The urban farm life begins...

GHIU has been busy measuring, cuttting, sawing, hammering and has made most of the chicken coop already!!! Of course I have been busy too.................

Its such a good feeling squirrilling away things, especially when the raw product has been in the freezer for YEARS! Straight from my freezer and from Aunt Daisys cookook for your veiwing pleasure..

happy bottling everyone-

Love Cherry

Plans in the making

Today i was mowing the lawns..actually mostly Alex was mowing and I was watching..Anyway I was walking around this triangle of lawn against the olive trees and the pool and i suddenly thought..Chooks!!
You can see it too cant you!? Its perfect for a couple of laying hybrids. And friendly ones too so I can graze them around the other parts of the garden. I dont know why i didnt see it before!! We are going to erect a temparary fence from left over chicken wire in the shed and build a small chook house for laying. I cant wait. I even rung up the local battery farm:-(  and chooks are 18 for layers.

As for other things of a more crafty nature.This is what Ive been working on since Christmas. it is a quilt adapted from Cheri Saffiote. I love primitive especially at Christmas but am well and truly over this now!!  It features both stitchery and applique and then around the edges i am just finishing it off with some Christmas greenery...

Really want to get it finished now!!

This morning i made some Blackberry pickle from Aunt Daisys recipe book that I got from the library. Its a classic!! Full of recipes . I want a copy!! Im not sure how the pickle will taste though. It only made one a half jars, but it may all be thrown out after the first tasting. Tomorrow im making some relish from the same book. Again just a small amount. I found some MORE frozen tomatoes in the freezer!! Goodness only know how long those have been in there!!

Happy homemaking to you all..

Love Cherry

Christmas scrappin'

One of my main objectives this holidays is to work on my scrapping and I did hope that A: I would have spare money to do that and

B: The scrapbooking things would all be on sale..sadly neither of those things happened. However I have collected enough supplies to get started on my stash of photos and as Christmas was the most recent I have started with those and redone a botched old one (above). Im working on a mini alum that is very individual.i love the things that other people do but Im not sure if mine will look that rilliant. i have to remember that the photos are froma recent trip away and a bit hit and misss so not the best quality anyway!

I love to scrap but tire of it quite quickly and need a bit of  substancal break, whereas I can sew and sew for hours days on end (Guess who just downloaded the latest blogger features with strikethrough feature!!!)

 Im so full of excitement for the new year. GHIU and i are scouting for some land to uy and put a old removable house upon. It is scary but at the same time it feels the right thing to do and I can not think of much else. Even Christmas which generally keeps me excited for a while afterwards has paled into significance and all im thinking of is the land in 2010!!  Its a majoy birthday for GHIu who I wont reveal except to say that he was born in a 0 year and he looks at least ten years younger than his actual age. (Im looking for an aging portrait hidden away somewhere!)  Anyway I feel like all the stars are aligning i just need to take a deep breath and dive in!!! Let us know if you are in the hawkesd Bay and know of such affordable cheap land available to future Tom and barbara Good landowners!

Spring and other things

Yes i know Ive been a bad blogger but life has a way of taking up all spare time lately. What i have been doing is putting up my Halloween quilt in lieu of our annual halloween/ guy fawkes party in early november. I love this quilt...thanks Homespun magazine. ive also been planting peas for Christmas dinner and onions and piked my first ever harvest of spinach (which i boiled up with some silver beet and froze) Great to have that first little bit of success in the spring garden. Oh and my lemon tree that I bought two years ago has sprung its first ever lemon!!!! all about the simple things.

ive b een getting quite down on the whole living on the land thing and last night I happened upon a blog i dont read anywhere near as

often as i should. Its here and the post is at the end of August from the Frugal trenches writer. This lady shares my dream and like us that dream is financially not on the cards right now. BUT she is endeavouring to live the country life as much as she can while living in the city. Well it was an inspiring bit of writing and really cheered me up. I hope youll stop by and read her blog.
As for me Im going to be tearing up part of our back garden and planting a vege patch..which should make a change from finding vege plants all over the garden. I stopped buying flowes a while ago and now just buy plantes that will produce food, however room is at a premium. I think this will look good when we do sell as most people are into backyard planting. Now how can I fit a couple of chooks in with the dog???!!!
I need to go actually as said dog has escaped and is somewhere on the 2o acre park that backs on to our garden. Nor sure how he did this I think he must have made a dash through out open bedrooom door and then out the front way....little devil...
Happiness and light wherever you are. Oh the photo of the quilt is the crazy mom quilt along I want to finish....
love Cherry

Cottage love

We went to see the Cottage with the half an acre of land attached...I LOVED it! I so wanted it. It was built in 1900 and shifted fourteen years ago so rewired, repainted, replaced, replumbed re piled etc. It was small bu the room was there for expansion and certainly with the market down when it comes up in a few years there will be definate room for price extension (its being sold under the rate

able value right now) BUT Hubby DIDNT. LIKE.IT. :(

I have half a percent chance out of 100% of changing his mind....He believes the market being what it is we can afford something bigger better etc. But honestly I just fell in love with it. I could see us all living there . I didnt even have to try to like it.Infact I was ready to be disappointed that I didnt like it because the price was so good. So I guess Watch this space. Thats my girls on the front verandah. Oh theres a book around called Historic NZ cottages and its in there too.. If yoiu happen to see the book.

On to brighter things..I am making progress with the skirt. Its very hard on my unthimbled fingers and somethimes I just cant go on trying to blanket stitch around the stitches. However it has me in its grip now. ALTHOUGH last night ..very late..I almost got into my small box of repro prints to cut out some triangle just to see what they would look like. (Im going to do a thousand pyramids quilt with alternate repro red and blue fabrics and grey) Glad I didnt because that would have completely gotten me off track with the Christmas tree skirt..

I also have been investigating pattern (FREE!!) on the net of scrap quilt for my scrap quilt 2009 year (This being the year in this recession we also start to eat pigeons, pooums and rabbits..)

and I found a great site here. There are also crumb quilts made up of all those little bits and bobs left over. And also on this fabulous site there are ideas for charity quilts. I love this idea and have thought of this before I read about it and want to know from any KIwis anywhere..are there any organisations that act as a middle ground for people wanting to donate quilts. I thought I could start by approaching the WOmans refuge to see if I could donate some quilts for families in need.

Ill be interested to hear your thoughts.

Have a great Spring day. its warm and calm here, not like the usual windy in October Hawkes bay day.

Finished my runner!!!

So FINALLY I finished this runner. When I pinned it up ready for our far north holiday I expected to come home with the thing completed. What I didnt realise was the time that stippling BY HAND took... However I am pleased with the finished result, stuffed up binding and all.(Grin..another quilting story)














This is my gorgeous girl playing the part of Victoria in The Darling Buds of may. The show just finished the Saturday before the Monday of the School holidays. Being an adult theatre it didnt finish until 10.30 each night. We didnt go to school on the Friday, but after two weeks of theatre that was the only time. I have to say that Georgi has been in musicals and shows since age five and her sister has become the Green room expert in that time, and they are both professionals now!



















..Did I say that 2008 was the year of the scrappy quilt. THIS (bought from trade me in a weak moment) is the quilt I am going to do when I have collected enough flannel material. (shirts from the Op shops, fat quarters lying in tempting cut price baskets etc). I LOVE log cabins and I LOVE flannel, so ..a match made in heaven.
Its been muggy and hot her in the Hawkes bay and today although it rained it was 26 degrees. Not bad for spring huh?!

We have also found a place in the country that could be a great starter for us. It has half an acre and is an old but mostly done up villa, close to the school and the local country pub(!) Im very excited a sits the only affordable (To us) property Ive seen. We veiw on Wednesday.
Have a great spring school holiday
Cherry

Simple things by Georgia aged just 7

This was written by my eldest daughter, Georgia aged 7. She wrote this by herself about what she will do once we are living on the farm. I find this so lovely and wanted to share it . It is such a gorgeous thought in my head now. My daughter doing the following:

"The farm in my head"

In my head I am thinking about the farm. Just me and the noise of my pony. What would it be like at the start of my new life? I would be riding at a school of beautiful ponies, only just hearing the breeze just like my old life only better. Me and Alex at the farm just beginning a new life at my farm. Life at my farm with my family enjoying the life of all the creatures that we heard calling to us, only to have fun. having fun at the farm it was like me and Alex were going through prickles. The cats were running free in the paddock. If only I had that stuff happening to me right now.

I want to be sitting under a shady tree ona hot day with my pony in the paddock with me reading my stories.