Nest Box Making

Well, in the National Nest Box week we have an event on Saturday 21st.February. Members arrive 10.00am.,
public in at 10.30am. Venue: Holy Trinity Community Hall up Tatton Street in Colne. Adults £!.00p admission to include lucky number ticket and cupof tea/coffee and cake. Children free and will get squash/biccies .
We shall have items for sale to raise funds (Albert & Sue have done a splendid job) .Also on loop will be a film of the Tree Dressing ceremony held a little while ago.There are 12 bird and bat box kits to be made up. Bird boxes to take home will be £4.00p to cover outlay.
JUNIOR RANGERS CLUB We've decided to hold this on the last Saturday of each month to co-incide with our monthly litter pick. For February 28th we shall be making POOTERS and hopefully learning to use them. So if anyone wants to know what a pooter is, come along and find out ! WE all meet at the LNR Car Park at 10.30am
Hot drinks etc available afterwards.
Our next GENERAL MEETING is on Thursday 26th. February at Crown Hotel 7.30pm in back of Restaurant
Please support.

Hello everyone in 2009.
Friends of Greenfield have been fairly busy in the last couple of months.
Two litter picks have been done and we collected far too much rubbish. I say that because it shouldn't have been there in the first place! We got some good publicity in Colne Times, so let's hope the message gets to people in the local community.
Albert did a splendid dog poo poster and doggedly(oops no pun intended) puts up posters as they get torn down by vandals.
The Tree Walk and Tree Dressing Ceremony went very well in spite of a rainy morning. 14 including 5 children attended. Thanks to Alison Plackett for her very informative leading of the walk.
Plans for the coming months. We've ordered some genuine English Bluebells and when they come will need planting.
Regular litterpicks will be on the last Saturday of each month commencing at 10.30am.
Saturday February 21st sees us at Holy Trinity Community Centre, Tatton Street, Colne with a Bird and Bat box making morning. Also Refreshements will be served. Adults will pay £1.00 to come in and for that will get a cup of tea/coffee with a piece of cake plus a lucky draw number on their ticket.Children in free and a squash & biscuit free. So why not come along and try your hand at Nest box making.Members please contribute, cakes, buns or traybakes even if you can't be there. Let me know on 01282 859745 and I will arrange collection.
We also hope to plant a bird friendly/ flytipper unfriendly hedge along the edge of the car park by the fence .There are improvements afoot with Rob Janusewski of PEAG and we will know more later.
Come Spring we shall have to pull some of the young Indian Balsam plants, even though we may be unpopular with the Beekeepers ( of which I am one). Bees love it and it extends their foraging season.That's it for now folks. Keep supporting Greenfield LNR.

Happy New Year 2009 to all Friends of Greenfield LNR.
We had an excellent if rather damp Tree and Bird Walk followed by a Tree Dressing Ceremony in our woodland,in December. 14 turned up including five children. We retired to Albert's and Sue's Camper Van for hot drinks and home made cookies etc.

At the General Meeting, also held in December,one thing that was decided was that during 2009 we shall have a litter pick on every last Saturday of the month beginning January 31st.Turn up for 10.30am at the carpark and bring a bin bag. Litter picks will be made available. Don't forget GLOVES!! Watch out for reminder e-mails this month.

If anyone would like to undertake regular bird feeding at the LNR. please let Annette know, 01282 859745. We can then buy in some seed in bulk and you can obtain smaller quantities from her as required.

Prickle's Progress

This is probably Harriet Hedgehog's sister. Yes, I found another one in my garden.
It turned out to be a girl as well.After a night in a box cuddled up to a towel covered hot water bottle the second Miss Tiggy was taken over to the Burnley receiving post and by now is probably tucked up at the Rochdale Hedgehog Resue Centre. It makes you glad you can help a young creature survive. Apparently the usual life span can be seven years but is more likely to be about two. Hedgehogs face many hazards in their short lives.Normally they will have one litter of hoglets a year. But if disturbed or the nest gets washed out, as so many must have done during the past wet, wet year, then they will have another go. But this makes them late in the year and hence the young ones cannot put on enough weight to survive hibernation.
If you shop in Asda, buy a tin of cat or dog MEAT (not fish ones) and put it in the Hedgehog Rescue Box provided. It will be gratefully received by Tina and Kevan at Burnley, who care for the hoglets and injured adults until they can be collected by the Rochdale people. many thanks. Greencrumblie

PUMPKIN SOUP.

Hi All. At last we have the recipe for Sue's Soup!
Greenfield's Special Pumkin Soup.
INGREDIENTS:
1 pumpkin
2 medium sized onions
Salt & Pepper
2 vegetable stock cubes
Small single cream
2x 142gm size tins of tomato puree

METHOD: Cut pumpkin in half. Remove all the seeds and loose fibres, cut into wedges. Place in a large roasting tin, skin side down. Drizzle with cooking oil(whatever you have to hand,but a nice olive oil would be good). Roast in oven for approx. 30mins.at Gas 6 or Electric 200C or 400F. Remove from oven and set
aside to cool(cool enough to handle).
Peel onions and finely chop,cook in large saucepan with small amount of oil.Cook until soft but not brown.Use
moderate to low heat to prevent burning.
If pumpkin is cool enough, remove skin, chop flesh into small pieces and place in saucepan with the onions.
Add water. How much depends on your taste for thin or thick soup. In any case cover the pumpkin. Adjustments to liquid can be made later.
Add the tins of tomato puree and add the 2 vegetable stock cubes.
Cook until soft 15 to 20 minutes
Liquidise the soup with a hand blender. Be careful , do not liquidise if soup is too hot! If you spray the kitchen we can't come round and re-decorate! If you don't have a blender use a good old potato masher.
Return the soup to a clean pan. Now's the time to adjust the liquid to thinner or thick by adding water.
Add the single cream to your taste. Don't forget to season with salt and pepper. Taste before adding!
Heat and serve with crusty fresh rolls.
We made two large pots of this soup for our Hallowe'en evening and only one child said he didn't like it.

Just goes to show there is life after Heinz ( with apologies to the Brand!)

Tales from my garden

The Saga of Harriet Hedgehog.Those of you who saw the November Newsletter will have seen the photo of a small hedhehog that I have been feeding over a number of weeks, with assistance from my neighbour when I was away.One of our members kindly phoned me and said that if the hedgehog weighed 400gms or less it would have to be cared for by the Hedgehog Hospital to get it through the winter.So tonight I left food as usual and hey presto, there was tiggywinkle hogging down the nosh(pun *hogging* not intended). So donning a pair of gloves I captured the blithely unaware hoglet and quicly checked its weight on my kitchen scales. 5oogms!! So immediatelyI phoned Tina and Kevan of the Burnley Rescue post who said it needed to be at least a pound and a half if it was to survive the winter. They said put it on a towel in a high sided box and get it over to Burnley pronto. So I did.What a lovely couple they are! Kevan is a retired Burnley Parks Ranger and ex-lifeguard. What they don't know about hedgehogs and their care wouldn't cover a one pence piece!
Harriet, for it turned out to be a girl, will be collected by Rochdale Hedgehog Resue which runs a hospital for them and cared for until she is big enough to be released back into the wild.If you want to know more, look upwww.hedgehogrescue.org.uk

Hi All. Wow our Bat Evening really went with a swing. Almost three dozen children and parents turned up at St John's Hall in Colne.They made laminated placemats with all kinds of spooky cut outs. Then followed an impromtu Nature Quiz whilst waiting for Mike Fisher the Bat Man to arrive. He gave a most fascinating talk and slide show about the furry little creatures. Then came the scrumptious food. Pumkin pie and home made pumpkin soup were hits . So having been asked for recipes , here goes.
Pumpkin Pie. Pastry to line the dish( a flan dish or similar is ideal).
40z plain flour; 3oz baking margarine (Stork); pinch salt;1teaspoon baking powder;water to mix.
Divid fat into two.Sieve flour with salt and baking powder into a mixing bowl. Cut half the fat into the flour until pieces of fat are very small.Then cut in the rest more roughly.Mix with water until binding together. Knead into a ball and allow to rest for about an hour in fridge. Then roll out to fit the dish, leave a little extra to allow for shrinkage.Bake blind for about ten minutes in fairly hot oven.
Filling. 1&1/2 cups of pumpkin;2 eggs(separated);6oz brown sugar; 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger;1/2 teaspoon cinnamon;juice and grated rind of a lemon;vanilla to taste; 1/2pint milk.
Cut pumpkin in half. Scoop out pips(you can dry these and use them in salads or as a snack). Put pumpkin in to a moderate oven and bake until flesh is soft. Remove and scoop out what you need.Mash with fork. M1x in the two egg yolks, brown sugar, milk and flavourings, including the lemon,Whisk egg whites till fluffy and fold in to the mixture. Spread mixture in to pie crust.Bake in a hot oven for 15 minutes. Turn oven down to moderate and continue baking slowly for about 35 minutes.Enjoy!
The soup recipe will follow when Sue lets me have it. Cheers Greencrumblie