Water babies!

My poor lilies have been squashed good job they grow pretty fast!

The race is on!

Rion & Luna

Over the last few weeks in between the rain, I have been pruning our trees.  They are just getting far to big.

Yesterday Rion & Luna got bored with me. All of a sudden I heard barking and went to investigate and found Luna taking a running leap on top of Rion and both rolling around in the sawdust, that is ment to be for mulch under the trees. They were really enjoying themselves!  I managed to get the tail end of the fun on camera. It took me a good hour to get all the sawdust out of Rion's fur!

Handy work I have been doing lately!

I have been busy as usual.
First off I have made two dolls. We have had a School girl challenge at vintage cloth dollmaking group at yahoo.
I used Judy Wards double dart pattern for one. I enjoyed making her, and used a pattern from my "Doll reader" book, that I have been wanting to make for years by Donna Miska " A little German school girl.

I have used water colour pencils and acrylic paint to colour her.

Her shoes are just some old plastic shoes painted with acylic paint.

Her school back pack, is made from very thin leather.

All her clothes were hand stitched.

The second doll I made was for the UK fabric figures group, but didn't finish in time to enter the challenge. Those pleats were so hard to do!

This doll reminded me of myself when I was a girl. So I dressed her in the school uniform that, I wore to school in the UK.

Recently I joined the Stitchmap (mentor apprentice program)  at Yahoo groups. This is to keep embroidery live, through Mentoring and learning.  I volunteered to work on a CQ block for a replacement quilt that was lost in a fire. Can't wait to see the whole quilt, but here is my contribution.

I have finished my Tunisan crochet blanket.

It is a bit wonky, but that's ok!

I have also started a new one!

I like doing this as you don't have to think about it!

Chickens!

Well at last we have Chickens, its only taken fourteen years!
We needed to get some to train our dogs not to touch, and they are bird mad, being hunting dogs !  You see our neighbour has started to free ranges his chickens, on our shared driveway. These silly Chickens have come up to the dogs and of course the dogs have had them in their mouths, luckily Hubby was close by.

Our chickens are caged at present, but we hope to have them free ranging a couple of hours a day. So far it has been good.

Our Dog kennel was never used so that has become the Chicken runner. Hubby is so clever!

Here are our Four Shavers.

 I wanted to name them but can't completely tell them apart as yet.

Rebecca's Birthday

A few weeks ago we went to my sisters house for Rebecca's Birthday, she is now three years old. They had already had the childrens party. It was real nice to catch up with my Sister and Brother, Partners and kids.

Rebecca with her cousin's Samantha and Jordan.

The Birthday girl and Jordan.

Busy last weekend!

Saturday

Let me see what did I do !
Went for a walk with a friend, from around the corner. We walked for around two hours. The time flies, when you are chatting!

Came home, did the usual boring stuff ! Tidy and cleaned the house Yuk!  Mowned the lawns and weed sprayed.

I finished my Challenge /Swap Autumn Tea towel , for the International hand stitchers Yahoo group, and started a new one.

Made some Lemon and Sultana Muffins and Hokey Pokey Biscuits.
Did a bit more on my Tunisian crochet.

I have some much wool to use up, that this blanket project is a good start.

Boy did I sleep well!

Sunday

Well what a different day it is!  Started off sunny, so I finished the weed spraying.  An hour later the heavens opened.!

Today I am concerating on sowing seeds.  That took several hours. This year I have tried to grow unusual vegies, like red carrots, and black radishes etc.  I want to be as self sufficent as possible.

I decided to do this under cover of the verrandah, because there isn't enough room in the plastic house with me, and two large dogs and a cat. They follow me everywhere! 

 Well good job I was under cover because it poured down!

All starting to grow in the plastic house !

Our Lemonade tree has done very well this year, so I have made heaps of real Lemonade.

It's only a very small tree, but produced heaps of fruit.

Here is the recipe.

Lemonade

8 lemonade fruit

1 Tablespoon Citric acid

4 cups sugar

8 cups water

Chop up Lemonade fruit roughly.  Add to pot with other ingredients and boil for 20 minutes.  Cool

Squeeze and strain fruit.

To use dilute 1 to 3 or to taste.

Yum!

Spring has arrived

The Almond has never had so much blossom!

To the right of photo is the Lemon & Grapefruit trees fully laden!

One of the Plums in bloom!

If you look closely you can see the Wood pigeon, in the pencil willows. He was eating from our kowhai tree and we distrubed him.

We have had the wettest, coldest winter since records began! So much for global warming. Now we are in for an early spring Hooray!

This is my favourite time of the year, just love it! It's as if the garden has been sleeping and now comes to life! Every day I notice something blooming, or growing. The world is a nicer place in spring!

The great escape!

Decided we needed a holiday!

So shut up shop on the Thursday , left a note on the door.

"Closed Friday, Saturday Sunday & Monday" !

We left at 4.00am to go bush. As usual the other half moaned about how much stuff we had, but it all fitted in along with the dogs. Then set off on a 4 hour drive to the Napier / Taupo highway.

In the first photo the hut where we stay, can just be seen.

The great escape!

view from hut

Horopito (Pepper wood)

Interesting fungi

An old Silver beech tree

Setting out

Road to hut

Another view from hut

View from hut

Oh that road!

The Duchess

The Duchess of Devonshire

Finally finished

The naked Duchess

Back view with silk over dress.