New arrivals :-)

Today we went and picked up our new critters.  They are not pets, as they will be food in about 6 months time.  They are Saddleback/ Large white cross, both males.

They seem pretty relaxed, and have settled in quite well, not as skittery as some we have had.  Check out the jewellery, we ringed them when we got home, as although the pen is pretty secure, they do tunnel out if given the chance.  Nathan helped Ian with the ringing, while I took pictures

After that there was time for Ian to cut down a couple of trees that are going to be part of next years firewood.  I found this Weta on one of the logs.

I love the way the wood looks all stacked up.  We are using this lot as a wind break for our little garden behind the wood, which is growing garlic at the moment.  We get 150k gusts of wind out here, so sometimes the plants can get a bit knocked about.

I’m so glad that we had a sunny weekend.  Most of the seeds I planted have now started sprouting, I’m so excited every time I see a new one. 

Okay readers, now a call for some help.  I’ve run out of ideas for names for the pigs (yes, we do name our food), so I’ve decided to ask for suggestions from my audience   Both pigs are male.  If your names get picked, I’ll send you a wee prize.  Some previous names we’ve had for other pigs were “Frank and Ginger” named after Frank Sinatra and Ginger Rodgers, “Iggy and Diggy”, “Shakey and Janice”and “Christmas”. Leave your suggestion in the comments section. I’ll make a decision on Friday (5th Sept).

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Sun at last

We had a nice day here today.  Cam was outside for most of it   He went with Ian this morning to get the second load of compost for the new raised bed, which is pictured below.

I planted some seeds a week or so ago, but with the crappy weather they were a bit slow coming up, but after the warmth of the sun today, look what I had……………

Its a pea seedling.  One of the lettuces has sprouted too, but was too small to see well in the picture, so you’ll just have to use your imagination.

After getting back from the compost place Ian let Cam loose to play (bad move) without putting his waterproof overalls on.  I was on the phone a few minutes after thye got back, and was at the window in time to see Cam tip a whole bucket of water down his front   First complete change of clothes by 9.15.  By the time I got dry clothes on his and got myself dressed we didn’t get to Playcentre till after 10am. We are settling in well at Playcentre now, but just doing one day a week at the moment. 

Check out the cool water play at home this afternoon.

Then some clean up inside…………..

Meanwhile Mum was busy trying to get dinner made.  Steak and Kidney pie, made from Hugh’s recipe in The River Cottage Meat Book.  Had to make use of the fresh kidneys and skirt steak from yesterday (Yay, the home kill man does come in the rain).  The rest of the beef will be ready for pick up in about two and half weeks (after at least 10 days hanging and a couple of days freezing). It was shame a shame (NOT) that I had to open a good bottle of wine to use in the pie.  A bottle of Dry River 2003 Pinot Noir.  It’s been a long time since I had wine that good (I worked for a local vineyard a while back).  Spectacular!

While I was getting dinner ready Cam was harrassing Lilly (who was meant to be cleaning up her sty), he’s figured out the she doesn’t lock the bottom of the gate in her doorway.  Bad move!

Oh, I nearly forgot here is a pic of the awesome play dough rolling pin.

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A brief update.

Okay, thanks to the lovely Clare who looked after Cam for a couple of hours yesterday I got some sewing done.  I made this hooded dress for Lilly (at her request), which I’m happy to say that she actually liked.  Although with her track record it wouldn’t surprise me at all if she never wore it again.  Hmmmm.

Here’s a pic of Cam’s tracksuit.  Fits nicely and has plenty of room for growth.  Keeps him warm too, which is important I suppose. I’m quite happy considering it only cost about 50 cents to make (cost of materials, not labour)

I had to stop at the local craft shop yesterday to get some sewing supplies, and found they had some cute knitted socks in Cam’s size.  I’ve only been looking for some for the last two months. Grrrrrrrrrr.

I so wish the rain would stop.  Its turning into a bog here.  The house is so messy because none of the kids are getting much outside time   Cam was being helpful this morning after i made the bed……………..  Fun aye Mum?

The home kill guy is supposed to be coming to do the black and white beast tomorrow, don’t know if that’s still on or not. Guess I’ll just have to wait and see.  Water tanks are overflowing again. Isn’t it spring yet?

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Weekend stuff

I was going to post a pic of the tracksuit i sewed up for Cam, but when I finally got it finished today he went off to bed for a nap (wearing it of course) and when he got up was very grouchy, so I left him with Dad while I went to get some veges, when I came back the lovely tracksuit was now accessorized with hummus and crackers, so you’ll have to wait another day for a pic.  Suffice to say it’s pretty nice if I do say so myself.  Ian was impressed, said it looked just like a bought one (my response was it would if I had a cover stitch machine to do the hems with) .

So, onto other stuff them.  Ian spent all weekend getting the pig pen ready for the new inhabitants, who are due in a week or two.  We had just planned to make sure it was escape proof, but then decided on some major renovating.  It’s going to be a pretty swish pigpen.  Not finished yet, but will be in the next week if it ever stops raining.  Nathan helped out there all day too.  What a good boy (only cause his computer was broken really).  Here’s Cam having a wee ride in the trailer yesterday.

I went to get a spring onion form the garden last night, and came in with these 3 because they had grown together with age.  They’ve been in the ground since sometime last year.  Pity that we only have one left to harvest now.

Lilly did some baking today while the boys were outside in the rain.  Mmmm, American Brownie, YUM.

I forgot to mention in the earlier posts this week that I was the lucky recipient of presents on Cam’s birthday .  I got a huge bag of books from A, and Kev has made me this cool as egg box, so I can keep my eggs separate from the ones for sale.  It’s really neat, and I love the hen pic on the top that Mum drew. 

One of Cam’s present was a handmade (by Grandad Kev) rolling pin, specially made with a selection of grooves in it, for Cam’s play dough.  I’ll post a pic of it next post.

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Hooray

The boy actually had a sleep, without any mucking about.  That’s the first daytime sleep since about Thursday last week.  I got two hours of sewing done.  I made these 3 skivvies for Cam.

The top one is cotton, the middle one merino and the bottom is cotton too.  The bottom one ended up with a wider neck as I discovered after cutting it out that it didn’t have enough stretch to go over Cam’s head (and it not even very big, just non stretchy fabric) .  The pattern size was pretty generous, so I think they will fit for a while.  I used an Ottobre pattern.  I usually hate sewing stretch fabric, but did some reading up last night in preparation, from this book:

which I got a couple of weeks ago. (it’s quite cheap at Fishpond).  It’s good.  Next I’ll do a couple of t-shirts i think.  I do have to make some pants for Cam and Iris, so hopefully I’ll get some more sewing time tomorrow.

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Now he’s a real boy :-)

I took Cam for his first haircut yesterday.  About time, I’m sure both the other boys had their first haircut just after they were 1.  Cam has a surprising lack of hair, but maybe it will grow a bit better now its been cut.  Amazing how different he looks now.  Not babyish anymore.

You can see from the pic that we finally had a nice day yesterday.  Frosty in the morning, but then fine all day, same again today, but with the frost it was down to -5.  Brrrrrrrr.  It was even a little breezy yesterday and I managed to get the nappies dry on the line, instead of above the fire.

As it was masquerading as spring I planted some seeds in trays in the woodshed.  It was good to get started on the spring planting.  The seedlings should be okay and safe from the frost in there for quite a few weeks.  I only got about half of what i needed to done, so I will do some more this afternoon.  Ian had a quiet morning so he went and got a trailer load of mushroom compost for the new raised bed.  It sure was ripe.  I had to wash the truck off so I could take Cam to playcentre.

I haven’t done any sewing in the last few days, and it’s really starting to bug me.  I think Cam has gone down for an afternoon sleep, if he has I might get a bit done this afternoon.  I’ve bought quite a bit of fabric lately.  But who can pass up 100% merino for $6 a metre?  Not me   I also scored another $5 box of fabric from the Sallies.  It had a big selection of fabric in it.  Black denim, black pin cord, pink stretch velvet, black linen, several colours of t-shirt fabric, ribbing, and even a heavy cotton mesh (which i will use to make a replacement bag for Matt’s laundry holder). 95% of it I’ll use.  I also picked up 2 brand new wool army blankets, which is something i have been specifically looking for, I need to sew the kids Scout badges on them.  The scout shop sells them for $55, so i had been looking around for cheaper ones.  The two I got from the Sallies only cost $12 each.  Awesome.

Well I better go and do some sewing while its quiet.

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A bit of a gap

between posts, but here I am back again.

We had a barbecue on Saturday for Cam’s birthday.  The weather was atrocious, as usual.  Rained on and off all day, and was blowing a gale.  Never mind.  It was really nice to see everyone that came.  A good time was had in spite of the weather.  Cam had a lovely day and was shattered by the end of it   Here’s a pic of the cake Ian decorated.

  It turned out awesome (the spaceman on the end of the cord is missing in the picture).  He did it on Friday night while Nathan and I were at the concert.  We went to see the Wellington Symphony Orchestra and a guy called Feng Ning play in Masterton.  It was pretty good.  They played Mozart, Bach and Beethoven.  Nathan and I both didn’t like the Bach, as it had opera singing with it.  It was educational anyway.  The Chinese guy was amazing on the violin.

The weather was finally a bit better yesterday, so Ian got started on the new raised bed for the veges.  It’s nearly done, and we will try to get a load of mushroom compost for it later this week.  The celery seedlings got planted out too.  Of course by late afternoon it was raining again

Cam has been having fun sitting in one of the drawers on the new sewing desk.

Usually he sits right in it and gets stuck!  He got a wee bike for his birthday from Mum and Dad.

I did a bit of craft work last night and got 6 nappies made.  I’ll post a pic of them later.  2 are for Iris, and 4 for Cam.  I’m still trying to use up all the nappy making fabric I have, nearly there

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Better now

I’m back.  All better again.  The kids are back at school (not before time), only Matt and Ian were still feeling a bit dodgy today.  Cam did have a puke in the middle of the night again last night, but was fine as soon and he got into bed with Mummy and Daddy (I put him back in his bed an half an hour later).

This was Ian’s errand on Monday night.  He went and picked up (and paid for) this lovely beastie.

Isn’t it awesome?  Ian serviced it on Tuesday when he was home sick.  It sews beautifully.  It even does embroidery stitches (I just have to figure out the instructions).  Came with extra feet, bobbins, old Bernina tin and the original instruction book, but best of all (and not mentioned in the TM ad), it came in a desk!

And all for only $50.  Must be our bargain of the year.  I used it sew up Cam’s latest pair of PJ’s (which I haven’t put the snaps on yet).

So on to pics of the completed crafts. Pyjama’s done.

Cam likes those ones because they have cars and buses and trucks on them

Dishcloth finally finished.  I know all the awesome knitters out there would have completed this in about 5 mins, but knitting doesn’t work like that for me, so I’m just pleased to have a completed item.

I’m still really pleased with the yarn (corn fibre).  The colours are nice too.

Now onto gardening stuffs.

The lemons are great at this time of year.  I think they are looking better than ever.  I think if I get some time next week I’ll make some lemon cordial.

Not a very exciting picture for you to look at, but I’m very happy with it.  It means we have a survivor from the summer’s drought.  We planted 5 fruit trees the week Cam was born, and have been worried that some are not still growing (hard to tell in winter when they have no leaves), but this pic shows the new growth on the plum (omega/black doris),

And this is the Apricot.  We won’t know about the Pear tree and the Apple tree till much later, but we are pretty sure that of 3 fruit tree (Peach, Nectarine/Apricot) only one part is still alive.  I bit disappointing, but it was a hard summer.  At least this coming summer we will have the grey water to help the trees along.

I took a funny movie clip of Cam today, but have to figure out how to compress it the file a bit before loading it on here.

Thanks for all the get well wishes.

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Germs

No real blogging here today.  I’d hoped to get some crafty stuff done, but the kids have generously sharedtheir germs with us.  I was lucky and had an awful Cameron to deal with this afternoon (pretty much had to carry him around with me till about 5pm, when his pamol kicked in), all the while feeling like crap.  I had visions of Ian coming home from his after work errand (more about that later) and sending me off to bed.  But of course by the the germs were with him too.  So we are both feeling a bit sorry for ourselves especially after already having had two broken night sleep.  Nathan and Lilly will be home from school again tomorrow as they still have the squirts.

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A clear day

Well the view was awesome this morning.  I ran out in my PJ’s,dressing gown, hat and gloves to get some pictures before it started to melt.  The snow on the hills surrounding Masterton was very impressive too.  It’s the most snow we have had since we moved here almost 5 years ago.  Pity it wasn’t on a weekday, then Ian could have had an extra day off.

Bit of a crappy day here.  Lilly and Cam both woke up just after 3.30 this morning vomiting.  Just lovely, NOT.  So not much sleep was had after that.  Ian got up about 7 with Cam and let have another hours sleep, wonderful, I needed it.  Cam had perked up heaps by about 10ish (but woke up in the afternnon after only half and hour, freaking out and went back to sleep on top of Ian, then later on top of me), but Lilly is still vomiting.  I can’t even give her any pamol for the cramps or her temp, cause she’s not even keeping water down.  Nathan was staying the night at a friends place and was delivered home just on 8am, after being up all night puking too.  I can’t believe they didn’t call us.  Nathan is in recovery mode now and had a little bit of soup for dinner.  Still they will all be home tomorrow.  Oh frabjous day, kaloo kalay (sp?).  Anyway lets hope tomorrow is better, or Lilly will be off to the doctors for fluids.

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