Salty Sam’s Fun Blog for Children
Number 572
Orange
Hello Everyone
Have you noticed that the word orange means a fruit and a colour?
Well, l am sure you have.
They say that the word orange is the only word that does not rhyme with another but l am not sure that Richard Gorringe would agree with that.
You may love to eat oranges; you may even eat them at half time when you play football. They can be made into marmalade.
Oranges are good for you; they have Vitamin C in them.
Orange may be your favourite colour, or you may find it a bit too bright for your taste.
lt is a colour of positivity and energy, and always adds a feeling of warmth to a room, especially if the room is north facing and does not get much sunlight.
Orange things used for interior design come into fashion and can be found in the shops only from time to time, so you need to nab them while you can.
Orange is the colour associated with religious enlightenment, and that is why you will always see Buddhist monks wearing orange robes.
Scientists found out after carrying out studies, that being surrounded by the colour orange makes people more sociable so you will find that sometimes there are orange chairs in waiting rooms. lf people start talking, the time they have to wait seems to go more quickly.
lt has also been proved that the colour orange increases oxygen flow to the brain. lt is also associated with creativity.
lt has been found to help depression and make people feel better about themselves in colour therapy sessions.
lt has also been linked to boosting the immune system and aiding the digestive system.
And looking at orange sunsets is good for your eyes. The red light that comes from them is very healing.
Orange in the garden gives bright pops of colour.
lt has also been found to attract pollinators like bees and hoverflies.
You can grow marigolds and nasturtiums in your vegetable patch as companion planting.
Other flowers that add orange to a garden are daffodils in spring,
As the summer progresses you can choose from this list: calla lily, achillea, peony, echinacea, roses, foxgloves and then in late summer; dahlias.
You can start buying your seeds now. 
Bye bye everyone – don’t forget to subscribe to my blog!
Love and kisses
Salty Sam
www.christina-sinclair.com
Bill and Bob’s Joke of the Week
Bill: Do you know why the orange was puffing up the hill?
Bob: Yes, he was running out of juice!
Salty Sam © Christina Sinclair 2015
Unauthorized use and/or duplication of material from this blog without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.
Links may be used to www.christina-sinclair.com
Picture Gallery
Calla lily
Achillea
Buddhist monks
THE SALTY SAM NEWS DESK
This week, Bill and Bob started thinking about what seeds they wanted to buy to set up their vegetable garden this year.
Planning ahead is never a bad thing.
They also wanted to put some more flowers in their front garden and they decided that lupins would be a good choice.
Lupins
The ones they wanted are herbaceous types that originated from North America.
Over 20 species were brought over in the 19th century by David Douglas; a plant hunter associated with the Douglas fir.
Douglas fir
They have since gone through years of breeding.
They come in a huge range of colours – all the colours you would find in a sweetie shop!
And they have really pretty leaves which catch raindrops and make them sparkle like jewels.
They like full sun but can cope with partial shade. Bill and Bob’s front garden is south-facing so it gets a lot of sun.
They like deep soil and lots of watering.
Bill and Bob like watering.
You can grow lupin plants from seed but you can divide plants in February too to make more. You will need to employ an adult to do that.
Slugs find the young plant shoots a tasty treat, so Bill and Bob plan to pot their seedling on when they are quite big.
If you get greenfly on your plants, it is best to get rid of all the foliage in the autumn.
But lupins are also loved by bees which is a good thing.
Bill and Bob planned to plant some other flowers as well.
They wanted to plant phlox, sweet rocket and necotiana.
These are the kind of flowers that start producing heavy scents after dark.
This is because they are pollinated by moths that come out after dark too.
The flowers have pale colours that show up well in low light.
If you can collect seeds from any of your plants to use the following year, you will save money.
Phlox
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Quick Quiz
Do you know what these words and phrases mean?
- like a red rag to a bull
- to be in a blue funk
- in a black mood
- red-faced
- black clouds are looming
- to be green – in one’s salad days
- a golden dawn
- the boys in blue
- a grey area
- to whitewash
lt’s the Weekend!
HOW TO MAKE A CUP BlRD FEEDER
Ask permission before you turn any household item into a craft project.
So you have an old tea cup that doesn’t match any set of crockery, or maybe you saw one in a charity shop that you really liked and you bought it and brought it home; and you would like to make it into something interesting.
Well, you could use it as a little vase to put flowers in.
Or pots to grow succulents in because they don’t need to be watered as much as other plants.
You could use it as a vessel to fill with a home-made candle.
(Never use matches or a lighter without adult supervision.)
Or you could turn it into a bird feeder.
If you have the saucer you could glue it to the side of the cup and hang it up like the picture above. There is then plenty of room for the birds to get to the seeds.
Some seeds will inevitable be tossed onto the ground where ground feeding birds will pick them up.
It is really important for the health of your garden birds to keep your feeders clean and ceramic or china is really easy to wash.
If you just have a tea cup without its saucer – it might even be chipped, you can fill it with melted fat and seeds so that the birds’ food is solid inside.
Before the mixture sets, push a short stick from the garden into it in the side furthest from the handle.
This will provide a perch for the birds when the cup is hung up by its handle.
Eventually, the stick will fall out, but never mind; you will be able to find a new, clean one when you are ready to fill the cup up again. The rest of the food will fall to the ground too.
This time of year, harsh, winter weather can fly in suddenly, and the birds will be grateful for some extra food to see them through.
Don’t forget to give them drinking water in a shallow dish too.
Please note that the material on this blog is for personal use and for use in classrooms only.
It is a copyright infringement and, therefore, illegal under international law to sell items made with these patterns.
Use of the toys and projects is at your own risk.
©Christina Sinclair Designs 2015
Quick Quiz Answers
- like a red rag to a bull – to do or say something that will definitely cause someone to get angry
- to be in a blue funk – in a depressed state that does not seem to be shifting
- in a black mood – to be in an unhappy mood and consequently maybe also be in a bad temper – if you hear someone is in a black mood, you would probably want to avoid them!
- red-faced – embarrassed
- black clouds are looming – something bad is on the horizon up ahead – maybe you see that there will be problems in the future
- to be green – in one’s salad days – to be young and naïve and inexperienced
- a golden dawn – a good new beginning
- the boys in blue – the police
- a grey area – information is not clear and defined
- to whitewash – a whitewash is literally a lime that covers stone walls – but used in an idiom it means to cover up something wrong or illegal from public view
