Last Day of Lockdown

So that's it. Today is our last day of Level 4 Lockdown. Not much will change much for many New Zealanders as we move into Level 3, but for our little family it means my husband goes back to work.

My kids will be back at school as of Wednesday. Their school kept to their normal holiday regime, so they've been on break for the last two weeks and Wednesday will see them resuming their distance learning. Neither of them are particularly enthused with the idea.

1 confirmed case today, 4 probables, 1 more death for a total of 19.

Let's hope we can keep it firmly contained and we can slowly move down the alert level scale.


Here's two photos for you.

One of Hubby's lockdown jobs was to build a frame around this old bath. We filled it and planted it with seeds and seedlings I had grown and this first photo was taken on the 4th April.

The second photo, for your comparison, was taken yesterday, just over three weeks later. From left to right we have frilly lettuce, pak choi, some younger cos lettuces, peas (we'll eat the shoots as this is to be a salad garden), rocket and radishes. There are a couple of tiny coriander seedlings and a couple of what I think are going to turn out to be self-sown silverbeet.

We're already taking the odd leaf off the pak choi and rocket and they are making a great addition to our salads. 

Very satisfying.

School holidays are upon us once more.

I used to want to camouflage myself and hide, like this frog I found on the choko vine, but the kids are pretty good these days, they seem to be able to harmoniously play Lego (best toy ever) together for hours - touch wood!

In fact, I've already been able to cross off a few things that were on my holiday to-do list.  The 4 inch wide border is on my Creme Brulee quilt top and it is perfect - just what it needed.  Now it needs backing and basting and quilting...whole 'nother story.

And my resolution to finish two things in my WIP pile before I start another project really seems to be working for me.  I pulled out this little wall hanging I had been making as a sample of my positive/negative applique blocks and finished it off.

I had quilted with a design I liked, but had quilted right over the motifs, which I didn't like.  And I had unpicked most of it too, so all it needed was a little more unpicking and then a machine binding (so quick!) and some little hanging corners.  Another thing out of the WIP's and into the finished pile.

*Edited to add:  Must give credit where credit is due!  I think I saw this first on Raewyn's blog lovetostitch  www.stitchingfarmgirl.blogspot.co.nz  It needs a nice small dowel, the chunky stick I used is a bit thick and will distort the wallhanging a bit.


Easy!

I've also spent time in the garden and pulled out the finished tomatoes, planted lettuces and leeks and have been revamping a couple of flower pots.  I've chopped down and stump-swabbed tobacco weed (horrible stuff) and rejoiced in the rain we've finally been getting after one of the worst country-wide summer droughts we've ever seen.

So now I'm off to polish my halo and empty the dishwasher.

Today....

I'm printing,

harvesting,

and trimming.  

I'm also trying to decide on a binding - who knew it could be so difficult?!

Worm Mansion

This is a purely garden related post so now's the time to tune out if that's not your style.

Here in NZ you can buy a good basic worm farm from The Warehouse or other similar places.  It has three boxes with screen dividers in between.  The bottom box is where the worm pee or run off from the castings is collected.  The middle box is where the maturing castings are and the top box is the one you are filling.

The top box - room for more!

The idea is to fill the top box until it's crammed, then take it off, open up and empty the middle box and use all the castings, then put the top box in the middle to mature and the empty middle box becomes the top box that you begin to fill again (got that?!).  You can add more boxes to the cycle if you fill them quickly.

The middle box - filled with beautiful, rich castings.

The problem is the bottom box.  To get to the worm pee you have to lift two heavy boxes off, scoop out the pee and then put the whole thing back together.  A bit too much bother to do regularly.

My good friend Sue is moving back to the UK from whence she came a good while back.  I'll miss her terribly (but I'm looking on the bright side - I'll have someone to visit!).  They've been downsizing and having a clear out and I've already benefited, but this worm farm set up is one of the best things yet!

Sue's handy husband has plugged in a simple hose fitting set up to drain the worm pee.  Whenever the watering can is half full, it can be topped up with water to dilute it and used to water plants and give them a boost.  This eliminates the frequent heavy lifting.  The worm farm needed a stand to accommodate the hose, but this could be adapted from an old table or bench.

Two farms is the perfect amount of room for our family.  The chickens get bread scraps, cabbage, apple cores etc and the worms get the stuff they won't eat, like citrus, teabags, bits of paper and potato and banana peels.  And I get the worm castings to spread in my garden the the worm pee to use in my pots or on anything that needs a boost!

Official worm farm guides suggest that worms don't like citrus, but mine don't seem to mind a bit.  Plus I sprinkle a bit of lime in from time to time as worms prefer less acid conditions.

So if you've been contemplating a worm farm, this might give you some ideas on how to set one up effectively, or if you've got one and it's been annoying you, get down to your local hardware and buy a few hose connectors.  You're plants will love you for it.

Willing Workers

I haven't been in the vege garden for about six months.  I've done no weeding whatsoever.  Nil.  Nada.  Zip. And you could really really tell.  So I had a willing worker in the form of a teenage boy helping me out today.  Eye high weeds and borage and brassicas.  He wasn't much of a conversationalist but together we made a HUGE dent in the work.

You can see all the way through to the chicken pen in the background now.

Then after about five hours it began to rain in a relentless, very wetting kind of way.  So once we had piled up our weeds into two humongous piles I sent him off home with some money burning a hole in his pocket and the promise of more if he comes back tomorrow (if the rain stops).  

Then I got my other willing workers on the job.  I tempted the chickens in by throwing round a few handfuls of cracked corn and shut the gate behind them.  They will pick over and scratch around, finding weed seeds and slugs, snails and bugs, in a much more thorough way than I ever could.  (I'll let them out in a couple hours 'cause there's no shelter in there and they'll be getting all bedraggled.)

And do you like my shiny new gate?  I used to have a piece of plywood just lent up against the posts.  My mother in law jokes about how it took her 25 years to get a proper gate on her garden, so I should get used to my ply.  But Hubby came through after only three years!  (Actually the gate was for between the orchard and the top paddock but it turned out too big so my vege garden became the recipient.  I'm not complaining!)   

So there is hope for summer vegetables now.  Basil and tomatoes, potatoes and beans, mmmmmm!

Multi-tasking

So I've discovered that I'm not really a 'one WIP' kinda girl.  I've been focusing on getting my Tree of Life quilt ready for the Auckland Festival of Quilts, and with a week and a half to go before hand in date all I can think of is all the projects I'd RATHER be doing.

You get an old pic to make me feel better about how far it's come since this - and because I've temporarily mislaid my camera.

Like trying monoprinting.  I have a big sheet of glass and I used it to monoprint a couple of pieces of organza for my Tree of Life quilt the other day.  Turns out it's fun, and it's easier than painting the organza direct.  So now I'm itching to play with printing.

And I'm a third of a way through quilting my Old Maid's Puzzle quilt.  It's so close and yet so far because I haven't worked on it for months.  I swear it looks at me resentfully every time I dump something else on top of it in my studio!

This was taken months ago - before I moved into my new studio!

Then there is the other stack of UFO's.  I can't even claim that they are WIP's because the work and the progress part are sorely missing.

I'd really like to work on this organza piece some more. 

And it's spring.  The garden is a forest of borage and brassica flowers - all very pretty, but it doesn't bode well for the menu come summer.

So, in a way, I'm glad that the deadline is approaching way too fast.  Because whether I finish my Tree of Life quilt or not, in a week and a half, I'll be able to pick up something else.  Or two or three other things at once - I'll be in multi tasking heaven again.

Garden

This is what I harvested for yesterday's dinner, straight from the garden, and nothing tastes better than fresh veges.

Problem is, I seriously lack motivation in the garden at the moment.  I think it has something to do with being the only one who does anything in there.  Hubby works full-time and when he has spare time at home he does other stuff, like mow the lawns.  He does get enthused about the orchard sometimes and helps water and mulch in that area, and he enjoys eating the fresh veges, it's just not a passion for him.  And because it's not a passion for me either, just an interest and something I feel we should be doing, it becomes a bit of a chore when I'm doing it all on my own.

It could be the heat too.  Summer has finally shown itself and the days are heating up.  It gets uncomfortably hot out there if I try and do any work after nine am.

So instead of just moaning about it and resenting it, I'm going to try a new approach.  Evening gardening!  Usually I spend evenings sewing, blogging, talking and watching the news at eight.  But I'm going to try and get out in the garden once the kids are in bed and hopefully Hubby will join me.  Work is so much more enjoyable when there is someone else to share it with.

And on quilting matters - I'm just hand sewing down my faced binding on my "Beneath the Southern Skies" entry.  Hopefully I'll be able to photograph it properly soon and show it to you.

Showing off the Cabbage

It's not raining this morning.  Which is quite the nice change as we have had a week or so of damp.  I made the most of it and planted some kumara (Maori sweet potato) shoots - which I have never grown before so they are a bit of an experiment.

My girl's favorite activity in the garden is eating strawberries (who's isn't?) and harvesting.  So we rummaged around and chopped this cabbage to make coleslaw to have with our homegrown pork roast tonight (our friend's home, not ours).

It was "sooooo big and heavy, Mum" that she insisted we take it's picture.  And of course, it needed to be held and shown in all it's glory by the Moppet herself.

Last day of school today for Big Brother.  School holidays for the next six weeks.  Hopefully there will be some camping, some adventures, a lovely Christmas dinner, lots of excitement, a little bit of quilting and a whole lot of fun.  So I apologise in advance if there is a distinct lack of blogging, but I'm sure you understand!

Wishing you a very merry Christmas, a safe one and a happy one.  And to all those parents out there, here's wishing you lots of sanity for the holidays!

Updating you with crappy photos

So I survived the half-marathon (on the 17th November, that's how long it's been since I updated this blog!).  I walked it in 3 hours and 43 minutes (and 59 seconds if you want to be precise).  Not too bad for a first go.  The average time was 3 hours and 16 minutes so next year I'm planning to get closer to that.

Later that same night I hobbled went off to our friend's annual "Wild Food Cook Off".  Basically a party where we all bring a dish of food made from things we have hunted, caught, foraged etc.  There was Bombay Horse's Arse (horse curry - yes, we have wild horses up here if you know where to look) and Roast Peacock, Oysters and Banana Flower Burger.  Mine was tame in comparison - Duck Egg and Wild Rose Cheesecake - but it was pretty good if I do say so myself.

A picture of a snail dish from last year's cook off.

The only problem is that I left my camera there!  Hence you haven't had any updates for a while.  I haven't been up to too much, but it's been frustrating being without a camera.  But today I've had a brainwave - I can take pics with my webcam.  Terrible pics and the cord doesn't reach far, but hey, they are still pictures!

My sample on the left, my four-year-old daughter's on the right.

For the last two Friday's, I've been running a class at one of the local primary schools.  Myself and my team of fab volunteers have been doing fabric stenciling with six-year-old children.  I'm counting this as one of my small, experimental quilts as I've had lots of playing with fabric paint and freezer paper stencils to come up with samples.  One more class this Friday and it's all done.  In exchange for the classes, we get to use their school hall for our guild exhibition - a pretty good deal if you ask me!

Next, I've been going a little mad on making these cute little purses.  They are small and just darling and as soon as my girl spotted the one I made as a sample, she snaffled it and hasn't let me have it back.  So I've been making a stack of them for Christmas presents.  Some of them will hold vouchers, or a nail kit or trinkets and some will be part of a set (I enlarged the pattern for a bigger one).

Here's the stack I have made ready to hand stitch up into their proper shape.  They come from this tutorial here.  Thanks Rashida!!  You've sorted so many of my Christmas gifts!  Even my boy has picked out fabrics for me to make one for his 'treasures'.

I've also been working on the vege garden (sorry - webcam won't stretch that far) and this morning planted some tomato and basil seedlings and some carrot seeds.  It's been dry for the last 3 weeks so I've been spending a bit of time watering too.

So that's it for now.  As soon as I get my camera back I'll give you a more thorough round up of the Wild Food party and show you my daughter's funky new haircut!

Spring weather makes them wild(er).

My kids have been watching a version of Peter Pan on a DVD.  So naturally they want to prance around half nekkid with bits of fabric (nicked from my stash) draped around them and tucked in strategically.  A bit breezy I would have thought.  The weather is good, but not THAT good.  Still, when you run around chasing an imaginary Captain Hook up and down the woodpile, I guess that keeps you warm.

Hope you had a productive weekend.  I did nothing quilt related, but I did weed, compost and then re-plant a whole garden bed.  I also killed and plucked the chook that kept flying into the garden to dig up the new seedlings and we're having her for dinner tomorrow night. 

Sweet dreams!

Where is the farmlet at?

I thought I'd take you on a little walkabout this morning as I feed the animals.  Just to show you what is happening.

I've moved the chooks into the summer garden.  They've been here for a week or so, weeding, de-bugging, and manuring.  I threw in a bale of old hay for them to de-seed and to add some carbon.  And they are right next to the main garden so I throw them any slugs or snails I find - tasty!

These are chicks who are big enough to graduate from this rabbit hutch to an A-frame chicken run soon.

We had the warmest May on record apparently.  And even now that it's June there have been no frosts, the kikuyu grass is still green and growing.

A new bundle of kits.  There are seven in this batch.  We butchered nine rabbits and four roosters for the freezer last weekend.  For the amount of food the rabbits eat, they produce a good amount of meat, very economical.

I've been motivated in the garden lately after a lag period.  This is a purple broccoli seedling I planted yesterday.  I've planted red russian kale, red cabbage, cauliflower, spring onions, carrot and beetroot seeds and I've been transplanting all my strawberry runners into a new bed.
I need to add that I for some reason I'm having difficulty commenting on any one's blog (including my own).  So apologies, I'm listening and replying, you just can't hear me!

And now it's time for another cup of tea. 

Garden Harvest

I rummaged around under the jungle that is my garden and dug up enough potatoes for dinner.  I love digging for spuds, revealing hidden treasure.  However, I LOATHE putting my fingers through the half-rotten original seed potato.  Urrrrgh.

Some tomatoes I found today.  These are Latimer Beefsteak.  I have totally neglected them and yet they still give me this bounty!  Last season I didn't plant any because we were late getting the garden started etc etc.  This year I planted them but then didn't tie them up before I left for holiday and came back to sprawling triffids.  So I'm all fired up for next year.  If I can get this sort of crop from total neglect, what can I get with tender loving care?!

And for dinner - lovely, lovely kingfish.  (Can you see Hubby's fat left hand?  He got a paper wasp sting and it didn't agree with him.)

I hope you all had a lovely weekend.  We have been busy building boxing for a concrete retaining wall in the new shed, moving the chicken enclosure, relaxing and trying to stay cool.  Now onwards and upwards to Monday.

A Surfeit of Green (and why I love my husband)

I love my husband because he drives home from work to help me start my car when it has a dead flat battery and I'm due to (wo)man the quilt exhibition. I love my husband because the battery was so past it, he couldn't jump start it so he put the wee ride-on lawnmower battery in instead and it worked. I love my husband because he then dropped the kids off at his mother's on his way back to work so I wouldn't be (too) late. (I also love him for other reasons too!)


I've just uploaded a stack of pics from the exhibition here.

When I got home I raided the garden for greenery. I have pumpkin thugs so I took a cue from Ali and tried steamed pumpkin shoots. The kids loved them dipped in soya sauce. I thought they were ok but I preferred my green beans, and my husband said, "Hmmmm."

So on to the actual garden, I thought it was time for an update. In the picture above, take note of the vege bed to the right. That's what greeted me on about half of my first vege garden when I came back from holiday. I'm proud to say that that little strip is all I have left to weed.

This large compost heap is what has become of the weeds, plus another little pile that I've chucked under a tree because it has kikuyu grass in it and I'm trying to keep that out of my garden. Kikuyu grass will just continue growing in a compost pile and grow all through it, grrrr.

Amaranth - how pretty. And those pink flower shoots are meant to get a whole heap bigger and become big weeping seed heads. What do you do with amaranth? It's a kind of a grain - I'll let you know how I get on.

These are a few of the beds I've weeded. For quick results I bought a few punnets of lettuce, spinach, silverbeet, and seed potatoes. The front ones are pak choi seedlings that were self-seeded, but in the middle of the path so I've transplanted them and they're not sulking at all. I've covered all the paths with cardboard because weeding them took just as long as weeding the beds!

This is the second vege garden. It was a rooster raising pen and they ate all the greenery, pooped everywhere and then took a permanent holiday in our freezer. I dug it up, planted it and oops, it seems to have 'got away on me'! See below for what it looked like when I first planted it!

Ha! How tame and deceiving those little plants can be! Still, we're eating kale, courgettes, beans, coriander and potatoes (and a few pumpkin shoots) out of it. We've get sweet corn, tomatoes, pumpkins, onions and capsicums still growing. And sunflowers for show and chook treats.

Next job in the garden is to finish the reclamation from weeds, finish covering the paths with cardboard, start off some seeds and finish planting out my beds. But not tomorrow, it's meant to rain. Alot.

By that way - my heart goes out to everyone who has been affected by the massive floods that just seem to keep on coming in Australia. My family are all safe and well so far. Kia kaha.

This is a fish bin standing in as a wheeless wheelbarrow.  Fish bins are quite big (in case you were wondering about scale).  I could fill this six times over and not make a dent in the wilderness that is my vege garden.  In reality, I filled it once and then tipped that to the chickens and they didn't ask for more.

This is the wilderness that is my vege garden.  Buckwheat and cauliflower in the front, doing a sterling job of hiding the gone-to-seed kale, lettuce, swede.....well, gone-to-seed everything.

At least my slug patrol enjoys the wilderness - better habitat for all things slimy and crawly.

Ahhh!  A much more demure, restrained, orderly garden.  This one was my rooster pen.  They did a fine job of weed killing, fertilising and digging over.  I think I'll re-hire them next season.  They have a much better work ethic then I do.

Mystery in the Vege Garden.

They are all so beautiful (if a little holey).  Jewels in the garden crown. 

So which one will I choose?  Whose life do I end today?

I feel like a murderer.  I'm stalking my victim.

Ahh, the knife slips in.  One good hack and it's all over.  No one will ever know it was me.

Darn.

No one except the cat.

Don't forget who feeds you, Wild Puss!