Big boy!

Mannie is doing so well. The little man is now about a month old, and has such an appetite!

Of course it's hard to refuse this little face..... If you look closely you can even see his little horns starting to come through!
When he's not downing a stubbie full of milk, he's nibbling grass.
Mannie's having heaps of fun chasing the chooks and hanging out with the other sheep and goats. What a life!

I have competition, and new tenants.......

My darlin' and I went for a leisurely stroll down to our dam on the weekend. The kids were busy up at the house, DH had finished his chores (hence the grubby clothes and beer in hand) and we finally had some "us" time to have an uninterrupted chat. Or so we thought........... until a gorgeous blonde muscled in on my man!!!

She may be beautiful but she sure ain't too smart! Nothing a pair of wire clippers couldn't fix lol.....

Look who's moved in....... There must be a notice board in the animal world that has our address on it ..... These lovely geese have lived over the road from us for years, and have stayed on as various people moved in and out of the property. They seem to have decided that our dam looks pretty good after it's recent clean out and a good drop of rain. I think they're gorgeous.....

My new crafty blog

Yep, I've set up another blog, not to replace this one just to tidy stuff up a bit. This one was getting a bit messy so I decided to make a new one just for my crafty stuff. I have called it Clever Chook, not cause I'm vain but because that's what my darlin' calls me! I also hope it keeps me more focussed on making stuff, cause I'm thinking of setting up an etsy shop. Let me know what you think......

http://cleverchook.blogspot.com/

A new addition to my flock.....

On Tuesday I was sitting outside in the lovely sunshine, sorting a fleece ready for washing, when around the side of the house came my DH. In his arms was this beautiful boy! I must have smelt nice and sheepie because he snuggled in to me quite happily. DH found him abandoned after a fox had killed his twin. He was less than 24 hours old.Here he is watching DH prepare his bottle. At 4 days old he is drinking 6 bottles a day, 200 mls each. More than his own body weight almost!

Nutmeg made him welcome, washing his face for him. I have called this little guy Mannie. He is my only boy sheep ( hard to call anything this small a ram lol), and will be a nice friend for Pearl and Louie. They have been mothering him all day, but he sleeps in the bathroom at night.

Of course he sleeps a lot as babies do. What a sweetie......

Hey, this felting thing is pretty cool!

Yesterday I decided to have a go at using last year's fleece from Pearl. As we did the shearing ourselves the fleece was VERY bitsy, lots of short bits. It was also filthy with our red soil, and had loads of debris such as thistles, burrs etc. After some net surfing to find out how to do it and six washes later (next time she's having a bath!) the fleece was finally clean. I carded it to remove any remaining organic matter and then had a go at dying it. I used food colouring as it is cheap and easily available. I just wet the fleece, added the food colouring and zapped it in the micro for 2 mins at a time until the dye was all taken up. It was fun, and very messy lol.... BTW that is purple not black, I was a bit heavy handed with the first lot!

This morning I pulled it into little tufts and randomly placed it on the bubble wrap to begin felting a bag. I got the pattern for the bag from here ages ago.

Because Pearl's fleece was so bitsy my bag was different thicknesses in places so I will make a lining to strengthen it. I haven't decided yet how to do the handles.

Turned out ok for a fully homegrown amateur effort. The colours are different to what I'd usually use so it was fun to try something new.

Revamped felt cushion top

The cushion top I made in the felting workshop wasn't quite how I wanted it to be. The raw silk moon wasn't very visable under the felting. So I snipped away the felting, removed and ironed the moon and replaced it. I used the scraps of felted wool to make clouds and needlefelted it all in place. Now it looks right! Well, to me anyway....

Mongolian felt making, this is fantastic!