Bean Bounty

This is a photo of the beans I picked last weekend up at Russell's. I hadn't picked beans for two weeks. My veggie garden has not been as productive, although we have eaten some lovely tomatoes.

 

Inquisitive Calves

I went for a walk this afternoon to visit my cows. Tabby (one of my cats) was with me and the calves found him very interesting. The calves are about five months old now.  Jemma is still limping, although she is keeping up with the rest of the cows now, rather than just staying put.

The sheep also came running down to the gate expecting to be moved, but I didn’t take a photo because I was loosing light at that stage.  I will move them at the weekend.

Chocolate Coloured Lambs

The Sunday before last we collected two new chocolate coloured lambs from a farmer who couldn't keep them with the rest of his flock. I am calling them Chino (as in cappuccino with a frothy white top, left) and Marble (as in Cadbury Marble chocolate, right). They are both girls and they're gorgeous. I intended to introduce them to the rest of my sheep gradually by letting some in with them for a while, but I couldn't get my girls to come down to the gate even with a lucerne bribe.  So I just opened the gate.  The other sheep didn't bother the new girls but Bobby chased them for a few days.  They have settled in now and are part of the family.  I haven't taken a 'group' photo yet but will add one later.

 

Natural Dyeing Workshop

I had a very enjoyable afternoon on Saturday at a Natural Dyeing Workshop. The photo is of everyone's samples and a few larger projects with commercial dyes. For the natural dyeing we used a selection leaves, bark, flowers and berries and all had a sample skein in each, then added mordants which changed the colour with a second sample skein. I have wanted to do this for ages but hadn't had the time or opportunity. I look forward to being able to use natural dyeing for a project.

The photo is of my natural dyeing samples.  The colours were obtained from (left to right) Crabapple bark, Walnut shells, Ivy berries (immature) and leaves, undyed, Wattle (Cootamundra), Wattle + Copper, Yellow Paper Daisies, Yellow Paper Daisies + Copper, Blackberries, Blackberries + Copper, Dahlias, Dahlias + Copper, Buddleia + Iron (didn’t get my skein in first batch).   I'm thinking now that I might make something using all the samples, but I don't know what just yet.