Gum Valley Patchwork

Fingers crossed xxxx

So far the weekend has turned on some lovely weather. Between the shop and milking I have managed to start tidying up our orchard / chook pen at home. I planted the orchard about 6 or 7 years ago with a mixture of fruit trees and then fenced it out and built a chook house. It worked well for a while. The chooks scratched around the trees keeping down the weeds and eating all of the insects and bugs. That was until the foxes moved in and took all of my chooks. I then put a door on the chook house, bought more chooks and locked them in at night. That worked well (for a while) until the foxes came back and dug into the chook house at night. We then concreted the floor, restocked but the foxes returned during the day and took all of them. After that (and a lot of tears) I just gave up. I love chooks but I just couldn’t go thru it all again. But the time has come to try again. I have decided to clean it up and extended the fence higher so they…the foxes that is…. can’t climb over the top. Fingers crossed it works!!!

I have finished more of my blocks for Lenora's  'Send a Christmas Wish’ Quilt. Seven finished - only 2 more to go and then I can piece it together….yeah!

I am really happy with the fabrics and how it is looking – although I have deviated from instructions slightly (sorry Lenora).

Roll on daylight saving - I love it.

Linda   :)

Playing catch-up

I have spent most of the last 2 days out in the garden trying to catch up on some of the jobs that got put on the back burner over the cold winter months (and calving). Yesterday Russell trenched a long trench along the driveway into the shop. We have filled almost half of it with some lovely compost and then I planted out some of the lavender plants that I struck from cuttings earlier this year. All up 56 new plants have gone in with another dozen waiting to be transplanted. I’m not sure whether just to buy enough plants to finish the job or wait until next year and grow some more…….if I wait til next year there will be a size difference in the hedge ……so maybe a trip to the nursery is on the cards. Today I have mulched around the 4 citrus trees that I planted a couple of months ago. The bed is bordered by miniature agapanthus (the ones my friend gave me).

It is amazing how much neater it looks with a bit of mulch. Another job down but many more left.

On the sewing front I have finished one of my blocks for my ‘Send a Christmas Wish’ Quilt. I am using the ‘Peace on Earth’ range by 3 Sisters and I think it looks very nice.

I just love that range of fabric – some of the ladies have used it to make ‘Hannah’s Quilt’ and the end results were wonderful. I still have quite a bit of it left but be warned some of the bolts are getting low.

Russell and I are going out to dinner and then off to the movies tonight so I’d better make a move to the dairy.

Linda    :)