Heart Felt

Getting lost in sunflowers

Texture...

 

Follow the leader....

 

Colour....

 

And one to take home.....

Natural pest control

While we were in the garden looking for kereru we wandered over to the vegetable garden.  The children heard my exasperation over my losing battle of trying to control the white butterflies and their caterpillars.

Sadie decided to take control and collect all the green caterpillars she could find.

Oscar decided that catching the white butterflies would be more fun ~ net in each hand.

Natural pest control doesn't get any better than this.

Kereru Counting

Forest and Bird launched a nationwide Kereru count on the 19th February.  It runs until the 27th so we have been on the look out for kereru in our area.

 

 We see them quite often in our town.  They like to sit on the power lines and gorge themselves on the flowering and fruiting trees.  

One flew over our backyard a couple of days ago, we heard it flying before we actually saw it.  They fly quite low with a heavy beating of wings.  So we have recorded our siting.

If you see one ~ this is what you do.  Go to this website and log your siting ~ easy!  The information gathered will help in learning about the Kereru's distribution around New Zealand and what they are eating.

Happy Kereru spotting!

 

Needle felting

One of the great things about participating in a regular craft market is getting to know the other crafty stall holders.  One of my favourite stall holders is Hella.  She makes stunning felted birds, nests, rabbits, lambs and babies from wool.    

Normally at the market I take some hand sewing with me to keep me occupied during the quiet periods of the day.  Last Saturday I had forgotten to take it with me and hated sitting there with idle hands, so Hela offered to give a quick needle felting lesson.   I'm officially 'Hooked'.

I purchased one of her needle felting kits.  The kits contain a lovely bag of wool in various colours, an instruction booklet, piece of foam and a felting needle.   

This is what I made with my first attempt with help from Hela.

 It really is that simple.

With my second atempt I felted straight onto one of my wool pixie hats.

 I'm really happy with the result.

If anyone is interested in purchasing a needle felting kit from Hella for $10, email me and I can't get one sorted out for you or visit her stall at the next New Rags Market.  

 

Long lunch

We had a family gathering at Gladstone Vineyard in the weekend.  

Sadie wanted to to dress up as a fairy (of course)

Charlie amused himself with his cousin collecting cicada shells found on tree trunks.  Their collection was rather impressive.

Everyone cried out a big 'Awwwww' when Sadie and Oscar got up to dance to the live music.  

The ducks and chickens were happy to be fed bread from the cafe kitchen.

It was lovely to spend a long lunch with family.

Afternoon photoshoot

Sadie is always obliging when Vanya from Hope and Glory asks if she would like to model some dresses from the shop.   It helps when she's rewarded in beautiful wee gifts from the shop of course.

The sun teased us by hiding behind the clouds and then popping out during a costume change, but I did manage get some nice shots.

Reversible pinafores

Beautiful aprons

Ra-Ra skirts

Dancing ribbons

Cute bags

All available at Hope and Glory

95 Main Street

Greytown 5712

Wairarapa

New Zealand

tel: +64 (0) 6 304 8834

mob: +64 (0) 226 307 923

 

 

You can also now shop at Hope and Glory from home. Check out their online shop here.

Peaches

You can tell we had a great day by the bare feet, grubby faces and dirty finger nails!

xx

Pizza outside the Gingerbread House

Tonight was pizza night and we thought we had better make the most of the warm summer evening.  

So it was a picnic dinner outside the Gingerbread House.

Homemade pizza with Grandma's lemonade.

Greedy!

 

Homemade Pizza

Base

1 tablespoon of active yeast

half teaspoon sugar

1 cup tepid water

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups plain white flour

1 cup wholemeal flour

1 tablespoon oil

Put the yeast, sugar and tepid water into a bowl and leave aside until frothy.  In another bowl put in flour and salt.  Add the oil and yeast mixture into the flour.  Mix and kneed until smooth.  Put dough into a clean bowl covered with a tea towel and place in a warm spot until dough has doubled in size.  Punch down and kneed again.  I cut the dough in half and make two smaller pizzas.  Roll out and put onto a tray and top with your favourite flavours.  Ours is super basic ~ sauce, cheese and free range bacon.  Cook 220.C for 15 minutes.

A weekly meal in our house.

Breaks my heart

I have just cleaned out of Sadie's wardrobe and it always breaks my heart.  

I have listed some of her vintage dresses on Trade Me

for sale.

Of course there are some I could never part with, but I can't keep them all.

At least we have the photographs to remind us of her adventures in her pretty dresses.

Of course this is not really about clothes at all.  It's about how fast time goes as you watch your babies grow into toddlers, into preschoolers into children and so on.

 I hope they all go to a lovely home.

Fensham Reserve

Today we took the children around the loop track at Fensham Reserve.

 Fensham Reserve is located about 3 kms west of Carterton and is looked after by the Forest and Bird Society.  

This was our first visit here because although it's a loop track it still takes over an hour to get around with gentle inclines.  Charlie and Sadie walked right around with no troubles but Ian and I had to take turns to carry Oscar.

 

~ Oscar carried this piece of fern around the whole track

and then cried when he dropped it into the creek ~

Fensham Reserve is home to big beautiful Kereru (wood pigeon) (which we saw lots of), fantails (who follow you around), tui, kingfisher, morepork (owl) and others.

~ Kereru flying over head ~

This 48 hectare reserve contains a remnant kahikatea swamp forest, as well as important wetlands that are home to our nationally vulnerable mudfish.

Take a drink and something light to eat, camera is a must and good walking shoes.  (No dogs are permitted)  Your reward is stunning views of the valley, a great work out, lots of bird life and beautiful native forest.

~ View from the summit ~