you don't need expensive equipment, just patience and rechargeable batteries.

Right now, as well as the wildlife, we have 8 ponies and a goat living at Frugaldom. These aren't "my" animals, they all belong to the people who care to contribute towards their keep each month, those who come and help look after those who choose to adopt, sponsor or rehome them at their own expense. Frugaldom didn't just become a sanctuary for animals but also for the people who need to stop the merry-go-round of their lives and get off for a break. A change is as good as a rest and it is absolutely amazing to see how animals and people interact when either have endured untold past events. 

Macaroon

Feeding the wildlife, for those involved here, also means feral cats. There are, as far as we are aware, four cats frequenting the place.

Socks

We have no idea where these cas came from nor where they go when they leave here - if they do. We have never seen them strolling around, they are only ever spotted on the trail cameras or perhaps a pair of shining eyes caught in the beam of a torch if out walking after dark.

Commander

We gave each a name but they will never know that. All they know is there is food for them should they chose to come to be fed here. We don't have close-by neighbours and those we do have further afield all confirm these are not their cats - they are feral. As you can tell by Commander's ear, he has been part of a previous trap, neuter, release scheme - probably the root cause of his absolute fear of humans now.

Minstrel

If anyone anywhere recognises any of the cats, please do get in contact to let us know. The least we can do is confirm he cats are alive and well, fed each night and occasionally seen on camera interacting with one another.

The next step in the frugal living, with the emphasis now on living, was to invest in accommadation for fellow frugalers to share this experience. We chose to build single-room cabins and fit wood burning stoves. They have sparce furnishings and are completely off-grid but they are comfortable and warm. No, we do not rent them out to holiday makers or the general public. These huts are for the benefit of fellow frugal living, wildlife loving, need-a-break-from-society Friends of Frugaldom

Pursue your passion and find contentment in what nature can provide. Share your hopes and dreams with others so they can help make them happen and together, we can forge our way ahead, content in the knowledge that we did our best to look after the land on which we depend entirely and always will. It's the little things that count the most, in my opinion, and those things all tend to be free when you know where to find them.

Day 4 of Making It In March - How to Make a Cat Den #MIIM

Day 4 of 31 - It's Pancake Day!

March 11th - 14th, conversations with 42 global leaders - free online event!

Pancakes all Round!

This morning when I got up, the sun was shining through the living room window and onto the newly hung mini plant pot holders - there was a little bit of heat, briefly, until the sun shifted round another degree and out of reach of any of my windows - a definite minus point in the house 'directional facing' stakes!

We forewent the usual porridge at breakfast in favour of pancakes, but I cheated and used a cheap 'just add water or milk' packet mix and, of course, added water.

I like my pancakes made crepe-style, so the batter covers the entire frying pan. This makes them large enough and thin enough to roll them up and serve hot with fillings, depending on what's available.

They shouldn't be too dark, I prefer mine just lightly cooked then flipped. These are so cheap and easy to make that we do tend to have them quite often throughout the year, especially when the ducks are laying. Scoop of flour, pinch of salt, an egg and some milk to the consistency that you most prefer - that's it! They are versatile enough to serve sweet or savoury, with a variety of toppings.

For me, it's usually a sprinkle of sugar and lemon juice, as Maple syrup just isn't on the frugal grocery list. Ordinary syrup is nice, as is a handful of strawberries and a dollop of ice cream and/or cream, but that's more of a 'use up the garden strawberries and homemade ice cream' combination. Today, I had mango!

Pancakes were my first 'make' of 'Making it in March', but now for a Frugaldom special announcement ...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SILKIE, 5 YEARS OLD TODAY!

On this day, five years ago, my first little Silkie chick hatched out in the polystyrene incubator despite the abuse the eggs had taken during their journey to me via Royal Mail. I'd bought half a dozen hatching eggs via eBay and the box arrived looking like someone had kicked it! Despite this, I set the eggs, turned them faithfully every few hours for 18 days and then waited patiently for day 21 to arrive in the hope that something would hatch - without holding out too much hope, I might add!

On 4th March, 2009, out popped one solitary Silkie chick, one that we aptly named 'Silkie Chick'. She is still known by that name to this day, a full five years later! This is her hatching from her shell inside the tiny incubator that was set up on my desk at the time.

Sadly, none of the other eggs hatched, so this chick ended up being reared in a cardboard box in the porch and preferred to behave more like a dog than a chicken! She was cheeky right from the start! She did eventually settle with the other hens and we did get her Silkie company by way of little Dumbledorf.

We eventually hatched another 5 blue cuckoo striped Silkies for additional company and, over the years, Silkie Chick has hatched and reared a few chicks herself, but she is now the only furry-looking bantam we have left after a mink went on the rampage in broad daylight in October 2011. Little Silkie Chick, here, survived the attack only because she was hiding inside the rabbit hutch where she had decided to lay her eggs! Daft old bird!

But I digress, again! On to more 'Making it in March'. I made it into the kitchen to unpack my latest 'MuscleFood'* order: 5 kilos of chicken breast fillets, 2 kilos of turkey mince and a kilo of boned chicken thighs. Yes, we BUY our chicken - you didn't really think we ate any of our own home-hatched or home-reared birds, did you? Anyhow, this lot arrived and I managed to fit it all into the freezer after splitting it up - the turkey mince was on offer at £1 per 400g pack with maximum 5 per customer, so I got my 5. The chicken thighs were paid using loyalty points, thanks to online friends who have used my referral links and codes. This order should keep us going for the next couple of months, as I still have plenty of beef mince, bacon and pie filling in the freezer. But not only that, the order included an added free gift... A CAT DEN! Scruffy Cat will love it, I'm sure! :)

Remember all the 'rubbish' leftover after unpacking the new living room door? Pieces of polystyrene, 4 plastic corner protectors, 4 strips of thin wooden board, assorted spacers, board edge protectors etc.?

I finally found a way to recycle some of this 'rubbish', along with the cardboard box and insulated liner that came with the meat order this afternoon. Naturally, I saved the ice packs into the freezer.




Turning a cardboard box into a cat den

I started by removing the flaps from the box so I could use these to create a roof with 'attic' space for storing all the cat's toys.

Making a door in the insulated box liner

 Next thing I did was to cut an entrance (and exit) door in the insulated box liner, roughly the size of a small cat flap.

Making the apex roof with attic space

Is anyone else trying this? Take the four cardboard flaps cut from the box and pair them up - one long and one short - lengthwise. Overlap the longest piece over the shortest piece where you will be folding it in half to create the apex roof. I initially used tape before gluing it in place. You should now have two equal lengths of cardboard. Fold these in half to form a right angle. This is where I was lucky to have saved the door packaging, because I was able to use the corner protectors to hold the cardboard at the 90 degree angle by gluing in the plastic, but you could simply fold and glue scrap cardboard. Do the same with the second strip and then these need to be joined together, side by side.

Reinforcing the apex roof

I used three of the four plastic corner protectors for the roof - one at each end and one in the middle and, rather than glue it all together with more cardboard, I used two of the pieces of board from my 'rubbish' stash. If you glue your board or card about 6cm from the edge of the cardboard, it makes a small ledge that helps to prevent the roof slipping while gluing it to the box.

Adding the roof to the box

Before adding the roof, I covered the main box in fabric - I used some more of the old fleece that I had covered my homemade footstools in a couple of weeks ago. Next, I replaced the insulation liner and glued it into place. I reinforced the front of the box using a third piece of board.

Next, I used the little folded pieces of stiff card and glued then along each of the side edges of the box and then glued the roof onto these. I was left with one plastic corner piece from my 'rubbish' stash, so this gave me another idea! I had also kept the pieces from a broken A4 picture frame - the type you see in pound shops. (The glass didn't break, so that got kept, too.) I used the two longer pieces of the frame as edging for the cardboard roof and joined them together using the fourth corner piece as a feature at the peak of the apex.

Side view of the cat house in construction

Before doing any more work on the cat's house, I decided to introduce the frugal puss to her new 'den', just to make sure she actually fitted through the door! As you can see, I haven't added any roof décor or edges to the attic space.

Scruffy cat investigating her new 'den'

Another rummage in my crafty stash and this time I was able to retrieve someone's unfinished project that was sent to me for recycling into McGonk stuffing. Using my largest crochet hook, I crocheted the last of the ball of wool onto what was already there; it made a near perfect sized cat blanket for lining the bottom of the box.

Woolly blanket for the cat's new bed

Blanket completed, I fitted it into the box and then waited for the cat to pass judgement. Her first reaction was to go inside and play 'paddy-paw' on her new fluffy blanket, so I think she approves.

Let sleeping cats lie.

That's as far as I got with Project Cat's Den today, so I'll need to continue with this project tomorrow, when I'll add the attic pieces and get the roof tiled - I'm sure I have enough scrap cardboard in stock to cut and overlay cardboard shingles, rather than just paint the roof. :) I want to start doing that right now but, once again, the day has passed far too quickly. Now it's almost time to find the cat's pyjamas!

NYK, Frugaldom

* Friend referral link, which has the potential to earn me a few extra loyalty points.

Welcome to Frugal Living and my Annual Money Challenges

For the Benefit of Newcomers to my Concept of Frugaldom

Frugal living may not be for everyone and it does take quite a bit of explaining to some who can neither see the need, nor have ever experienced the need for trying it. But it is a lifestyle choice that's made by many, nonetheless.

Having already posted about my annual household budget - the £4,000 - I would now like to go over the cost implications of everything else that needs paying. Like I already said, frugal living gave us the ability to save for and buy a very cheap fixy-up over the space of a very short period of time but I did throw in my lot with A. N. Other to buy a 3-bedroom house with a big garden rather than a small flat with no garden. But no matter which way you look at it, £4,000 just won't last a year if you need to count in rent or mortgage and any outside the household expenses, which is why none of these things are included in my £4,000.00 However, this does include the costs of working from home, some of which are tax deductible at the end of each financial year. For everything else, I have a separate kitty, known as...

My Everything Else Kitty - E.E.K.

My Everything Else Kitty

There's no escaping the fact that life costs cash and we need to be really flexible in order to fit everything into the box that is our lifestyle. As you can see by the antics of the frugal puss, even she is a contortionist when it comes to making sure she gets in on the action - if, at first, you don't think you can fit something into your affordability box,  keep trying from different angles until you've found a way succeeding.

Everything else outside of the standard necessities are, for me, paid from my 'EEK'. This is the cash kitty that gets topped up by a tiny drip of interest from savings, gift certificates, points, cash back, winnings, sales of surplus eggs, de-cluttered goods and any cash gifts that happen to come my way at birthdays or Christmas time. Let's face it, keeping hens, ducks, quail, a cat and, now, two giant loppy-lug rabbits isn't through real necessity, its more for the fun than the frugality.

It's great having fresh eggs for cooking and baking but we can't possibly eat them all, so I trade many of them for other things and need to raise any extra cash to cover the costs of feeding the feathered and furry friends, keeping them all bedded down at night and keeping them healthy. I also have my wormery, the pet worms that help recycle household waste into liquid fertiliser that cucumbers seem to thrive on, judging by the enormous crop we had last year.

But how does my 'EEK' work in real terms?

Last year ended with an overall balance of £39.70, so that has been carried over and popped into the 'EEK' savings. On top of that, I have a voucher balance of £30.54 in my Amazon account and have just requested payment of another £8 worth of Amazon vouchers via Topcashback*, which gives me cash back on anything I buy using links from their website. There's also £7 of credit lying in my Approved Food* account, which will more than cover the postage of my next order when I need heavy, long shelf-life goods - they normally do regular offers on bread flour, which is how I can bake a loaf for around 25p.

Cashback Credit Cards

The use of credit cards may be seen by some as incurring debt but I have one golden rule - if I can't afford to pay something in full at the time then I don't put it on the credit card. Online shopping and being self-employed means that I have some added protection by using a credit, as opposed to a debit, card, so absolutely everything goes onto it that possibly can - even my 12 months' BT line rental. Why? Because as long as I pay in full within the interest free timeframe, I get an automatic 1% cash back that costs me nothing and gets paid in a lump sum around the end of each financial year.

Spending £4,000 on the household budget almost exclusively paying by card means brings almost £40 of free cash into the 'EEK' by April of each year, plus whatever else I have paid for by this method. While renovating, almost all of the building materials have been paid this way and in addition to that the livestock feeding, garden-related purchases and any extras that can be added get paid this way. Last year's free money courtesy of the credit card company amounted to £68.94 and that's not to be sneezed at when you see cheap flights, train fairs, ferry fairs or short breaks advertised for less!

All these little bits and pieces add up over the year and, with luck and careful spending, can cover everything else I need to buy. Sales of surplus eggs would normally cover the cost of feed and bedding or else what I exchange for the eggs helps reduce the grocery budget. It is a simple case of not buying anything unless we can realistically afford it and if we can't afford it (or don't see the need to buy it) we can attempt to make it.

Being self employed means keeping up with National Insurance payments, so I have just paid out £70.20, which covers 6 months. This is not part of my household running costs, so does not impact on the £4,000. It is a miniscule sum but it is contributing to my old age pension, so I have no qualms about paying it, even on a voluntary basis when profits aren't sufficient to warrant any further deductions. My monthly savings bond is paid from what I no longer spend on cigarettes and anything else is absolutely mine to do with as I please, even if it's just a few pennies left in my (homemade) purse.

Use it up, Don't Bin it, Burn it or Bury it.

My attempt at zero waste failed dismally owing to the amount of plastic packaging that's used by many companies. Plain brown cardboard is great as it gets rolled up and used in the fire, but plastics are a total pain and need to be binned if it isn't of the type that I can reused - meat packaging, for example! 

We have an open fire and a stove, so anything that is safe to burn gets recycled into fuel and used to heat the house, boil the kettle and even cook food. Recently, I was learning a bit more about recycling wood shavings into eco-fuel and I'm now wondering if it would work using the shavings from the rabbit cages and hen houses, but I'm not too sure how easy it would be to dry the blocks once they are made, or how smelly they might be to make while soaking them for a month at a time - time will tell!

I have a Paper Brick Maker* and it's great for experimenting by adding in things like dried leaves, twigs and shredded paper but, again, the blocks take a long time to dry. I guess I should really try much harder at making a stock pile of these during summer sunshine to help combat rising costs of winter coal. I shall pledge now to make an attempt on the eco-fuel from shavings using this method.

Photos by B.B. Photography



This was our local village main street when the storm surge hit at high tide on Friday (photos taken by a pal's brother), so let's hope things don't get any worse over the coming days. Now I need to wind this up and be prepared for the next storm that seems to be heading our way - we are almost at the top of the hill, so no sea surge reaches us, just the likelihood of power outages and the steam in the garden bursting its banks if the storm force winds drive in torrential rain at the same time as high tide.

The West coast has been taking a real battering recently and the next potential hit isn't looking any less ferocious, so the flasks, candles, torches and hot water bottles are all at the ready plus a stack of wood piled by the stove and an open invitation extended to anyone who may be adversely affected to head up the hill to Frugaldom.

Stay safe, folks, and never forget that no matter how little money you have, your chances of subduing Mother Nature when she is throwing a strop are the exact same as any millionaire - appreciate what you have while you have it and make the most of the important things in life that money cannot buy.

NYK, Frugaldom

PS: We're playing at 'planks'
Several of us take part in whatever free fitness fun we can find, so visit us in the Frugal Forums if you would like to take part. Right now, we're doing the '30 Day Plank Challenge' to prove to ourselves that we do have core muscles and to start toning them up in time for spring.

*I can earn a few extra points or pounds when friends join and use sites via my referral links

Frugal Food Treats for the Garden Birds

Don't Forget to Feed the Garden Birds

As temperatures plummet and the prospect of another long winter draws in, it's time to check our wild bird supplies. Seeds, nuts, berries, fruit and suet are all firm favourites, as is a bit of cheap cat food. (Mealworms are a treat few frugalers can afford, hence the cat food.)

Frugal living may be based on a very tight budget but the 'waste not, want not' in all of us can usually stretch to helping the wildlife on our own back doorsteps.

Here in Frugaldom, we have an assortment of feeding stations dotted about the garden, mostly of the homemade variety. (This is my logman feeding station, he's made from part of a felled conifer tree and some bottle tops for eyes and nose.)

I buy wild bird food by the 20kg bag from the local agricultural merchant and have it delivered along with the poultry feeding, so it's available all year round. Otherwise, anything left over that's suitable gets put out on the tables.

The Bluetits love peanuts and fat-balls, but we need to remember to remove these from their net bags to avoid the birds catching beaks, tongues or claws in them. The Robins eat almost anything, the Coal Tits love peanuts and the list could go on and on and on. In fact, wild birds could eat us out of house and home here, so I try to make feed last as long as possible and as interesting as possible.

Peanuts in shells (leftovers from Halloween, perhaps?) are great for stringing together and hanging in hedges or trees - the bluetits quite happily dangle there, pecking away at the shells and feeding on the kernels. There's also a cheap way of making the fatty treats the birds all seem to love.

I have an empty herb tub that I line with tin foil - you'll see just shortly why it has to be lined. Into this, I put a couple of handfuls of mixed wildbird feed in plus any seeds, crumbs, sultanas etc that have been left aside for any reason. As long as your tub is at the ready, you can tip in the hot fat anytime you fry.

Having bought several tins of sausages from ROSSPA, they come canned in lard, which is great for making the feed blocks as it sets hard quite quickly. You can also set the seed, fruit and nut mix inside half coconut shells and then hand these from trees or posts. The other thing you can do is place string (non-nylon) in the middle of the seed blocks then tie them up once the fat has set hard.

To speed up the process, you can pop the cooled blocks into your fridge or freezer. Obviously, if you live in freezing northern parts of the country, you'll find it's cold enough outside to set the feed blocks hard. This is one I have setting now, after having fried up a tin of sausages to add to a little chilli I had leftover - it meant it fed two of us instead of just one.

During the hardest of winters, it's also a good idea to provide a daily supply of water, as most of what's around will be frozen. The starlings will probably bath in it, but if that's what they want to do, who are we to say otherwise.

Now all I need to do is try my best to keep everything out of reach of Scruffy cat, which means hanging it up high enough that she can't climb or leap up and grab the birds!

Frugaldom
www.frugaldom.com
 

Has Amazon Made a Mistake or is it a Con?

Please Correct Me If I'm Wrong

Country Value Complete Dry Cat Food 1.25 kg (Pack of 3)

Price: £7.17 (£0.64 / kg), this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. In stock. Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk

The above most definitely says 1.25kg (Pack of 3), doesn't it?
And at £7.17 (£0.64/ kg) then there should be a total of approx 11.2kg or 3 x (3 x 1.25kg) right?

Here in Frugaldom, everything gets done on a budget - it's part of our frugal living attempts, so the way we spend our money means everything when trying to live within our means, make some savings and cut costs.

I normally buy store's own basic cat biscuits, currently costing around 99p per kilo. When checking on Amazon, I was delighted to find value cat biscuits quoted at 64p per kilo! My cat isn't fussy, she eats mice, for goodness' sake, she's hardly going to grumble at a downshift from Aldi to a value 'brand'.

I ALMOST fell for the above offer! (Or could this be a regular con, I now wonder?)

The product was in my basket and en route to the checkout before I noticed my potential mistake!

1.25kg x 3 = 3.75kg. At a total cost of £7.17, wouldn't that make the product £1.91 per kilo and NOT, as advertised, £0.64 per kilo? In order for the product to be 64p per kilo, the overall weight would need to be 11.2kg, which is almost three times the stated amount, but I can't find anywhere saying that you are buying 3 x (3 x 1.25kg) and don't see anywhere to query this. Can anyone tell me exactly what I would be buying if I bought the above product?

Have I completely missed something important?

I emailed Amazon to ask, as it clearly states £0.64 per kilo on the Amazon.co.uk listing and soon received this response:


Hello xxxx,

Thank you for contacting Amazon.co.uk with your enquiry.
I understand that you would like to know how many pack you would receive on purchasing "Country Value Complete Dry Cat Food".

After looking into your enquiry I found that you will receiving 3 X 1.25 kg only and not 3 X (3 X 1.25 kg).

If you have any other questions please contact us using the link below. (link removed)

Thank you for your interest in Amazon.co.uk
Did I solve your problem?

As you can guess, this did NOT solve my problem - my problem is that the details on their website is clearly WRONG! So back I go again, to repeat what I have already explained quite clearly to them the first time and await a satisfactory response! The following has been sent:

***

Further to your response... no, your answer did not solve my problem. I have included your response at the end of this email.

My problem is, I want to buy value cat food at £0.64p per kg, as described on your website at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Country-Value-Complete-Food-1-25/dp/B004H1LYEY/ but either the item description or pricing is WRONG!

If I order this product, it is going to cost me £1.91 per kilo, which is NOT value. Once again, I ask you to confirm the number of packs and this time the total weight of the product as sold, as the description clearly states £0.64p per kilo, which means there must be 3 x (3 x 1.25kg)

***

Once again, I await their response and can only hope that they have, indeed, made a mistake and that there isn't an underlying trend of misselling such products on what I had come to rely on as a reputable, reliable, trustworthy company!

Edited in: It's now 6th December. Cat food was duly delivered (and grossly overcharged) and a apology with refund of £4.50 given. That's fine for me, but I just checked their website and see that they have left the mistake on there. I wonder how many people will notice it. I feel a 'customer review' coming on...

NYK Media
www.scottishmultimedia.co.uk

Frugal Photographic Fun - Picture in Picture

September Sunshine and Fun in the Frugaldom Garden

Part 2

Following on from my earlier post, I have now had a closer look at the original photographs and found many more contained within them.

I spotted several things that I hadn't even noticed while taking them, so quite a few frugal bonuses and rather fun searching the photos for hidden 'clues' to what's really going on in the garden.

The initial view of the garden, on closer inspection, revealed several runner beans that are ready for picking. I'm amazed that the rabbit hadn't already helped herself to these.

This fly was one of a few that were on the sunflowers.

I'm not a great fan of creepy crawlies or flying beasties, but I was really impressed by how the bright yellow of the sunflower petals highlighted the lace pattern of the wings.

If you look closely, you can even see this fly's hairy little knees and feet!

What do you think of this sunflower yellow? It's fabulous!

Sunflowers are really quite amazing. The closer you look at them, the more fascinating they become - this brown mosaic swirl is the very centre of the flower. Each one of these will become a sunflower seed one day soon.

For some strange reason, this reminds me of an armadillo!

Moving further out from the centre of the sunflower, I spotted this strange array of what looks more like they should be swaying on the bottom of the sea bed!

I can highly recommend playing this fun and frugal game. Out of a few digital photographs, I have managed to highlight several aspects of the garden that would, otherwise, have been overlooked. (Family like to see the photo diaries, as they aren't close enough to visit in person on a regular basis.)

Hello MUM! :)

Along the dry stone wall, beyond the pumpkins and kale then past the sweet peas, there are still hundreds of rosehips of all colours.

Despite the autumnal weather that seems to be fast approaching, there are still quite a fe wild roses blooming.

It was while inspecting the photo for all these rosehips and sweetpea blossomgs that I spotted an anomaly. Can you spot it?

Almost in the centre of this clump of colourful swet peas, I can see a single yellow flower - some sort of rogue dandelion or daisy - a weed that has clambered up through the sweet peas to emerge among the blooms.

I love the smell of sweet peas and am really glad that there are so many flowers. They just keep on growing, as if coming through in wave after wave of colour.

Did anyone spot the snowball turnips growing below the kale? I will need to get out and lift a few more of these, as I hadn't spotted them on my round of the garden. Oops!

I love this photo in a photo of Floppity rabbit finding Scruffy cat beneath the brussel sprouts. It really is the cat's whiskers.

Floppity soon took off, so a closer inspection of the next photograph provided evidence of her escape route... this is her big furry feet and tail about to disappear further into the sprout patch.

All of these images are part of the photographs published in part 1 of today's blog.

If anyone decides to play the frugal photo game, don't forget to upload your findings to your own blog or site then let us all know where we can see them.

The sun shone all day, so the patio was the favoured spot for coffee drinking and chatting, especially when visitors arrived. Floppity got confined to barracks, as she can be such a pest, but Scruffy insisted she oined in and got all the attention.

In between baking, biscuit making and soup making, I did get around to planting all the spring bulbs. Frugaldom now has a selection of daffodils, tulips, irises, snowdrops and crocuses crammed into the planters that sit around the front of the house. A bit more compost needed to top these up but then it's all down to nature to do her good deed and make my bulbs grow.

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