Autumn watch: how to help our hibernating animal friends

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As winter draws closer, you might be wondering how you can best support local wildlife. While, in the UK, only hedgehogs, bats, and dormice are officially known to hibernate, many other species rest up and hide away to conserve energy – and there are numerous ways you can help!

Hedgehogs

Autumn watch: how to help our hibernating animal friends

These little creatures are perhaps the most likely hibernators to be found hanging around a British garden, so the best advice is to be cautious when tidying any potential hibernation spots near your house from late autumn.

If you have a compost pile, or are considering creating one, this is a particular favourite sleeping spot of hedgehogs, so you’ll be helping already! Just be careful when aerating or adding to your pile. Or, if you’re looking for other proactive ways to help, you could buy a specially-designed ‘hedgehog house’, or build a makeshift one from piles of discarded logs and leaves.

Tip:

Leave out tinned dog or cat food to help any travelling hogs build fat reserves. While it used to be common, it’s best not to leave milk out, as this can cause digestive problems for them.

Bats

Bats typically hibernate in groups, in quiet, cool areas – about 75% in trees in the UK, while the remainder might choose to roost under the eaves of buildings, or find their way into crevices in old brickwork.

The best thing you can do to help bats is simply not disturb them. Waking a hibernating creature can cost it a lot of its energy reserves, and, according to the Bat Conservation Trust, could lead to starvation for bats, as they lose their fats stores. But if you want more proactive suggestions, you could put up a bat box in a sheltered spot, roughly 4m above the ground.

Tip:

Invite more nocturnal flying insects into your garden, as food sources for bats, by planting night-scented flowers such as white jasmine, honeysuckle, and evening primrose.

Autumn watch: how to help our hibernating animal friends

Dormice

While they spend the summer months primarily in hedgerows or tree branches, in the winter these small mammals descend to the ground to nest in piles of logs or in grass clumps at the base of trees.

Leaving out food supplies can be helpful for when dormice do wake up, including berries, buds, and, in particular, hazelnuts, which are a great source of fat for them. If you have, or can plant, hazel trees, these are ideal habitats for dormice – and given their dwindling numbers, any help we can give to create mini sanctuaries for these mammals could be a huge bonus.

Tip:

Allow brambles and ivy to grow a little more wild where you can, as this can offer another good shelter option for visiting dormice.

Frogs

Amphibians often rest at the bottom of ponds over the winter months, so it’s best to clean them out before winter arrives. This gives frogs a clean and healthy environment, and helps prevent gas building up from decomposing materials below the surface if ice forms. If freezing conditions do occur, remember not to ‘smash’ the ice, as th

The Little Things Newsletter #332 – Life, laughter, and lots of great food!

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Welcome to the weekend, friends! I did a double-take when I wrote today’s date for the newsletter. Much like Anne Shirley, “I’m so very glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.” The pretty leaves, the cooler weather with a promise of fall and winter activities, cozy fires (we lit the first one last night!), mugs of tea and cocoa in the afternoon, I love it all.

And not that I’m rushing things one bit, but I can hardly wait for the first snowfall. (Sorry, native Ohioans, that will never not be exciting for me!) I’ll be in Phoenix this week, and while the sunshine and visits with family and friends are always lovely, I can tell you now that I’ll be counting down the days until I’m back home to enjoy all the awesomeness that is fall in Ohio.

ON THE BLOG this week: Full of spiced ground beef and covered in tangy tomato sauce, cabbage roll casserole is a hearty stick-to-your-ribs meal. With all the flavor of the more labor-intensive Cabbage Rolls with a minimum of effort, this is a dinner-time win.

Peanut Butter Apple Dip is simple and slightly sweet, perfect to enjoy with apples, pretzels, or anything you can dip into it. Judging from the fact that at least 4 people requested the recipe the first time I made this, (and I nearly couldn’t stop laughing when I told them how simple it was) I’m calling this a success. What’s not to love about an appetizer that takes about 3 minutes to throw together?

This fully loaded Chicken Potato Broccoli Casserole starts with fluffy mashed potatoes that are mixed with tender bites of broccoli and chicken, then generously sprinkled with bacon and cheese. The result is an absolutely irresistible dinner.

Pumpkin muffins filled with melting chocolate chips and bursting with autumn spices – is there anything more quintessentially fall than the smell of pumpkin spices drifting through the house?

Baked oatmeal, loaded with summer berries and lightly sweetened with brown sugar is a great way to start the day. Berries are a mainstay in my refrigerator. The other day I had a few things that needed to be used up and baked oatmeal was the perfect way to make sure those berries didn’t go to waste.

What I’m CRAVING: These Cinnamon Coffee Twists caught my eye this week. They sound fantastic and I don’t know when I’ve seen a prettier cinnamon roll.

My FAVORITE THINGS this week are these inexpensive little jar openers. Nothing makes me feel older than when I can’t get a jar open these days. Seriously though, what’s the deal with feeling like

Do I need a health coach, a counsellor, or a nutritionist?

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With so many different experts out there, how do you know which is the right one for you? We explain more about how health coaches, counsellors, and nutritionists can help you

Do I need a health coach, a counsellor, or a nutritionist?

Who doesn’t want to be healthier? An England-wide survey of over 5,000 adults found that nearly 80% of over 18s wanted to make healthier lifestyle changes. For many, that means eating more healthily (40%), losing weight (39%), and exercising more (41%).

Being healthier can mean a lot of different things, for different people. For some, it’s making the switch from junk food and ready meals to learning how to cook a more nutritious meal (without spending too much time or money). It may mean losing or gaining weight, incorporating regular exercise into your daily or weekly routine. Or it could mean finding healthier balances between work and life, decreasing overall stress levels, and putting your wellbeing first.

With so many differing goals to become ‘healthier’, how do we know the right kind of experts to reach out to? We explain more about the different kinds of help and support out there, what they can help with, and how you can figure out which pathway is right for you.

What is health coaching and how can a health coach help me?

We all know that making healthier choices isn’t as easy as just deciding to change. If it was, we’d all be able to make big, sustainable changes without needing help and support.

Health coaching is about gaining support in making nutrition, fitness, and/or lifestyle changes. This could be to help with a specific, diagnosed health issue or with your general health and wellbeing. A health coach can act as a mentor, helping you to figure out what changes you want to make, set realistic milestones and goals, as well as learning new skills and techniques to put your physical health and mental wellbeing first.

Different health coaches may offer different specialisms. Generally speaking, health coaches can help you with a broad range of issues that could be holding you back from living a healthier life. This could include weight management, career development, learning how to manage stress or relationship issues, creating a better work/life balance, and more.

Wellness coaches may offer overlapping help. If you’re primarily looking to improve your sense of mental wellbeing, working with a wellness coach could be the answer.

What is wellness coaching?

It’s important to remember that while health coaches can help with a broad variety of issues and goals, they hold distinctly different qualifications to counsellors, nutritionists, medical experts, and personal trainers (unless otherwise stated by

25 counsellor-approved questions to build emotional intimacy in your relationship

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Over time, people – and relationships – change. But what happens when, little by little, it feels like you’ve lost your sense of togetherness? Try these questions to encourage emotional intimacy and break the bedroom silence

25 counsellor-approved questions to build emotional intimacy in your relationship

How do you know when you’re no longer in love with your spouse? It seems like something you should just know, doesn’t it? But… what if it isn’t? What if, slowly, over time, you find yourself losing little bits of the bond that created your togetherness?

For some couples, there is no big fallout. You may not be able to pinpoint when it happened, but over the weeks, months, or even years, you may have reached a state of ‘silent divorce’.

What is a silent divorce?

The phrase ‘silent divorce’ refers to a relationship where you are still together, but have drifted apart. There may be no obvious conflict, but there’s also nothing else clearly happening in your relationship: no passion, no excitement, no overly strong feelings towards your partner either way. For some couples, this can make the breakdown in your relationship feel that much more frustrating, as there’s no clear issue to tackle or big change to be made.

To find out more about the importance of communication and emotional intimacy in our relationships, we turned to integrative counsellor and psychotherapist Julie Howard.

“Relationships don’t just happen, they take effort in maintaining them. It’s all too easy to just settle into a routine, it can evolve without either person becoming aware,” Julie says. “I feel relationships rarely break down for no reason. Usually, there are warning signs, it just depends whether we recognise them. Sometimes, we put off facing up to unsettling feelings through fear of the unknown. However, on occasion, a person is completely blindsided by the sudden announcement that their loved one isn’t happy anymore.”

What are the warning signs?

Being able to enjoy comfortable silence can signify intimacy and connection. But when the silence comes from a lack of things to say, or lasts for a long period, it can be a sign that you are growing apart – you exist in the same space, but are not sharing the same ‘togetherness’ in a meaningful way.

Julie explains that there can be many early warning signs that something may be wrong in your relationship – you just need to know what to watch for. “Some things to look out for could be small, intimate gestures that were once normal are now becoming infrequent, such as kissing and cuddling, or holding hands while out. Little communication at mealtimes, or even silence. More time spent on devices – it’s easy to zone out on social media – or choosing to spend more time away from the home.”

One big warning sign that many of us can overlook, Julie shares, is a feeling of something being wrong. “Sometimes we can just ‘feel’ that something is wrong in a relationship. Often that uneasy feeling can be brushed off during a busy day, but can be more prevalent at bedtime when you don’t have any distractions.ȁ

Friday Faves

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Hi friends! Happy weekend! What do you have going on? We have an event for the girls’ school and I’m looking forward to teaching barre and hopefully catching a hike. The weather has been a dream this week! I’d love to hear what you’re up to. I also wanted to add a little note that I’m praying for safety for my friends in Hurricane Ian’s path. <3

It’s time for the weekly Friday Faves party! This is where I share some favorite finds from the week and around the web. I always love to hear about your faves, too, so please shout out something you’re loving in the comments section below.

A random note: I ended up canceling our fall break trip to NYC. We have a lot of reasons for deciding to postpone the trip, but decided we’d rather do a Disney cruise in the new year instead. When I told the kids, they were SO pumped, so I know we made the right choice! I’m also kind of glad that fall break will be more low-key, especially since we’re heading into the Pilot’s birthday, P’s birthday, Halloween, my birthday and a wedding, Thanksgiving through the New Year into Liv’s birthday. It’s all fun stuff – my fave time of year- but it can definitely be a lot. Do you have any upcoming trips planned?

Pic from our last cruise!

Friday Faves

Read, watch, listen:

I loved reading about these happy moments.

Five meditation retreat practices to try at home.

Don’t forget to listen to this week’s podcast episode about why diets don’t work.

If you’re looking to start a daily journal practice, check out this 5-minute journal. I’m ordering one to use in 2023.

Fitness + good eats:

Thai peanut chicken thighs.

Apple cider donut loaf CAKE?! I’m in.

Full fall fitness plan here!

Family dinner at Calle Tepa is always a winner. I feel like it’s one of the most underrated Mexican spots in Tucson; it’s been a go-to for years.

Fashion + beauty:

If you’ve been wanting to take advantage of the 30% off for new Beautycounter clients, it ends tonight! The discount will go back down to 20% on the 1st. Click he

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