It's Spring, apparently........

......but this is what we woke to this morning...................

....and about 4 hours later, it had changed to this.............

Large coffee cup added for perspective!

It's definitely not a great day to be a newborn lamb, we are just hoping that the ewes have headed for shelter, it is snowing so heavily now, that we would do more damage than good by going out into the paddocks, and would end up chasing ewes out of shelter and mismothering lambs.  Not even sure if the motorbike would get very far in this at the moment anyway.

Up until now lambing had been going great, weather had been not too bad, and the ewes were lambing with very little trouble.  Guess we are now paying for the great winter we had!  We are only bottle feeding about 12 pet/orphan lambs just now, but that will probably change once this storm passes.  I think most of New Zealand is experiencing terrible weather this weekend, heavy rain, huge winds and sea swells in the North Island and snow and rain in the South Island.  They have forecast it for nearly a week, but after seeing on the news some of the snow that Tasmania in Australia got, we were just hoping it would not get that bad.

My plans for Friday Night Sew-In didn't quite come off as I'd hoped, I did get the cutting out of my quilt runner done, before it just got too cold in my sewing room and I settled for some cross stitching by the fire instead.   Here's a peek at what I was working on.  Hopefully I will have something to show for my efforts by the end of the weekend! 

If you were participating in FNSI, I hope you had much better results!

Thanks for stopping by today, have a wonderful weekend.................Nicky

Spring Stitching

Here is a little stitching from the last week or so, now that I have sorted out this mornings blog glitches...........

Some miniblocks together to be prepped, some for stitchery, and some for applique........

...and some progress on the big house block from A Gardener's Journal.  Now that I see the photo I notice that my roof has a definite lean on at the top......no worries, there is no way I am unpicking and restitching this block!  I notice that there are a few quilts being finished over at the SAL blog, and many others are getting some blocks joined together.  They are all looking great, so pop on over and check out our progress.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, hope your day is going great..................till next time..............

Happy Stitching,   Nicky

A little blog help please?

EDITED TO ADD:  I think I have fixed it now, deleted and reloaded same photo and now works fine - still have no idea why these things happen!!   One of lifes little mysteries I guess?  Thanks Michelle and Theresa(and any others I have since missed!) for your comments!


Today when I loaded up my blog, my header collage photo is now smaller and down below the title etc.  I haven't changed any settings, or the original photo, so not sure what is going on.

Now I am wondering if it is just my own computer, can you see the photo as it usually is or has it moved??   Everything else seems to be the same as it was on my blog though.  I'd be grateful for any suggestions. 

Thanks so much,  Nicky

Birthday Girl

Here is my baby on the night of her eighth birthday, don't worry, the wine glass isn't hers, those rosy cheeks are genetic!  She had a great day at school, and then we were joined by grandparents for dinner, so a lovely evening too.

On Friday night we went to the rugby in Invercargill, Southland were playing North Harbour in the ITM Cup.  Southland are also the very proud holders of the Ranfurly Shield, or "The Log of Wood" as it is affectionately known throughout Kiwi Land.  It was a fabulous game, lots of tries scored and plenty of action.  First time we had ever taken the girls to a game, we were worried they would get bored but they had an 'awesome' time, and best of all we defended the shield and now face Auckland in the next Shield Challenge in two weeks time.  Here is our youngest talking to Joe Tuineau, and getting a signature from Robbie Robinson on her 'GO STAGS' poster that she made to wave at the game.

Also on the rugby topic, what a great All Blacks vs Wallabies game last night, we managed to get away with a win in the end, by 23-22, but it was incredibly close, bring on the World Cup, only 1 year to go!!!

Not too much stitching happening here this weekend, lambing is in full swing and I have been having a big tidy-up in the garden, mowing lawns and spraying etc.  Thanks for stopping by today, hope you are enjoying a great day too!       Take care,   Nicky

Fallen in love........

..........with these 'Martinique' fabrics by 3 Sisters.  These fat 1/4s were purchased from eBay a while back and I haven't been able to bring myself to cut into them! Sad, isn't it? 

So I've decided I won't make that first cut yet, and instead will use the same fabrics, but from this Charm Pack.   Perfect for what I have in mind, another Skinny Verna Runner like this one I made a couple of months ago.  Guess this one will be called 'Skinny Martinique'. lol

 You can find the pattern here over at Moda Bake Shop. 

All of this will hopefully be achieved at the next Friday Night Sew In, being hosted by Heidi on Friday September 17th.   So join in the fun, and head on over to sign up!

Today is my youngest daughter's birthday, she received her giraffe pencil roll as part of her gifts this morning, so she is off to school with it today, feeling pretty pleased with herself.  She got her ears pierced a couple of weeks ago, so she also scored some earrings, some books and some other bits and pieces.  Her request for birthday dinner tonight is home made pizza, followed by a cream sponge for her birthday cake, so I'd better go and get baking! 

Thanks for all the e-mails I received on Saturday, wondering how we fared after Christchurch's earthquake.  Thankfully we are nearer the bottom of the South Island and didn't feel a thing.  My thoughts are very much with the folk in Canterbury, who have literally had their lives turned upside down.  It will be a long road to rebuild their beautiful city, but one I'm sure they will achieve.  They breed them tough in Canterbury!!

Till next time, take care.......Nicky

Another Gardeners Journal block complete

At long last here is A Gardener's Journal Block H completed.  I really enjoyed stitching the tools and seed packets in this block, very cute and pretty quick to stitch too.  I'm still a month behind, but have been also getting a few stitches into the big house block which I didn't get done in June, so slow progress is at least still some progress.

Some closeups of the stitcheries.......

And the finished block.....

I've really loved reading the comments about our little corner of the world, we feel we are pretty lucky to be able to do what we do in such a beautiful and special place, so thanks for taking the time to say hello.

Hope your weekend has been enjoyable too, thanks for visiting here ....................till next time,  Nicky

This one's for you Blu........and we have lambs!

Yesterday our first lambs arrived, this set of twins will be the first of many.  Not a very closeup pic as I didnt want to disturb them. 

The lovely Blu, a 'clueless city girl'(her words not mine, lol) asked a few sheep questions on my last post about sheep on our farm and in New Zealand.  We run 2900 ewes, 750 hoggets, and about 70 cattle here on our farm. 

Blu also asked about black sheep. We don't have black sheep, but yes, you definitely can get them.  They usually only look really black when they are just shorn, then as their wool grows they look more of a brown colour.  Every couple of years we seem to get a completely black lamb born from a white ewe mated to a white ram.  I guess it is just one of those genetic anomalies that happen every now and then, but they are pretty cute when it does happen.  

And yes, there really are more sheep in New Zealand than people, by a huge amount.  4 million people and about 45 million sheep.    Enough of the sheep jokes now, thankyou!

Today we had the conveyor contractor here, to vaccinate our main mob of ewes.  The sheep run up the drafting race, up the little ramp and on to the conveyor.  It is a bit like a horizontal escalator that they are moved along and we give them two small injections.  One is a long acting drench, the other protects the ewes and therefore the lambs through the ewes milk, from several clostridial diseases like tetanus, pulpy kidney, blood poisoning and a couple of others I can't recall at the minute!  The conveyor makes it a very quick, less stressful job on both sheep and farmer!  We put 2000 ewes through in just over 2 hours.

Then it was time to spread the ewes out for lambing.  We scan the ewes in late winter, and the twins all lamb together in their own paddocks, with the single bearing ewes lambing in their own mobs too.

The farm is starting to green up again now that winter is almost over, we have had a few beautiful days, so the grass is really growing now.

This next pic is from near the back of our farm, looking back towards our sheds on the left of the picture.  The hills and paddocks in the far distance belong to our neighbours.

And these two are from near the other end of the farm.  Our house is down below the trees in the middle.  The cattle yards left of the middle of this pic are ours and so is the paddock beyond them, but the rest of what you see here is all our neighbours land, but these are some of the beautiful views we enjoy.  Most of our farm runs to the right of the top pic.  The bottom pic is looking north from the same spot and our paddocks are one on each side of the driveway going in towards our house.

Well, that is enough farming for one day, hope that helps Blu, thanks for your interest.  My garden is calling me today, it is another gorgeous spring-like day, so time to get some more roses pruned(very late, I know).

Thanks for visiting today, and for all your lovely comments on my needleturn last post, bye for now,

Nicky