Someones Handy Work

I've been sneaking in quite a bit of op shopping in over the past couple of months and have managed to pick myself up quite a few treasures...  I had to have these unusual little crafty pictures as soon as I saw them, all four of them, Two Bunnies a Pussy Cat and a little French Poodle. 

These are the sweetest little pictures I have ever seen... I wonder if they were once made as a special gift for a lucky little girl?  I think they are Masterpieces and I actually had them hanging in my living room for quite a few weeks until I decided to hang two in the little girls rooms and two above my new craft table.
They have quite a unique style, I don't know what to call them exactly, the animals seem to be cut out furry fabric shapes and stitched onto the backing fabric, then decorated with embroidery and beading.    I think she was a very clever lady who made these, it's almost sad to find them sitting in an old op shop, I couldn't think why anyone would ever want to give them away...
They have found a lovely home now though, and I'm sure they will be treasures in this Family for many years to come....

This  Bunny one is my favourite.... Orange eyes and all. . .

  They cost only $3 each...

So Cosy. . .

My latest and most favourite Op Shop find , Looks like it will 

get a lot of use around here. . .

'Show us Your Cosy' over at Enchanted Moments

Choko - Is it a Fruit or a Vegetable?

Funny little thing this Choko, I remember my mum always feeding us Choko with dinner, sliced up, boiled and smothered in butter with a sprinkle of salt and pepper, sometimes she outdid herself and served it with white sauce, a bit like you would with cauliflower.  I LOVE IT, and I also serve it to my family regularly.

 The choko, technically speaking is actually a fruit as it has a seed, and it belongs to the  Gourd Family. However I believe it fits into the culinary term as a vegetable that can be cooked 
either savoury or sweet.....

I picked up a couple of green chokos from a stall on the side of the road last week and then I found a white variety at my local market on the weekend. I have never seen the white ones before, apparently they are exactly the same in taste
just a different colour... 

   A choko has quite a bland flavour and when cooked with sugar or syrup it can be disguised as apple or pear, quite popular in the old days when everyone had a choko vine in their backyards and fresh apples and pears were hard to get their hands on.  It is also commonly used in pickles and chutneys and can also substitute fruit to add extra pulp to Jam.  It is also rich in Pectin.
I decided I would try a sweet recipe with a couple of them, just to see what it was really like.  I've stewed up a couple of chokos with about 1/2 doz granny smith apples, a good handful of sugar and some cinnamon...

   APPLE & CHOKO PIE  MMmm smells delicious. . .

I have some special visitors coming over for dinner tonight, I wont tell them its a mix and we'll see if they'll be asking for seconds....

A couple of the leftover choko's have started shooting so I'm popping them straight into pots, Imagine how much fun I will have when I get my own loaded vine full of Chokos...There will be a bit of  Frugal cooking going on here,  thats for sure.

Lets hope these little babies grow for me now!  I'll leave them to shoot in the pots for a while and get their roots established then get them planted and see what happens....

a SHEEP or two

Our Hobby Farm... Where it's all going ...
Time to stock the paddock

We are now officially Sheep farmers, well I don’t know about the official business, but we do have SHEEP!

Hubby and Annabel arrived home from a visit to Gran & Pops last week with his homemade sheep float full of SHEEP.  

Me, Annabel and our New Sheep

It was inevitable that we would eventually get a few up here, We enjoy going down to the farm so much, rounding up the sheep, lamb marking and shearing has always been a big part of our holiday adventures. With Gran and Pop starting to slow down a little now and the future of the family farm unkown, we thought it was time we prepared for our own sheeping adventures on our own property.

We have five 1st cross Ewes, 

Nancy, Beatrice, Eliza, Lorraine and Kimmy.

 Two  black and coffee coloured Lambs, 
Cappuccino & Mocha latté.

One young super studly dorset cross Ram named Earl 

and a young fat lamb which we have called Sunday Roast....
you get the picture...

Our 5 Ewes are only young but have spent quite some time with the Ram on the Farm before they were loaded up and brought here, what that all means is that Hopefully in about 6 months time we should have lots of little lambs running around the place, should be pretty cute, however I have been told I should not get too attached...  

Cappuccino and Mocha latté will eventually become mamas as well. 

Hubby gave them all nice looking haircuts before their journey so we shouldn’t have to shear them for a while yet, I think its 6 or 12 months, I don’t really know, I have a LOT to learn about these woolly critters  yet! 

They are a little bit flighty still and I have not been able to get to close to get some real good pics especially of Caps and  Mocha, all they ever do is eat and run away from me so I can only get snapshots of their buts...Cute hey! 

It's so nice to wake up in the morning and see the sheep grazing outside I feel like a REAL FARMER... Just gotta make ourselves a few pens now and build a little shearing shed down the back.

 

Our Hobby Farm...Where it all began..

My husband grew up  on his families farm in Western NSW. He spent most of his early years farming Sheep and Wheat and playing Tennis in the court his parents had converted from an old chook coop.  
When we moved out to our little piece of green we always wondered what we would do with it all, all 5 acres of it!

 We brought chickens and a couple of children with us, we renovated the house and along the way came a few more chickens and a few more children. I established a small veggie patch and we chopped down a few trees and planted some turf to make a nice open green backyard for all to play. We often talked about  running a few cattle, maybe we would sneak a few lambs back with us from a visit to Gran and Pops Farm.   A  Pony for the children? 
 And it's no secret that I would LOVE  a Milking Cow. . .

For a while there  feeding my chooks and children was about all we could  handle. Then, almost overnight, It all happened. . 

 Hubby decided he would fulfill his dreams, he was ready to invest into his Favourite Hobby  'Tennis'.  And what a process,  In came the bulldozers, rollers, semi trailers, and more rollers 

.

We couldn't be happier with the final product.  And oh so much fun we are having now spending lots of Quality Family Time on the court.  Hubby is coaching the kids now with the big kids doing after school lessons and the little ones lessons in the morning. 

 Look out Wimbledon . . . Here we come . . .

Whose got a Sweet Tooth?

My dear dad popped in for a visit Yesterday and

 he left this for me at my front door. 

6250 teaspoonfuls !!!

Obsessed with Citrus

SO I've been thinking about what I can do 
with some of my Citrus,

once it all survives, matures, flowers, fruits and ripens!

Freshly eaten is BEST, Juice is GOOD, Marmalade is YUMMY, Cake is quite a TREAT and then I thought of  LEMONADE!!!


Homemade Lemonade Syrup
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
1 cup lemon juice (approx 4 or 5 lemons)
1 lemon for rind

Peel rind from lemon with a vegetable peeler

Boil the water, sugar and lemon rind for approx 5 minutes
Add the lemon juice
Let cool and strain into bottles . . .
Serve with Ice Cold water or Soda Water 

  Yep! It's that easy... I tested out this recipe today, it's good, I have a few years yet to perfect it! I remember having lemonade once at a market many years ago, it was very lemony, not as sweet as this one but I can't find any recipes that differ to much from this.
 I guess I could just add more lemon juice!
 Anyone got any great (easy) lemonade recipes or tips they would like to share?

Dancing Doily Dollies and Paper Patchwork People

I've been getting  crafty again... 

I'm always looking for something fun and creative to do with my children, I designed this doily garland with my eldest daughter Jess, We chopped and sewed and hung them up high for all to admire... We are planning on doing some more similar to this for all the girls bedrooms, maybe sew on some dresses or paint them some pretty colours....

Then it was time for the little ones to play...

PATCHWORK PEOPLE

This was completely 100% inspired by Duck Egg Blue over at Humble Habit, thanks heaps DEB for the Hours and Hours and Hours of Creativity and Fun shared in our house last week...

The children (apart from my son, who turns 13 this week, no further explanation needed!) all did their own life size portrait.  

We're still not quite finished with these portraits yet, plenty of pasting still to do but I have hung them in the living room anyway.  It brightens up my days...

( I helped little Miss Mads with this one....) It was so much fun. . .Don't know what to do with the face, maybe some buttons, or paint??? Happy for any Ideas. . .

And then there were little patchwork people too . . .

HAPPY CRAFTING!!!

Go to : Kootoyoo  for more Creativity