Seed Cleaning

Yesterday the seed cleaner came to grade all our seed ready for sowing season. It is the maddest contraption I've ever seen! It looks like something out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - you know, an old boot goes in one end and a gorgeous chocolate bar comes out the other!

James has been grading seed all his life and this truck is about 30 years old Farmer Phil thinks. It has all these wheels and pulleys and augers coming out of it everywhere. It's a real work of art!

It's a bit of a production line when the seed cleaner is here and lots of co-ordination of trucks and bins to grade into and out of. All the seed goes into the truck and is then separated into sowable seed and the rest (the seconds) are graded out. The seed is sometimes pickled or treated with a chemical to stop pests whilst it's stored in the silo and for when it's sown at cropping time. The barley you can see being augered out of the semi is bright blue!

Daisy Bean

Here are Daisy's favourite places to sleep! She's a real smoocher!

Birthday Boy!

It was Farmer Phil's 43rd birthday last week, so here's a picture to prove it, and yes he still says he doesn't look anywhere near his age!!

In the Wilderness

I'm sorry for the lack of blogging over the past 2 weeks. My internet connection went down last Wednesday and Optus said they'd send a technician out to fix the problem next week - that would be 2 weeks without the internet!!! That was too long to wait, so I had a fiddle and hey presto I got the thing to work this morning. I think I'll still get the technician out to have a look at everything though. We are using satellite broadband which is almost as slow as the old dial-up! I've got lots to tell, so I'll have to do a few posts to catch up!

Wedding Quilt Update

I started to cut out the Garden Wall wedding quilt last week - boy did it take some time!! Anna Maria says on the pattern that you'll spend more time cutting than sewing, and I think she's right! I sewed 4 blocks yesterday afternoon, only 5 to go then put the sashings on and send it off to be machine quilted. It's coming together really easily and I think it looks very effective. You can see the dark garden wall, and then the green foliage and pink and yellow flowers.

Farmer Phil is at a Controlled Traffic Workshop today, so hopefully I'll get the other 5 blocks made and put together.

You're thinking, what on earth is a Controlled Traffic Workshop?! No, he's not becoming a traffic cop!! It's a day where like minded farmers get together with the experts to see whether this farming system would suit their business. Controlled Traffic is a no-till farming system using machinery with wider axles and confining paddock traffic to permanent tracks using GPS. The experts believe that growers using this system have significant yield advantages in dry seasons and potentially stand to capitalise in average and good seasons through enhanced moisture retention, crops growing in uncompacted soils and machinery using less fuel whilst operating on hard permanent tracks.

It all makes sense, but there is the added complication of extra costs from having to either convert your existing machinery or buying new machines. We already use a no-till system, meaning we don't plough the paddocks 2 or 3 times before we actually sow them. Our seeding machine will sow straight into last years stubble and then leave that stubble on top of the ground to act as a mulch - just like everyone should use mulch in their garden to retain moisture. Farming is really just large scale gardening, just using bigger machinery!

Bill and Molly

Quite a few years ago I was making teddy bears like lots of other crafty people out there. Bill and Molly are my favourites. They sit together on their little shelf like an old married couple! They're only about 2-3inches tall when sitting. I think they're cute!

Tennis Court Construction

This is the scene at the front of our house today - Peter and his traxcavator (bulldozer) grading up a tennis court for us. We live on the crest of a hill, so making a flat area is a bit of a challenge! We'll have to let the dirt settle and then get a bobcat in to finish the surface off smoothly. We had a large pile of rocks near where the court is to go so Peter moved all of them and used them as fill for the bottom of the court. As you can see, Jack took a keen interest in proceedings!

Jenny the Jetsetting Qantas Air Hostess

When I was a girl back in the 70's my Aunty Shirley gave me a fashion doll which I'd never seen before - I'd only seen Barbie or Sindy. She was a gorgeous girl called "Jenny" who was promoted as being a Qantas air hostess. She wore an exact replica of Qantas' real uniform of the day which was an Emilio Pucci designed jersey shirt dress. She had other costumes for when she travelled around the world exploring - she went on an African safari, rode the waves in Hawaii, travelled to Japan and went skiing in the Swiss Alps!

I loved playing with Jenny and always wanted mum and dad to buy me Jenny's other outfits other than her air hostess uniform. I never received any other outfits, so a few years ago I discovered you could buy them on eBay. Well, I just had to fulfill my childhood dream, so here is Jenny in all her 1970's outfits.

I also discovered that Jenny is in fact the short haired version of the American girl "Dusty". Dusty was promoted as a "fashion-action" doll who loved to play sport. I have lots of Dusty dolls in her 1970's outfits too, so here are a few of my favourites from my collection. Don't you just love the flared trousers, boob tubes, halter neck tops and long skirts!

Anna Maria Horner

Finally the fabric arrived from the USA for the Garden Wall quilt I'm making as a wedding present. The fabric is lovelier in person than in any photo I've seen - such rich, juicy colours! I can't wait to get started on this project - maybe I'll start cutting today if I can get out of my pyjamas and do some housework first!

I also recieved Anna Maria's new book "Seams to Me" in the mail last week. It has some great projects which I'll just have to try!

Just Shows How Hot It's Been!

I received these photo's in an email titled "Just Shows How Hot It's Been"!

This is Australia...........................!!!!! Victoria has just suffered a record heat wave and a friend of a friend lives at Maude, NSW. His wife sent him these photos of a little Koala which just walked into the back porch looking for a bit of heat relief. She filled up a bucket and this is what happened!