Rain at last

After several months with very little rain we are experiencing steady but not too heavy rain. Hopefully it will soak right in and my garden can breathe a sigh of relief.

Another quilt finish

I recently finished this quilt as a special gift incorporating some of Surrey's shirts and some Star Wars and Batman fabrics.

I hope the recipient likes it.

Chooks

I currently have 13 chooks. These are all silkies - 2 geriatric gingers (hatched just before Surrey died), 1 ginger and 2 white roosters from friends at Portland, 2 greys on agistment from Geoff's place while his renos are being done and 6 year old greys I bought last year. They are such a lovely little crowd and I've recently started leaving the gate open from their yard to my back yard where they love to pick at the weeds in the lawn.

We could really do with some rain because the grass in their yard is quite bare. This morning I gave it a bit of water so hopefully that helps. My tanks are getting quite low too.

I just have to remember to shut the gate when Ponyo comes because she thinks chooks are just great to chase.

Thursday at Ma's

Ivy, Heather and I had a great day on Thursday. It was so windy outside so after a quick session painting the fence (which I had promised them) and mixing up sand and water as tea and custard while I put the washing out we came inside.

Amongst other activities we made a cubby house.

We also cooked up some pancakes from a mix I had bought from Natural Evolution, an Australian company that makes flour from left over and damaged bananas, sweet potatoes and other things then also creates cake mixes etc.

They were so yummy and I have even frozen some as they reheat really well in the microwave.

An August day trip to Underhill

Last Saturday Geoff, Ivy, Heather, Ponyo and I drove down to Underhill for the day.

It was fine and dry and we spent some time watering all the fruit trees in the centre orchard.

Of course Ponyo decided it was a good day for a swim and got absolutely filthy rolling in the dirt.

The highlight of the day was that Geoff saw a Wombat in the Sanctuary. The girls and I walked in to try to see it but it had disappeared down one of the many wombat holes. At least they now know what a wombat hole is.

Geoff dug a hole near the bottom dam ready to plant a giant clumping bamboo when he finally gets one.

One issue we are having at the moment is that our dams are quite devoid of edge vege and we would love to source some plants to try to grow.

Limiting my online exposure

Although my blog has never been searchable it has always been public to anyone who has the link. Because of quite a few online difficulties lately I have now made it completely private. I can give people access if they email me so just let me know if you know of anyone.

Since about 2007 the blog has been the way I keep my own diary and let friends near and far know about things that are happening. I really don't want to go back to paper scrapbooks so am giving this a try.

An August Update

Well it is a while since I updated but I am busy busy with patchwork, grand girl sitting, jam making, garden, Luke's concerts and singing.

Some coming events you might like are...

I'm sure both will be great music. 

I've almost finished another family quilt from Surrey's shirts and look forward to getting some photos of the ones that have been taken down to Underhill.

My latest patchwork experiment

I'm using Surrey's shirts to make yoyo pieces about 3" wide then I'll join them all together.

Since these ones I've now discovered that bigger stitches give smaller centre holes. Makes sense because there are less folds to squish together.

New Trees for Underhill

Last Saturday Evelyn, Greg and I drove down to Underhill to meet up with Geoff and family to plant lots of fruit trees that had been on agistment at mine for a number of years and were well beyond their pot sizes.

When Geoff arrived his car thermometer said it was 5C at around 10am and it did not get much warmer.

Our first job was to boil the kettle for a cuppa and have our morning tea.

Geoff had arranged a delivery of straw bales to add to the fence line in the centre orchard both to deter rabbits and wombats and to catch water and hold it from disappearing down the hill.

Once the straw bales were in place we got to and planted 6 trees.

Each tree had to be surrounded by a mesh guard. It was a two person job to create these with weldmesh.

The girls had a lovely time painting their tea set and also some leaves they had found.

Of course Ponyo knew she had missed out on the scraps from the table.

In the afternoon Ivy and Heather were guided through the damper making activity by Geoff. I don't know how it turned out because Ev, Greg and I had to leave in the early afternoon to get home before dark.

Geoff and family stayed the night and from all reports were snug and warm in the shed which had been heated with the pot-belly. Ivy slept on the top bunk which had been Geoff's bed from about the same age.

In all a very cold weekend with a gusty wind. The girls learned that when you heard the wind coming through the trees you held onto your hats or hoods and closed your eyes to keep the dust out.

The Bathroom Story - Chapter 6

At last my bathroom is finished.

I really love it but had a lot of work when I noticed that at night you could see lots of dribbles of paint that had escaped behind the masking tape on the faceted glass. This was not visible when Matt removed the tape during the day.

Last night I spent 2 hours with a razor blade, small brush and steel wool removing the paint. Then a Windex wipe to clean. Lesson learned - do not use masking tape on faceted glass, it is a waste of time.

I have not had a shower yet but am looking forward to tomorrow morning. I decided that as I had to varnish the door this morning then clean the rest of the front of the house to get rid of dust and in-ground dirt a shower would be a waste of time.

Come and visit to see my new bathroom some time. I just love it.