I recently took part in my first exchange, from one of my groups i-love-cross-stitch.
The exchange was to include a cross stitched bookmark, a couple of skeins of floss, and a pre-mixed drink. You know tea, lemonade, margarita :D Well seeing as Oz has some very strict quarantine laws and I didn't want to end up on one of those 'Border Security' television programs, with my parcel being sniffed out by a sniffer dog, I asked my swap partner to leave out the pre-mixed drink.
Look at the wonder exchange, by partner Heidi sent me... Oops my partner was Terri... Sorry and thank you.
A lovely bookmark, of course, five skeins of lovely summer coloured DMC floss, a key chain, and fridge magnet. Now that is what you call going over and above the call of duty.
Now for what I sent Heidi, I also opted not to send pre-mix drinks, because, well they were hard to find here, so I sent two bookmarks.
One a complimentary chart from Papillon Creations
The other Australian Wattle.
I dyed the linen, with Parisian Essence, instead of coffee or tea, it was a suggestion from one of the girls at my local LNS. It was so easy. I just kept adding a few more drops until it was just a little darker than I wanted, let the linen soak for 20-25 minutes, quick rinse, then ironed dry while the material was still damp.
The floss included was Australian from Dinky Dye, over-dyed silk, the golden/orange is called Outback, and the green/grey Kakadu, after one of our beautiful national parks in the outback.
Oh I also included chocolate, you can never go wrong with chocolate.
I really enjoyed the exchange and now that I have done one, look forward to doing more.
LiBBiE in Oz
Woah it has been 19 days since I blogged, and I have missed two Cow-Days. I took photos two weeks ago, but was just too tired to blog, my Mum plumb wore me out.
I have to catch up on the last day at my parents farm, that and the photos I took the following weekend, when I returned for my Mum's birthday, but I will leave that for another day.
On an off Cow-Day comment, I have been stitching, and will update in the next couple of days.
Now back to the 'cows'. We had this beautiful pen of Brahman steers today, and they were so quiet. Such beautiful boys, and soft eyes.
Don't you just love the airplane ears.
Up close and getting personal.
You smell... nice.
I cannot resist a bellower.
It was a day for eyes, these Brahman cross Limousin vealers, the coat isn't only lighter around their eyes, the hair is also shorter, great effect
A sad day today, all our puppies flew out to their new homes. Bailey the only boy puppy and Bubbles (we did not name her) the smallest girl went to South Australia, which is over 2000 kilometers away.
Milly the other black and tan girl, to Hobart in Tasmania, which is roughly the same distance, except Milly had to fly over water, down to the bottom of Oz. When you look at a map of Australia, and you see that triangle island at the bottom, that is where she went.
All three arrived safe and sound we are happy to say, and their new families are very pleased.
So I arrived home to find that someone (my Meah more than likely) had found my pajamas, and had dragged them out in front of the fire... Tilly obviously thought it was a most appropriate place to curl up and rest.
Tilly's first official only puppy photo, butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.
She is a little lost this evening, and even Tatty (Mum) realises they are gone, they curled up together in front of the fire.
This young man arrived at 12.45am this morning, an only child. Seen here with his dam Jenny. She is the matron of the herd and has pulled up a lot better than she did last year. This was going to be her last year breeding, but she looks so good, we may just go again next year. We will play it by ear.
Our Jenny is an interesting doe. A top show doe in her younger days, and could probably still go our and show the younger one's a thing or two, but she has retired and lets her daughters do all the work now.
Jenny has a registered stud name, but didn't have a farm name until she was nearly two. She was a fat, pudgy child and teenager who never got any grain, always being referred to as The Fat Goatling. Come feed time she was tired in a corner, which is called being in the Jenny Craig paddock. Hence her name.
An Australian King Parrot.
Sun setting this afternoon, view from the front of the house.
Well it's Day 6 or evening, and we are waiting on one or our old does to kid. This will more than likely be her last kidding, we will have to wait to see how she is after this kidding.
Busy sort of day, we ended up having to go back to Ag-Quip, we left behind a pair of hoof shears we had brought, silly us.
It had rained over night, which made parking in a paddock fun, it took us 20 minutes to get from the front gate to park, slip sliding all the way, it was very greasy.
A view from the back door, up to the sheds and poultry. The rocks were what attracted my parents to this place, the goats love them.
Our Buff Sussex on the roost this evening.
The menagerie has been added to today, pheasants! A ringneck, with the wrong hen.
Golden Pheasant, please excuse the pen, but when they arrived this morning, they had been in their travel boxes for 36 hours. Food, water and freedom, where higher on the list of things to do, they had arrived a week early, and an extra pair, we had two pens ready, but not three.
Golden Pheasant hen, we have to move them tomorrow.
And a very pretty, Ringneck, mutation blue, he looks like a peacock. He at least has the right hen, even though she was hiding.
Our LGD, Molly, she is a Maremma.
My Meah.
Normie was getting upset that the puppies were getting all the attention. You can see how stressed and put out he is, simply inconsolable.
Cheeky.
Paw on macro.
Nose on macro.
Well it's Wednesday, so the only cows I had to photograph were our own.
Our old girl is at the back, Missy the Jersey, and the black cow does not have a name, she is usually called the "Jersey Friesian X heifer we got from Alex".
These two are being raised on the Missy.
This is a young Jersey heifer we raised to eventually replace Missy, she is three-quarters Jersey, one-quarter Friesian... her name is Maxine, after the dairy farmer we got her from, Max.
What Maxine thinks of having her photo taken.
Another farm cat hard at work.
Yesterday, I told you about getting home in time to see the last of triplets born, this is the doe kid, isn't she beautiful, especially in her woollen 'lamb' coat. We think her name may be Symphony, she needs a beautiful big name. I will try and take a photo tomorrow without her coat.
This is one of her brothers, he was the last born, we call him the monster!
We had quads born late today, 4 doe kids, 1 kid died in-utero about two weeks ago, she was fully formed, and had hair.
Proud mum.
And of course a puppy photo, our Tilly, with her sister Milly who is going to live in Tasmania.
Well what a day, my feet ache, and I am very tired, but I had a great day, as I said yesterday, we went to Ag-Quip, which is the biggest agricultural field day in the Southern Hemisphere.
I think we were lucky to see a quarter of it, and we saw one row twice, and still saw things we didn't see the first time we walked it, but before I show the photos, a little farm information.
I got home in time this afternoon to see the last of triplets being born. Will take photos tomorrow, two buck kids and our first doe kid of the season, who is very pretty. First born was a tiny boy, then the girl who is a good size kid, and then came the the last boy, and he is huge, he would have to weigh close to seven kilos, this makes him a 15 pound kid, he would be massive for a single kid let alone a triplet.
On a sad note, Boy No 2 didn't make it, he refused to drink today, and just got weaker as the day went on, so was humanely put to sleep this afternoon. This is a fact of life on farms, and something that cannot be avoided.
No puppy photos today.
Ag-Quip... little tractor, I would say a good size for a woman, good little bucket in front and a mower unit underneath.
Big tractor/header type machine this was massive.
The front of this said Diamond Harrow 40 CT.
Giant silo.
And giant augers to go with the silo.
Giant Guide Dog :D
We had a steak sandwich for lunch, at the Santa Gertrudis stand, I think it might have been this bulls brother or son. It was delicious.
Murray Greys an Australian breed of cattle.
We called into this lovely stand of rope bridles and halters, SS Horsewear, Susie made us some great goat collars from left over lengths of rope, funnily enough, she had never been asked to make goat collars before... go figure.
A quick parting shot late in the afternoon, of the carpark.
