Praying mantis

Chris rushed in for the camera as he had spotted this beautiful creature, but he wasn't the only one, several of the cats were very interested in it too and wanted to 'play'. It was holding it's own though and with some distraction the cats got fed up waiting for it to move and went off to find something else to do, but Chris did rescue it on the end of a broom stick and relocated it. Such beautiful wings

praying mantis

We had a visit from our friend and neighbour and did a little bartering - she brought over a selection of chillies, ranging from hot to hotter including scotch bonnets.  We selected three plants for her in return as these produce little yellow chillies, again very hot,  they certainly put a sparkle in to a curry sauce.  

 I shall put them in the freezer as they are so much easier to grate when frozen and keep their lovely colour.

We swap other things too, such as I made her granddaughter one of the little rabbits and in return we got a huge bottle of first press olive oil, the flavour is very strong but used in the right way, quite delicious.

They have loads of olive trees on their land and each year put such hard work into laying down the nets, harvesting the olives by banging the branches with sticks or hand picking, then they take their bounty to Tarbena where they can watch them being pressed and put it in large containers. By putting the oil in decorative bottles they make lovely gifts.  It's still not over though as they then have to collect and clean the nets ready for the next year.

On the crafting front, I found a pattern for textural plaid stitch which I thought looked interesting, so I thought I would make a hot pot cloth, but as it was progressing I changed my mind, added a neck tie and made it into another bib.  

You can never have too many hot pot cloths, or bibs come to that

take care

xcx