The Summertime Quilt continued

Day 27 of my August blogpost a day challenge

I got back to my blocks for The Summertime quilt today, and now I've completed the eight Square in Diamond Star blocks needed for it. 

I was going to be sensible and work through the instructions methodically, making 8 of this and 13 of that (and so on) but I'm starting to get itchy feet to see how the quilt will develop. 
So this is the start of the top left corner -

Below shows one at work (making better progress than me) and the pattern graphics - 

- so you can see I have some interesting stitching coming up 🙂

It was dehorning day on the farm today. The vet comes out to do this - all I had to do was make sure the calves were fed before 7am (4 hours before their anaesthetic!) and have them all in suitable pens.

All the Angus/beef calves are polled (they don't grow horns) so it was just the 33 dairy calves to be done.

They're knocked right out and also given a local anaesthetic. A pen full of snoring calves is quite cute - 

The vet uses a little gas tool which cauterises and removes the horn buds - 

A couple of hours later, they're starting to move around a bit. Stand up, sit down.

And then by late afternoon, they're feeling a little more themselves and are ready to resume their normal routine. Afternoon feed for these ones - 

And back to the paddock for the ones on once-a-day feeding - 

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

Photos today

Day 26 of my August blogpost a day challenge

Another busy day today so I'm just going to fill the post with some photos that I've collected over the last few days 😊

The yard is starting to filling up now as we have 130 cows calved - about 70 to go.

The youngest two calves happily fed and snuggling up - 

The oldest calves at the start of another nice day - 

After their feed, watching me drive away -

And from same paddock, looking down on the MOML shifting the 'very close to calving cows' and drafting out the new calvers - 

Yesterday, to the excitement of two cats, a wee Silvereye turned up inside. While I was busy trying to open more windows, etc, he found a friend to sit with!

til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

Travelling to retreat (Going back in time)

Day 25 of my August blogpost a day challenge

A long one today

One of the reasons I wanted to do this blogpost a day August challenge was so that I could catch up on some events that happened AGES ago.

One of those being Sue's and mine travels to and from the Scrub Stitching retreat at Baradine in New South Wales, Australia. Scrub Stitching was back in April. Sue was very good and posted every day but I never quite got to it.

So here I am - I really want these travels documented!

Sue picked me up from Melbourne Airport (Tullamarine) and after snatching a coffee and finding the car, we were off.

Our first stop was Echuca, about 2 ½ hours away, which is a historic river port town on the banks of the Murray River. 

We stayed at the Campaspe Lodge, which was very close to the river. It was a lovely peaceful spot - until the birds arrived at dusk!

It was close to the Port of Echuca so we had a leisurely stroll along the river bank, marvelling at the Paddle Steamers, other boats, the Flood Tree and detouring for an ice-cream :-)

First night excitement - and the joy of finding GF ice cream cones —

The next day we went on a cruise on one of the old wood burning Paddle Steamers, the Pevensey. The cruise was about an hour and it was lovely.

Steamer accommodation from approx 1915 - people must have been a lot smaller then, it all seemed so tiny!

'All The Rivers Run' was filmed on the Pevensey —

Lots of houseboats!

Trying to perfect our selfies —

Afterwards we wandered around the town, and had a really interesting time. 

(Bottom right photo is a Koala crossing to keep them off the road)

The next day we drove to Forbes. It was a big day's driving but we managed to find a couple of interesting spots to stop at —

The painted silo at Mathoura - we had been there before but approached it from the back of it so we didn't recognise it at first!

We also stopped at the information centre at Deniliquin ...and stumbled upon a modern quilt exhibition which we quite enjoyed - we spent longer than we should have there.

Sue was inspired at Narrandera -

We met up with the Deana and her USA contingent at Forbes - we had a lovely dinner together (no photo sorry) (whew, you'll be saying)

The next morning we all travelled in convoy along the Lachlan Sculpture Highway. This is a permanent sculpture/art trail along a100km length of road.

The first one, the Goana, had us excited about what else we would see -

They were all so different; some we needed to read the information about them to understand them, but we appreciated them all!

A late lunch at Condobolin before the girls headed on to Baradine. Sue and I opted to spend the night at Narromine.

The next day we were on familiar roads and heading to Scrub Stitching at Baradine.

We arrived!

(And I wrote about retreat *here* and *here*)

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn