New Life

Guess what, guess what...... we have new babies.2 brand spanking new baby chicks, well a week old now but you know :). Aren't they just the cutest things ever, we think so. For those of you that don't know Darren has somewhat of a chicken fetish, he loves them, we have heaps of many different varieties like, silkies, frizzles, buff columbians, polish, feather feet and honestly because I don't love them as much as him that's all I can remember LOL. Anyway Darren has an incubator so not all but a lot of eggs go in there and lo and behold amazing for a couple of amateurs we managed to hatch a couple. We have had a lot of failures too but fingers crossed this is the beginning
the yellow one is a regular garden variety chicken, but the black one well to be honest we are not sure what she is, except that it is a bantam of some description, hopefully time will tell. And we may have baby ducks soon too as we have a clucky duck sitting on some eggs. We have 4 ducks - Donald and his girls - Daisy, Daphne and Delilah. Donald is one happy duck :)

And for a baby (or rather toddler) of a different kind, he is pretty cute too if I do say so but growing much too fast. He is developing such a personality, its fascinating to watch and be a part of, he is so funny and happy, just a joy to be around.

And another artistic photo from the photographer extroidinaire Delaney. She is good, isn't she!

Stay tuned

Bull the dog

I have avoided writing this post, I think because I was in denial, well the time has come to accept it :(
My gorgeous, loving, beautiful natured, loyal dog is gone. Darren and I got him when we first moved in together, embarrassingly I do not remember his exact age but suffice to say he was about 13, which is pretty old for a rotty x heeler. On this day 2 weeks ago i was giving him his last belly rub, that was the last time I saw him. Darren saw him later that day when as always he followed Darren around while he fed the chooks, Monday morning he was nowhere to be found.
I suppose I will never know what happened, people have said maybe he went away to die as dogs sometimes do and since we have 17 acres we can't find him. All I know is he is gone and no amount of crying will bring him back. The pounds have been searched, lost/found adds scoured and the roads in the area have been driven and walked many a time in these last 2 weeks
I/we miss him terribly, not a day has passed that I don't think of him, whether its the left over food scraps, or a shadow I catch a glimpse of by the front door in his favourite spot that reminds me.
So today I have decided to remember him with a smile instead of a tear when I think of him and hope that he is happy/peaceful wherever he may be

We Miss You Bull

Lost

Lost - thats a little how I'm feeling right now.I'm not sure about anything at the moment.I knew exactly what I wanted and what my goals were and now a little curve ball has been thrown and I'm not sure what to do. Is it possible to have it all? Can I juggle my family, work, study, craft/ hobbies for me? I don't know - my inner voice says " sure, you can do anything you put your mind too " but my other voice says " yes you can, but will you do any of it well?" and that is the problem, I want to be good at everything I do mmmm - much more thinking to be done I think!!!
Now some pics just for fun - this is a self portrait shot from Delaney - isn't she clever, I think I've said it before but she takes great photos, much better than me - really!
A happy shot of my littlest man, he has been unwell this week with a nasty case of conjunctivitis but as always is happy and smiling

Here is my garden harvest, some very odd shaped baby carrots, along with some baby beets.

And and awesome giant egg - these three are all regular chicken eggs - the middle one weighs an amazing 102g - poor chicken!!!!!!

A Crafty Weekend

As some of you can probably tell there has been a distinct lack of craftiness around here lately. Partly due to the hours I work at this new job seem to leave very little time for any crafty pursuits, also the location of my sewing machines is not good ( read a cold dark corner of the garage) and most importantly my complete loss of sewing mojo - well in an effort to bring back the mojo - I moved machines to the kitchen table and got to it.
First up is a bunch of headbands I have been working on for ages, tweaking the design and so forth, still not 100% happy but I'll get there

next up a side snapping nappy for my little peace lovin' hippy LOL ( back view above, front view below). This has been sitting half done on my sewing pile forever, I think I have lost the addiction phase of my cloth nappy love, while I still love cloth and that will never change, I have moved on from the must have this, that or the other brand just for the sake of it - I have truly beautiful nappies from some amazing talented ladies in my stash and in all honesty more than we really need, so not only have I stopped buying them * shock, horror* but I have also stopped making them. Must be time for another baby LOL

Also on my to do list forever was to make myself a new bag - well here she is, a little understated perhaps but she'll do, roomy and practical and of course some green in there too - what more could you want :)

And below another long awaited project - new tea towels - these were the cheapest ones we could find - can you believe the price of something to dry your dishes with? Well they were just plain white towelling but I decided to spruce them up a little - as you do. 2 are tie dyed and 2 are embroidered - not bad huh?

It helped that I had a 4 day weekend that enabled me to actually get some craft done. I could get used to this 4 day weekend business - hopefully sooner rather than later thats what I will be doing - can't wait!!!!!!

Cheers :)

This weekend we.........

went to our favourite little Lifeline shop - its at the dump just near us and we nearly always find ourselves a little bargain there and this weeks bargain was this little beauty above. Do you know how long I have been searching ebay for one of these? - its an Fowlers Vacola electric preserving steriliser if you didn't know LOL and all the ones I found on ebay have been far too expensive for this little stingy duck but this little baby was ..... wait for it ......$20. Admitedly it was a risk when we bought it because they couldn't tell us if it worked or not but we bought her home and tested her out and yipppeeee she works . Now all I need is some cheap fruit to make some jam and what fun we will have :)

made an awesome home made wooden toy - do you like it? Made by Darren who had been telling me for years that he would be able to make some wooden toys and well wouldn't you know it.....he can!!!!!

This is a first attempt and its not quite finished but I think it rocks, so much so that I think he could sell some at the markets. He has plans for some different types etc and I think he would do well. What do you think - would you buy one?

cheers

Achievements

Achievement number one - garden harvest - I can honestly say I have never grown a thing in my life, well do weeds count? Darren had a little vegie patch when we lived on the coast but to be honest it was not a great success, but this little vegie patch ( see pics in previous post) is pretty much all mine, I have fertilised ( picking up the cow poo and watering it down), watered ( carried out bucket after bucket of the kids baths water) and even made my own pesticide ( see a previous post on this too) and now harvested my first ever food. Yes I am little proud of myself - can you tell?

The kids helped me pick the beans, peas and snow peas, this is whats left of the peas and snow peas after we sampled them along the way.... Well you have to try them - thats the rule isn't it?

So tonights dinner will be zucchini slice with our own zucchini and our own eggs - how great is that.

Achievement number 2 - socks - yes finally I finished my first ever pair of knitted socks. They were started about a year ago and I quickly finished one and then lost the urge to do the other and well as you know a sock is not much use on its own so I finally bit the bullet and decided that since most of my socks are decidedly holey I should finished this pair and VOILA - here they be!!!

And I feel so happy with myself that i have cast on another pair, hopefully they will be finished a lot sooner.

Stay tuned

Cheers

a learning process

Well here I am again, let me tell you this gardening business is new to me. i have never grown a thing successfully in my life, not that i haven't tried. But here i am giving it a go once again and touch wood I can manage to keep these gardens alive :)
Above are my tomato plants, there are 17 - one didn't make it. We got the seedlings from Bunnings, punnets of 6 marked down to $2, because they didn't look so crash hot but ever the optimist I thought I could rescue them and so far so good. Because I am new to this area I am not sure when to plant what and what will survive the frosts that are coming from what I am told but its all learning.

this is another lesson learned here - I had no idea how big zucchini plants grow, if I did I would have given them a row to themselves but hey live and learn, in this row there are zucchini (obviously), carrot, onions and some cauliflower.

in this sad looking area are my cabbage and baby beets, as you can see the garden is not finished its just baby steps.

I discovered the other day that my cabbage and cauli were being eaten by cabbage moth so I googled ( as you do) for a natural pesticide that I could make myself and here is the recipe I came up with

3 cloves garlic, chopped

2 tsn veg oil

let these steep for about 24 hours and then drain the garlic off and mix the oil with 2 tsn dishwashing liquid and 1 lt of water

i then liberally sprayed said plants with this mix and will keep you posted with the results

Also on a side note just to show how I am getting the hang of this simple waste not want not way of life, I then used the garlic that I drained off the oil in a herb and garlic loaf that we ate with plenty of butter for lunch mmmmmm - it was good :)

peas and beans here, which are all doing well. Darren built a trellis type thing above them out of some metal we had lying around. Gotta love a handy man.

And this slapped up chicken coup is very very temporary - these girls and boys are getting the ground ready for stage 2 of the vegie patch. I think I will wait the winter out before planting anything here though - I am hoping for some pretty special things from this patch of well turned and fertilised dirt

thanks for looking

Cheers