A Rainy Day

Day 29 of my August blogpost a day challenge

It was a wet day today, perfect for stitch-and-chat day at The Country Yard.

I finished all my farm jobs promptly and got to sewing nice and early.

Haha very early; I was Raewyn-no-friends for a while (lucky I have my own key or I would have been sitting in the car park!)

I decided to get back to the LeMoyne stars which I had started in a mini sewalong at the start of the month.

I got one made - I'm not totally happy with the centre of it and will probably end up doing a bit of unpicking to improve it. 

Then I thought I'd better get thinking about the cushion Miss Lily has requested for Christmas. I've selected my main fabrics and hopefully the rest will flow from there - 

And then I got sidetracked with organising and talking about a new project, egged on by the others. A small cross-stitch motif a day.  What could be more straight forward!

Back home, the rain had steadily got heavier and, although still warm, it was definitely full scale wet-weather gear weather; one very soggy raincoat - 

All the outside calves had shelter - some ventured out for a graze- 

- others were not and had to be encouraged outside - 

Then straight back to the shed after their feed!

The cows were happy though, but you can see puddles forming in the paddocks. Fingers crossed they stay as puddles!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

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

A One Year Anniversary

Day 24 of my blogpost a day August Challenge

Today marks exactly one year since McGeorgeous came to live with us.

My nieces trapped and rescued him from the church grounds below their apartment in Auckland. 

After a few months of rehabilitation with their two cats, he came north to us.

(My brother put aside his 60th birthday celebrations to help bring him up, which is a good way to remember when we got him!)

He spent the first few weeks living under the bed in the spare room. 

Sometimes in the bed —

He's had his scraps while he's been here; about 10 days on, while starting to explore the house, Tammy cat chased him outside through a door we didn't realise was open. It took two days and lots of planning to entice him back in again - we had to shut Tammy upstairs overnight, leave a sliding door open for him, with some food nearby.....he came in, had a feed then came along to the bedroom for a nosey. Very stealthily we managed to shut the bedroom door, then the outside door and trapped him back inside. Then he spent all night lying on me and purring his little heart out.

[We also had the Garden Shed incident a few months back when he disappeared for nearly a week - locked in the garden shed 😢.]

He's very smoochy and companionable when he feels safe but is also very timid...some people just have to believe that he exists - as they've never seen him! Our son has been living with us for months, and he's only just now being allowed some pats!

He's becoming a good little sewing room cat aka The Palace Cat —

He and Tammy are becoming nice little friends, but she won't tolerate him snuggling up and sleeping with her.

So there we go, 12 months of Mr McGeorgeous. He who takes up a big space in our hearts.

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

A chilled day —

Day 20 of my August blogpost a day challenge

It was a fairly relaxed sort of a day today.

We started with another frost!!! That's our third heavy one in the last few weeks; it's a bit of a record for us here in Northland!

But it morphed into a lovely day - I enjoyed my lunch in the sun —

These 30 oldest calves moved into the ranks of Big Calves today as I put them on once-a-day milk feeding. 

They're eating lots of grass now and I get the problem that if I'm feeding them twice a day, that some are full of grass,etc, that some don't drink, so the others drink too much and then they get poo-ey tails and it's a bit of a messy cycle. Easiest to put them on once a day which also encourages the grass eating. They get a more concentrated milk feed so don't lose out that way.

Anyway, that's 30 less to feed in the afternoons now - yaay!!

Our calving has really slowed down in the last week, 3 calves in 5 days I think BUT last night 8 new calvers came in so I had 8 babies to teach to feed this morning! That took a while and all of a sudden the calf shed seemed overflowing. (When it gets to 40 it starts to feel a little crowded.)

These are the new ones —

I had some lovely sewing time this afternoon. I continued on with the Summertime Quilt I chatted about yesterday; I laid out another new block and sewed yesterday's unfinished one in conjunction with the new one and got them both finished. 

The family so far —

I need 2 more of these blocks.

And I had time to tidy up a few more leader-ender HST for my as yet undisclosed quilt! Very scrappy and nice easy sewing —

Funniest tail of the season award goes to this calf —

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

This and that

Day 14 of my August blogpost a day challenge 

It feels like there is nothing much to report today - I haven't had a chance to think about a blogpost!! Fridays are my busy day, when I work off the farm at the quilt shop.

That involves getting all my wee beasties fed and happy first thing and then racing home afterwards to do it all over again.

Happily for me today, there were no new calves to teach to feed, and I'd done a bit of mob amalgamation yesterday which streamlined my feeding and made the job a bit easier.

ED and her two kiddoes popped into work after school to collect some eggs. They live near to the shop so I often see them there. Cat-mad Lily swarmed in on a pattern that had not long arrived, teamed it with some fabric and subsequently put in a Christmas request!

It was another wet day so I spent most of the day hoping that my older outside calves were looking after themselves. It was very warm so they were well and happy and none the worse for wear —

but ready for their dinner —

I tried to entice them into the dry shed but only a few were interested (including someone with high spirits!) —

After an easy dinner it was time to settle into some stitching —

— and entertainment from McGeorgeous who thought it might be time for daylight saving to start?!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn