Broody Chook!

One of our girls (Treacle) turned broody a few months back, something completely new for me to deal with.  The 'word on the street' is that you have to take them away from their comfortable environment, put them in a wire cage with food & water and I'm told, they have to stay there for 10 days eeeek.  I tried it for 24hrs and I know that didn't work, but 10 days, come on, that's hard jail time in bird terms isn't it?  Treacle's been kicking the others off the nest and hogging both boxes and they only like to lay in one side.  We had no eggs for 4 days and then I found a huge clutch of them over by the fence near the the chook house, good job it'd been cool for the time period.  We started again, kept her in a safe shaded place with food and water and after 5 days I decided to let her back into the chook house area.  She stayed off the nest and she's back to normal.  I told the lady at our local farm supply that I'd followed her advice, but had put her back after 5days and she said I was really lucky, she'd never had one work so quickly and that 10 days is usually the minimum eeeek!  Normal egg laying has resumed and nobody has has gone broody, let's hope it stays that way!

First Crop!

Of potatoes, Golden Delight specifically.  I was chuffed to bits to discover our first crop of potatoes were actually ready and all because I started pulling out weeds that were hogging all the veggie plot space.  We've also got tomoatoes, strawberries, cucumbers, spaghetti squash, sugar pumpkin, butternut squash, kent pumpkins and carrots growing, the spaghetti squash are having a fabulous time and growing like nutters :-)

Our First Egg!

Woohoo, Summer & Dan just checked the chook house and one of our 5 gals has laid her very first egg, so here it is!

Felt 'n' Fibre Bows at Pre-school

On Friday Summer, Tommy & I headed off to Lambie Street pre-school in town for our usual drop off for Summer, but today was a bit special as I was asked if I'd share my crafty skills with the children.  So, armed with a big bag of wool, silk and other fibres, including angelina, we set up our table for the fun ahead.  Lots of PVA glue (watered down a bit), brushes, fibres, cling film/wrap and numerous bowls to cover.  I showed the children how to wrap the bowls and place upside down on another piece of cling film/wrap, then slather it in PVA glue and next to start pulling and thinning out the wool and placing it on the PVA'd bows, then add more PVA, more wool ... you get the picture!  We left the bowls to dry over the weekend and I pulled them apart when I next took Summer in so that the odd damp bowl could dry out properly and on Friday just gone (28th) the bowls were put out on display with a lovely 'thank you' from the children and they gave me a big thank you card to take home, so here it is.  I hope to get a picture up of all the bowls together that I think someone might have taken so you can see what wonderful bowls the children made.

'Tip Top' Tommy's 1st Birthday!

My goodness, where has a whole year gone?!  I still can't get over the fact that our little boy is now 1yrs old!  We had a quiet celebration with the three of us as Dan was at work on the 20th, but celebrated in style on the weekend with our good friends - and now I'm mostly still knackered from all the organising, cooking and everything else in-between!

So here's the birthday boy on his big day, 20th October 2011!

Friendly Plastic Pendants

Just a couple of images of some of the pendants I've made, I really ought to pull my finger out and get them listed somewhere and sell them.  Artfire's been recommended, so I might just give that a go!

Contemporary Craft Retreat

I had a fab crafty weekend away a couple of weeks ago (14-16th Oct) in Canberra at the Contemporary Craft Retreat that Lex Sorrentino organised (http://www.contemporarycraftretreat.com.au/).  The last time I did any kind of craft course was over 5 yrs ago and that was a week long one at Missenden Abbey before we emigrated here!  I wish that there had been more time to do more classes as there were so many I wanted to attend, maybe next year!  As it was, I attended 4 classes; Bio Bowl Felting with Polymer Clay Features with Wilma Simmons, Funtastic Plastic with Kathy Guertz, Photopolymer Plates with Lara Le Reveur and Seated Lady using Paverpol with Denise Keeley.  I had a great time, met some new crafty people and made some great connections as well as learning lots.  The retreat will be on again next year from 12-14th October 2012 in Canberra and I shall most definitely be going again!

Felted Bowl

 Funtastic Plastic Cuff Bracelet

Paverpol Seated Lady

Texture Plate