The Second & Third Lights of Advent

 Oh how the days of this year's advent are flying!

My mom has been in the hospital after having had an operation and now that she has returned home only just a few days ago it feels like I can finally play a bit of catch up on my blog and share how our advent table is growing :)

In the second week of Rudolph Steiner's four kingdoms during advent it says:

The second light of Advent is the light of plants,
Plants that reach up to the sun and in the breezes dance.

So we filled our table with plants. I had purchased some paperwhite bulbs at a local garden supply store to force and found the white bowl at the dollar store. We then filled it with stones to act as anchors to hold our bulbs in place as they start to grow and to keep them just a smidge above the water in the bottom of the bowl so they won't rot. It's amazing how quickly they sprang to life and their shoots are already quite a few inches high!

 I just adore Amaryllis flowers in the dark months of winter with their tall green stems and bright blooms the size of your hand so I splurged a little and bought one special bulb to plant for our table as well :)

I had seen somewhere on the web that they had planted their bulb in a tall vase to help support their long stems as they grow so I found a glass pasta jar and thought it would work. Perhaps not quite as pretty but more in my price range *grin*. We laid a couple of inches of stones in the bottom of the jar and then placed the bulb on top making sure that it had a little room around it so it wasn't quite pressed up against the glass, filled jar with water till the roots were submerged (about an inch below the base of the bulb) and then added a few ornamental red cranberries for more color. It won't bloom in time for Christmas but it sure will be pretty when it does :)

Tonight is the third week of advent and in the third week of Rudolph Steiner's four kingdoms it says:

The third light of Advent is the light of beasts,
Light of hope that shines in the greatest and the least .

And all of our barnyard animals have finally made their way to the crèche :) 

Up until now we had only had our little manger that the children have been filling with little bits of hay each morning and an empty crèche so they were very excited to finally pull out all of the animals that belong with our nativity set plus a few more that they rounded up around the house *grin*. Next Sunday we will bring Mary and Joseph out as well and then Baby Jesus on the eve followed by the three wise men as they visit with their gifts :)

I have a few little crafts I want to make this week with the children to feed our feathered friends. Each year we pick a tree in the front yard that we can see from our family room window and fill it with all sorts of goodies for the birds and squirrels :) So this year I like this apple treat feeder and if we get enough snow we'll make some snow sculpture feeders again and these are always fun to make to :)

How about you, what are you doing this week?

Hugs,

Rosina

Betty Beefsteak & Sir-Loin Alot

It would seem that I've been sleeping, breathing and obsessing over calves for the last 4 days. Monday morning the little heifer was not quite herself and was completely uninterested in her bottle of warm milk which was a huge sign that something wasn't right and her bowel movements had been looking pretty runny. I checked the cupboard for the emergency electrolyte and mineral replacement powder that I try to have on hand all the times for calves that get the runs to help replace what their bodies loose with all of the loose stool and I was so happy to see that I had some.

By the time I returned she was lying down making little moo noises as she lay her head on my lap and really did not want to get back up. I was really getting worried that I was going to loose her :( So I spent most of the day in and out of the barn trying to get her to take sips of the electrolytes which was going painstakingly slow but a little is better than none. You shouldn't underestimate how fast one of these little guys can dehydrate but I had one more little trick up my sleeve to help her to feel better and that was to give her 30cc's of pepto bismol with one of those little baby medicine syringes every 4 hours. Some people swear by using pepto for calves with the runs and others will say it's an old wives tale and doesn't do anything at all but I have used it a few times in the past and it always does the trick!

Later that evening she was ready to take her bottle of milk again, drank a little more than she had managed in the morning and was back on her feet again. Yay! Over the next few days we continued our regime of electrolytes and pepto and I am so relieved to say that today her appetite is back and growing in leaps and bounds and her bowel movements are all back to normal :)

Sometimes the change from being moved to a new home, or the switch from fresh cow's milk to a milk replacer can trigger the upset or even the stress from so many new faces and hands wanting to pet her can do it to them but all is well in the barn again and oh by the way that's her up in the first photo... Betty Beefsteak herself. All bright eyed and bushy tailed today as she bounced around *grin*.

Heehee, don't you just love her name?! Hubby came up with them :) Well actually first Betty Beefsteak was going to be T-bone but we didn't think it was girly enough and the little boy has been named Sir-Loin Alot :)

There never seems to be enough milk for the little guy either! He makes the cutest little face when he's finished with the tip of his tongue hanging out...

but watch your backside or front side for that matter *grin*. When the bottles are empty they sometimes look for more and bump you in some not so nice places LOL. Yeah, we're going to have to break them of that habit :)

Hugs,

Rosina

Flickr Favorites ~ Marvelous Macro

1. Coccinella, 2. Stamen, 3. the dance of fire, 4. Giant-Blueberry

Macro photography is always so interesting! The simplest of objects can be magnified so intensely that they look quite alien or a tiny visitor such as the snail on the blueberries above becomes glaringly apparent especially if you happened to have not noticed him and might have eaten him!!



This is a photo I took of a Helleborus pistil and stamen. I love how you can see the little bits of pollen clinging to the anthers.



And this is the underside of a limpet that we found beach combing one afternoon :) Isn't he the creepiest little thing you've ever seen?! He was totally into checking out his new surroundings and you can see his mouth and tentacles extended in the upper left hand corner.

Yucky but oh so interesting *grin*. Have you taken any macro shots lately? I think I'm going to have to take my camera and see what sort of spring shots I can capture!

Want to join in the fun and share your flickr favorites? Head over to Misty's blog and join in!

~ Rosina