Following my previous post, I phoned another butcher in Rhosllanerchrugog and they had space for all four boys in two weeks time! Eeek! They are lots cheaper though, and were very helpful answering all my newbie questions. It does now mean that I am in a bit of a rush making sure that I have all the documentation (there's an awful lot of administration involved in sheep-keeping unfortunately!) in place, we still need to beg borrow or steal a trailer from somewhere and we need to pre-sell our carcasses so that they can be delivered immediately. Luckily they've all been snapped up very quickly - we only really have room for one lamb in our freezer so we've offloaded the other three in half-lamb bundles.
This dreadful weather we've been having hasn't been very good for the poor sheep. They can handle any amount of cold but this continuous rain has just been miserable for them. The fields are completely saturated and extremely slippery as a result. Hopefully the weather will turn very cold soon, and give the fields a chance to dry out a bit.
Speaking of miserable, the poor children have had it very rough these past few weeks. Ellie has been plagued with ear infections, which then culminated in her ear-drum bursting :( It's made quite a big hole in her ear-drum and she's really struggling to hear now. I'm hoping she'll be offered another set of grommets to help her. She had some put in just before her third birthday as she'd struggled pretty much from birth with her ears. Her speech was delayed and so they eventually put some in and it made the world of difference - no more bursting ear drums, no more pain and of course she was finally able to hear properly. Her speech caught up really quickly too. Now she's at school, her hearing loss is going to be a real hindrance to her so I hope she gets on the waiting list soon!
Jasper is also suffering badly with an ear infection and is on antibiotics so hopefully that will clear up soon.
Tabs has had her pre-school immunisations and she was very brave, poor poppet. She's like a little twig and when the second of the two needles went in she really screamed (causing Ellie to burst into tears in sympathy!). It's left a really bad bruise on her arm so it must have really hurt :(
Wednesday 28 November 2012
Friday 23 November 2012
Hamlet time...
It's very almost time for our ram lambs to take their trip to 'the seaside' (wink, wink). I've been struggling to find a local abattoir slaughterhouse 'beach' to take them to but I think I may now have found one. It's such a shame that so many have had to close because of all the red tape and legislation. It means much longer journeys, more stress and quite often a much less personal service because mostly it's the bigger, more commercial ones that have been able to remain open. Our nearest one is an hour away now and, as this is our first year of sheep husbandry, I've been a little late in setting the wheels in motion. It seems that our sheep will not be able to be 'attended to' until January. I guess that means no roast lamb for Christmas dinner - so the boys can put their Hamlet cigars away (for now).
If you are not in the UK, and not of a certain age, then the Hamlet reference will make no sense to you at all, so here's a link to the YouTube video of the 1989 Hamlet cigar advert:
Hamlet Cigars - Christmas turkey ad
On the plus side,as we are having to wait a little longer before enjoying the rewards, it means we will get more meat for our money. Zwartbles sheep are a large breed and not very inclined to running to fat. This means that the longer we leave them, the more meat - and not fat - we will gain. The breeders we bought them from just told us that one of their lambs weighed in at over 38kgs (it's usually more like 23 kgs!) at the butcher's. Good news indeed, and even more so for those family and friends that have requested a half-lamb!
I think we deserve some reward for having to rescue one or more of the boys from the fence (they just don't seem to realise that their heads shouldn't go through the mesh) almost daily since we got them! Dave has been the worst offender - I don't think he's the brightest of sheep! Someone once told me that it is the aim of every sheep to meet its Maker as soon as possible and it is the aim of every shepherd to delay this for as long as possible!
Here's a quick pic of the sheep, as I don't think I've actually put one up yet :)
The boys are the ones closest to the camera. That's Dave, centre back, nuzzling Suzy through the gate. Ellie came down to the field with me because she wanted to make a 'sheep book' for Show and Tell at school. Naturally she wanted to pose with the sheep for one of the photos!
If you are not in the UK, and not of a certain age, then the Hamlet reference will make no sense to you at all, so here's a link to the YouTube video of the 1989 Hamlet cigar advert:
Hamlet Cigars - Christmas turkey ad
On the plus side,as we are having to wait a little longer before enjoying the rewards, it means we will get more meat for our money. Zwartbles sheep are a large breed and not very inclined to running to fat. This means that the longer we leave them, the more meat - and not fat - we will gain. The breeders we bought them from just told us that one of their lambs weighed in at over 38kgs (it's usually more like 23 kgs!) at the butcher's. Good news indeed, and even more so for those family and friends that have requested a half-lamb!
I think we deserve some reward for having to rescue one or more of the boys from the fence (they just don't seem to realise that their heads shouldn't go through the mesh) almost daily since we got them! Dave has been the worst offender - I don't think he's the brightest of sheep! Someone once told me that it is the aim of every sheep to meet its Maker as soon as possible and it is the aim of every shepherd to delay this for as long as possible!
Here's a quick pic of the sheep, as I don't think I've actually put one up yet :)
The boys are the ones closest to the camera. That's Dave, centre back, nuzzling Suzy through the gate. Ellie came down to the field with me because she wanted to make a 'sheep book' for Show and Tell at school. Naturally she wanted to pose with the sheep for one of the photos!
Monday 19 November 2012
Procrastination...
So...when I was pregnant with Jasper in 2011 I received, from the US, a rather nifty little gadget called the AccuQuilt GO! Baby fabric cutter. It's essentially a contraption that allows you to cut up to six layers of fabric with one of the dies. The die that I received with mine was the 'value die' which can cut one 4" square, one 2.5" square and two 2.5" triangles. This die also came with a pattern for making a wall hanging/lap quilt using the shapes on that particular die (with me so far?). As I'd not done any piecing before, I thought I'd follow this pattern but adapt it in order to make a full sized single bed quilt for my unborn son. This is the pattern for the original:
A number of things went wrong with this grand plan. It had started off really well - I'd selected my four fabrics and cut out some of the pieces. Wanting to get to work as soon as possible, I pieced together some of the design but quickly realised that I would soon run out of two of my fabrics. Unfortunately, I'd bought both of them some months before and I simply couldn't remember either what they were called, or where I had bought them from! It took about a month to source them, and wait for them to be delivered from overseas! By that time my pregnant tum had grown too much for me to be able to sit comfortably upright for more than a few minutes at a time (I suffer terribly with rib pain when I'm pregnant), let alone hunched over a sewing machine.
Plan B was to wait until I'd given birth - so that I could sit at my sewing machine again. I'd surely be finished in time for Jasper's first Christmas? He was born on Halloween so that gave me almost two months to finish. Unfortunately, Jasper was incredibly colicky and cried almost all of the time. So I was getting pretty much no sleep at all at night and during the day I had to carry Jasper around all the time. This didn't improve until he was about 10 weeks old. The week between Christmas Day and New Year's Day was spent with Jasper and I in hospital (he was 8 weeks old) as he'd come down with bronchiolitis. The children's ward was filled with tiny babies that had this, it wasn't pleasant! So needless to say, Jasper's quilt was not done in time and so I put it away to complete at a later date. The next year passed by in a bit of a flurry so despite my best intentions of completing the quilt for Jasper's first birthday last month, I never even got it out. Here's how far I'd got before it was put away:
Today I got it out for the first time since packing it away and took it along to my sewing club. I am determined that Jasper will have his quilt by his second Christmas! I managed to finish off the zigzag border on the right-hand side, and added two bands of squares around the outside of the whole piece. I'm thinking of using bamboo for the wadding and possibly backing it in dimple minky. That way it will be thick enough to use as a summer quilt on its own. The binding I'm not sure of yet but I will do all of that by hand. I'm not overly keen on hand-sewing but I do really like binding by hand. It's very therapeutic!
A number of things went wrong with this grand plan. It had started off really well - I'd selected my four fabrics and cut out some of the pieces. Wanting to get to work as soon as possible, I pieced together some of the design but quickly realised that I would soon run out of two of my fabrics. Unfortunately, I'd bought both of them some months before and I simply couldn't remember either what they were called, or where I had bought them from! It took about a month to source them, and wait for them to be delivered from overseas! By that time my pregnant tum had grown too much for me to be able to sit comfortably upright for more than a few minutes at a time (I suffer terribly with rib pain when I'm pregnant), let alone hunched over a sewing machine.
Plan B was to wait until I'd given birth - so that I could sit at my sewing machine again. I'd surely be finished in time for Jasper's first Christmas? He was born on Halloween so that gave me almost two months to finish. Unfortunately, Jasper was incredibly colicky and cried almost all of the time. So I was getting pretty much no sleep at all at night and during the day I had to carry Jasper around all the time. This didn't improve until he was about 10 weeks old. The week between Christmas Day and New Year's Day was spent with Jasper and I in hospital (he was 8 weeks old) as he'd come down with bronchiolitis. The children's ward was filled with tiny babies that had this, it wasn't pleasant! So needless to say, Jasper's quilt was not done in time and so I put it away to complete at a later date. The next year passed by in a bit of a flurry so despite my best intentions of completing the quilt for Jasper's first birthday last month, I never even got it out. Here's how far I'd got before it was put away:
Today I got it out for the first time since packing it away and took it along to my sewing club. I am determined that Jasper will have his quilt by his second Christmas! I managed to finish off the zigzag border on the right-hand side, and added two bands of squares around the outside of the whole piece. I'm thinking of using bamboo for the wadding and possibly backing it in dimple minky. That way it will be thick enough to use as a summer quilt on its own. The binding I'm not sure of yet but I will do all of that by hand. I'm not overly keen on hand-sewing but I do really like binding by hand. It's very therapeutic!
Saturday 17 November 2012
Oops!
I didn't realise it had been quite so long since my last post - things have been a little hectic around here lately!
Poor Jasper has had what seems to have been a constant cough and cold since he started nursery one day a week in September. I realise this is because of the barrage of new germs he has been exposed to but it is taking its toll on all of us! He's not sleeping properly because of his coughing and spluttering - and the fact that he seems to be getting four of his molars through at once. Still, when he isn't crying all night and being miserable for most of the day, he's still a real cutie-pie and rather cheeky.
Jasper celebrated his first birthday last month - and had a little party (Halloween themed as he's a Halloween baby!) with some of his friends and family. I had grand plans of making him a 3D pumpkin cake that looked very realistic. In true 'poor neglected third child' style, I didn't get around to thinking about how I was going to attempt this until the day before. So he got a pumpkin cake but it wasn't anything like how I wanted it to look. In the end I used one of those bundt tins (the ones that look like a jelly mould with the hole in the middle), on top of a usual cake tin cake.
As for things chez nous, the new playhouse is coming along nicely. I gave it a lick of paint last weekend and hubby has finished glossing the trim for the outside of the windows this weekend. We should get that put on tomorrow and then all that's needed is a front door (which I think will be a stable door style), a staircase/ladder for the mezzanine floor and the railings for the front veranda. I'm looking forward to putting some window-boxes up in the spring and introducing the girls to growing their own flowers (that aren't sunflowers!).
I've been very busy on the sewing front - trying to get through as many orders as possible, before the Christmas rush. In the last two weeks I have made a backpack, a drawstring school bag, a pen roll, seven lots of personalised bunting and six dribble bibs. My poor son has been taking Ellie's old (bright pink) Peppa Pig backpack to nursery whilst I was supposed to be making him a more manly one. Two months down the line and I finally got around to doing it! It is made from Riley Blake's Foxtrails laminated cotton. The pattern is Made by Rae's Toddler Backpack pattern which can be purchased HERE The pattern is relatively simple to follow - I'd recommend it for more confident novice sewists.
On a completely bonkers change of topic I am currently reading Shakespeare's Hamlet - yes, for fun! - and wondering why oh why I have never read this play before. It's really very good! I did Shakespeare at school of course (Romeo and Juliet (in early high school), Macbeth (GCSE) and King Lear (A-level)) and I've enjoyed a few of the plays performed in Stratford-upon-Avon (King Lear, Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night and The Tempest). I also loved the film of Much Ado About Nothing (starring Kenneth Brannagh and Emma Thompson) and one of the more recent film productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream. But I have NEVER read or seen Hamlet, surely one of Shakespeare's most famous plays. Rather luckily for me I know that David Tennant (whom I loved as Doctor Who) played Hamlet so I will hopefully get hold of a copy of that soon. I must admit that I didn't honestly properly enjoy Shakespeare at school. I liked watching the plays and films but would never have read one of the plays just for fun!
Having just discovered Hamlet, I think I shall be enjoying much more Shakespeare in the future :)
Poor Jasper has had what seems to have been a constant cough and cold since he started nursery one day a week in September. I realise this is because of the barrage of new germs he has been exposed to but it is taking its toll on all of us! He's not sleeping properly because of his coughing and spluttering - and the fact that he seems to be getting four of his molars through at once. Still, when he isn't crying all night and being miserable for most of the day, he's still a real cutie-pie and rather cheeky.
Jasper celebrated his first birthday last month - and had a little party (Halloween themed as he's a Halloween baby!) with some of his friends and family. I had grand plans of making him a 3D pumpkin cake that looked very realistic. In true 'poor neglected third child' style, I didn't get around to thinking about how I was going to attempt this until the day before. So he got a pumpkin cake but it wasn't anything like how I wanted it to look. In the end I used one of those bundt tins (the ones that look like a jelly mould with the hole in the middle), on top of a usual cake tin cake.
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| Not quite how I imagined! |
 |
| Humble beginnings! |
 |
| Taking shape |
I've been very busy on the sewing front - trying to get through as many orders as possible, before the Christmas rush. In the last two weeks I have made a backpack, a drawstring school bag, a pen roll, seven lots of personalised bunting and six dribble bibs. My poor son has been taking Ellie's old (bright pink) Peppa Pig backpack to nursery whilst I was supposed to be making him a more manly one. Two months down the line and I finally got around to doing it! It is made from Riley Blake's Foxtrails laminated cotton. The pattern is Made by Rae's Toddler Backpack pattern which can be purchased HERE The pattern is relatively simple to follow - I'd recommend it for more confident novice sewists.
 |
| The toddler backpack |
 |
| The quilted bottom (which is the same fabric as I've used for the lining). |
On a completely bonkers change of topic I am currently reading Shakespeare's Hamlet - yes, for fun! - and wondering why oh why I have never read this play before. It's really very good! I did Shakespeare at school of course (Romeo and Juliet (in early high school), Macbeth (GCSE) and King Lear (A-level)) and I've enjoyed a few of the plays performed in Stratford-upon-Avon (King Lear, Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night and The Tempest). I also loved the film of Much Ado About Nothing (starring Kenneth Brannagh and Emma Thompson) and one of the more recent film productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream. But I have NEVER read or seen Hamlet, surely one of Shakespeare's most famous plays. Rather luckily for me I know that David Tennant (whom I loved as Doctor Who) played Hamlet so I will hopefully get hold of a copy of that soon. I must admit that I didn't honestly properly enjoy Shakespeare at school. I liked watching the plays and films but would never have read one of the plays just for fun!
Having just discovered Hamlet, I think I shall be enjoying much more Shakespeare in the future :)
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