Seedlings - a risky business

About three weeks ago I finally was able to plant up all my pots etc since the weather finally realised it was summer.  I took all the seedling out of the greenhouse, including ones Alan, a friend of ours,  had given me, and planted up all the pots, and got all the veg seedlings (far less than usual, just beans, courgettes, pumpkins) into the vegetable patch.
Then, as you do, I watered and fussed over them and watched them grow.  Only one set gave me cause for concern - the Rudbeckia Alan had given me.  I expected fernlike leaves, but these were quite big and fleshy.  Perhaps they'll change as they grow I thought, and kept watching.  Time passed and I grew more suspicious.  "Do you think these look like cabbages?", I asked Jonathan, and he thought so too.  So I sent a picture to Alan.  Are these Rudbeckia Alan?

 

"No, he replied, "that's purple sprouting Brocolli."  Apparently I should have read what was written on the back of the label.....of course.....

Like when my friend found a carrot growing in her hanging basket!  Which reminded another friend of how, when they didn't have enough greenery for buttonholes, used carrot tops!!

All the ladies who came to make the lovely satchels with Clare Kingslake last week deserve an award - it was sooo hot out out there but they produced some lovely work:

Finally, Peter the Peacock stopped a night with us last week.  This is him in with the chickens in their high-security run:

He's not very easy to see and was gone again by morning.

Flying School

Went to Newbury today and inspected my mother's garden.  As the ladies at yesterday's workshop will know, she lopped off the heads of her campanulas and was very cross about it - "that strimmer has a life of it's own!".  She said she wished she had a scythe to cut the grass.  I suggested that at 85 a strimmer isn't that good an idea and a scythe is completely out of the question.
I thought her garden looked lovely though:

Lovely and cool on a hot summer's day.
When I got home I saw that flying school had started:

First, tentative flight to top of door:

short hop to shelves:

 

Mum and Dad show how it's done:

 

Cripes! That's enough for us! We're going back home:

Country Compass

Today was the last day of the three-part Country Compass Workshop with Lynne Johnson.  It's been a brilliant course, if somewhat challenging for some of us.  It was quilt-as-you-go, so, in theory, by the end of the course the quilt should be finished, except for perhaps the binding.
This is a picture of my spot in the workshop by the end of the day:

Hmmm.  A little way to go yet.

At Lorne Hill Farm we pride ourselves on being non-competitive, and obviously I was in no way competing with Anne

                                     












  and certainly not with Jackie

Yes - as you can see, all finished, with just the binding to do.
All I will say is, it's East Garston Fete this weekend,  and I'm going to produce the best cake and flower display the village has ever seen, and my single rose is going to blow the judges away, so, if anyone else from the village is planning on entering, Jackie for instance, you may as well give up now.

Also, Anne brought over the cushion she made on the Charm Pack weekend:

She and Sheila had the same idea.

Meanwhile, on the farm, we have erected security fencing around the hen houses - not very attractive but since the fox has eaten 13 of my lovely hens in the last two months (once just the head), we are not taking anymore chances.

We have also just finished hay making:

That was before, and this was during:

Also, the swallows have been busy and I was horrified to see what looked like a baby pterodactyl staring out of the nest at me.  Horror - I decided a cuckoo must have got at the nest and took a photo:

Well, on closer inspection of the photo I realised what it was:

Panic over!!