Rach Liz Lucas

Playing with catnip mice, March 2012, with Retrocamera

   Here’s two snaps of our kitty getting all warm and fuzzy with her catnip mice. As well as being her favourite ever catnip toys, they’re ethical and super stylish, as they’re made from recycled vintage fabric.

   I always wondered why cats go so crazy over catnip as the dried herb doesn’t appear to have any recognisable smell. Cats, however, have much more sensitive smell receptors and are reacting to the scent of a chemical called nepetalactone, which to a kitty is obviously delicious!

   Catnip (nepata cataria) is a mint native to the British Isles and once upon-at-time was commonly brewed as a refreshing tea:

“Before the use of tea from China, our English peasantry were in the habit of brewing Catmint Tea, which they said was quite as pleasant and a good deal more wholesome.”

(Source: botanical.com)

Blackthorn (Prunus Spinosa) Blossoms taken with ‘Little Orange Box’ on Retro Camera  

   The first of the blossom to arrive in our local nature park is already looking spectacular. I’m not very good at identifying trees but I’m pretty sure this is prunus spinosa or blackthorn.

   In country lore, early blackthorn blooms indicate a ‘blackthorn winter’, a cold snap with biting north-easterly winds after a mild winter, which was exactly what we had.

  Blackthorn produces a bitter fruit known as a sloe in the autumn. Sloes are traditionally added to gin along with sugar to make a delicious ruby red liqueur.

(Source: legendarydartmoor.co.uk)

silverandonyx:

Flora is the Roman Goddess of flowering plants, especially those that bear fruit. Spring, of course, is Her season, and She has elements of a Love-Goddess, with its attendant attributes of fertility, sex, and blossoming. She is quite ancient; the Sabines are said to have…

   I wonder if she can help me with the rust on my roses…

(Source: thaliatook.com)

galeazzagarden:

The First Bees of 2012

There were three fat bumble bees on the irises today - all clinging silently and practically motionless… I don’t know if they’re about to die, just cold, or simply in ecstasy after so many months without pollen - at any rate, it’s good to see them on these flowers!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumble_bee

I need to reblog at least one Springtime picture a week at the moment to keep me going until the real Spring appears. Isn’t this pretty?

(Source: timothyjongmans)

baggelboy:

The Green Man Linocut. £3.50

I have this print - I love it - he looks serenely down from my wall.

   An interesting element of this video is that two of the additives in the processed food are said to have derived from petrochemicals, which means most people are regularly ingesting the by-products of crude oil processing as well as putting it on their skin in cosmetic products. I wonder how wise this really is?

sweet-grass:

jtotheizzoe:

What Processed Food Looks Like During Digestion … Oh YUCK.

If a Happy Meal can sit out for six months and not go bad, then it’s not surprising that processed foods can look pretty bad going through your digestive tract. Using a pill-sized remote comera, Stefani Bardin tracked processed versus perishable food through the caverns of digestion.

Enjoy. Just not while you’re eating.

(via Scientific American)

processed junk vs. whole foods!