Paul Finch Moth and Swallow and sloe gin lol

The two items I bought from Paul Finch off Etsy have arrived and one was supposed to be a gift for Christmas for an old school friend..... but.... well,

as you can see, the swallow has found a place to rest......

beneath the two silly prints I find funny..........

'Happy Dying by Chocolate' just in view there

and 'Fashion The Crowd can Understand'

and the moth, well look at her!

                     How can I give her away.......?
                Im going to have to buy another for the Christmas gift!!

Oh yes, having been tidying up abit in my bedroom and talk of Judes Magic Feathers being in cyberworld of late........... did I mention I like feathers too?

The peacock feathers are from british peacocks that a friend gave us to sell on the cat rescue fund raising stall, each year when her birds moulted. One year I bought several of them, their splendor and colours are wonderful.
The lush black ones are victorian feathers ( about 14" long)I bought from an (antique) stall colleague and there are afew wonderful exotics in there that came off a victorian hat from the same seller, years ago.
The wierd cream-ish ones, front centre, are like fish back bones to feel, very odd those, but they are feathers never the less and also from an old ladies hat.

I went out foraging for sloes last friday and this is the haul I brought home...
sloes that squished nicely in the fingers when preparing them to make sloe gin..............

Brambles and elderberries , most of which were stewed together and eaten with greek natural yoghurt............yummy...though

some of the elderberries have gone in with some of the sloes to see if together, they make a quirkier liquer!
And cob nuts, hazel nuts basically.

Oh yes, and acorns and have saved the acorn cups to use on xmas wreaths. The tree had a blight and many of the nuts had the hard, mishapen fungal growths on them. Ive saved those because Im sure Ive read something about them being used to dye with...........but I may have imagined that bit.
And once the sloes were squished nicely into bottles, with a little brown sugar added...this was the colour first off....the centre one has the elderberry and sloes together in it.

A light discolouration of the gin, thats all here.
But I should show you a piccy of it now!
Already its lush with colour and the berries have ballooned in size.
I havent made sloe gin for afew years, certainly not since moving into this urban area.
But Id forgotten how right it feels to pick and use from the land, although I follow the pick only a little from one place path.
So the wildlife still has food for autumn too.
Mind you the birds dont much like sloes...so you can feel a little less guilty harvesting those !
The hard part is waiting till at least the end of October - ish, before I take a small taste to see if its ready or in need of more sugar adding 
...... did I mention self disclipline isnt my thing? lol