Harvest On Hold

Well, after such a good start last week, harvest has been on hold for quite a few days now.  Even if it's been sunny the corn is either too wet or not ready - and a drizzley day like today is no help at all.

This is a video of the boys working last Friday - harvesting the Barley.  My friend Colin, whose company is Cobi, made it with his drone. 

 

 

I think it's great - he did a lovely video of my daughter's wedding the other year, too.  Might cause problems when I do Blog to Print at the end of the year though!

Murder and Iced Coffee

So, Ros announced at Pitch and Stitch this morning that she is going on a knitting week in Shetland, which obviously led to our in depth discussion on how all 12 knitters could be bumped off, one after the other, 10 Little Indian Style.  Most popular were being garrotted by a skein of wool, obvious techniques with knitting needles, and then Jackie moved over to the dark side with a particularly horrible act which I won't repeat here.

Anyway, because we'd all got a bit hot under the colour, the topic of cool drinks came up and they all started moaning that I hadn't made any Iced Coffee this year, although I have, but it all gets drunk as soon as I make it.  Sandra said I really should put the 'recipe' on the blog, because she wants to make it, so here it is:

  Lorne Hill Farm Iced Coffee
 

Put a little hot water into the processor and about 12 heaped teaspoons of (good) instant coffee and 10 heaped teaspoons of sugar and give it a whizz:

Add about 4 ice cubes to cool it down and give it a whizz:

Top it up with Milk (you will probably have to add more when the bubbles have gone down) and give it a whizz:

and be sure to use

and then finally add a couple of dollops of ice cream (clotted cream ice cream is particularly good)

And that's it!  Simple!

Obviously this is extremely unhealthy so drink sparingly......actually, perhaps serving gallons of this would be another way to bump off one of those knitters........

And We're On!

That's what they say when the combine rolls out of the yard and out to the fields.  Harvest started on Friday, and the boys were out all that day and yesterday.  Today was one of those days when it looked like it could rain, but maybe it wouldn't.  This means Jonathan and George are kicking their heels around the house, not being able to decide whether or not to get on.....very frustrating,  but they have now decided that they are, in fact, on.

I'm trying to make my garden look great - it doesn't, but some bits are quite good.  The Tomatillos a friend from work gave me are really fascinating:

 

Can't wait to see how they open and then make green salsa from them.  I thought they looked like the Chinese Lanterns which are so pretty, and it seems they are from the same family.

The tomatoes I was given by Italian Maria have turned out to be plum tomatoes, which I've never grown before, so that's quite interesting too

I also rather like this plant:

 

which is Laurentia Astro and this, which is  a Night Sky Petunia

 

but I'm afraid the rest of the garden is very unspectacular.  Unbelievably I was able to pick enough beans for dinner yesterday but the plants actually look like dwarf plants - and my Sweet Peas are still less than a foot tall!  Oh well.....

 

We had a really good machine quilting class with Lynne on Wednesday - I actually managed to do it, although in a rather jerky fashion!

 

Still, more than I've ever done before!

And Sheila managed to sign her practise piece!

 

Last Day for our French Visitor

It's Corentin's last day today and I think we will really miss him when he goes tomorrow - certainly I will; he's the only one who speaks to me in this house!

Anyway, we had our final outing yesterday, and thoroughly enjoyed Segwaying through Bracknell Forest - great fun!

We've had such fun going out on trips at the weekend.  I loved going to Stonehenge, where I haven't been since I was a girl when we would nip up there for a picnic and climb all over the stones.  George didn't really believe me until we went into the exhibition and there were pictures of people doing just that!

The weather hasn't been great but we've been able to have a bar-be-cue most weekends

Anyway, since he's off tomorrow Jonathan and I drove him all around the periphery of the farm;  it's been a while since we've done that and I quite enjoyed it.  We drove past the fields of Rape, Spring Barley, Oats and Wheat:

 

None of it ready for harvest yet.

When we passed this Blackberry bush I started thinking about jam making and vividly imagined the tastes, smells and feeling of Autumn which I really love but then pulled myself back sharpish because we haven't had much of a summer yet!

Anyway, it was a nice Sunday morning drive.

Two success stories from the workshop last week - both Denise and Sue finished their quilts!

Lynne was very impressed with Sue's because she had managed to add a Quilt as you Go border - no mean feat!

And she had carefully planned the back so there was a pattern there too:

Denise's went a bit wrong in the workshop (girl after my own heart), but she managed to put it right and is really pleased with the final result:

 

Very beautiful indeed!!

Sew, Sew, Unpick, Unpick

Unbelievable!
Every single step of the way with my Medallion Quilt, it's been two steps forward and one back.

I had really started to fly with this border - 2nd or so from the last I think - and decided to lay it out before sewing it together:

Looking pretty good, I thought, and turned to get some more of the squares I'd pieced.

Here we go:

Hold on a mo - these have got borders, and all the others I've put together haven't

 

Time to start unpicking.......again!

And, just because we were pretty excited about it, here's a picture of a Garden Tiger Moth we came across the other day:

 

Very striking - and when it opened it's wings the inside wings were bright red!

Mares Tails

I was just doing some gardening and happened to look up (no - I was not lying on my back, sunbathing) and saw these amazing clouds:

Really beautiful.  I looked them up and they are Cirrus Clouds - or Mares Tails, made of ice particles which probably explains the little rainbow in the corner of the photo below:

Apparently they could signal rain in the next three to five days - pity.

And while I had my camera out I thought I'd take a quick snap of our single little chick which hatched yesterday - Mum's being good now but she wasn't a patient sitter and sadly broke the other 4 eggs

Better get back to gardening now.....

Where is the Time Going?

I just had a lovely walk in the sunshine picking the last of the elderflowers for a final batch of Elderflower Cordial

 

I know where the cordial goes (it's been drunk practically as fast as I make it) but where does the time go?  We're well into July already and I can hardly believe it.

A lot of my time goes into making stuff - and this bobbin pin cushion I made last week made everyone laugh:

Everyone liked it so much that we thought it would be a fun workshop to hold later this year.  I got in touch with Bobbin Patch, which is where I bought the kit, and they've said they would be happy for us to do it so keep an eye out for our new schedule!

At the Lynne Johnson day last week Jan brought her finished Medallion Quilt to show us

Very inspiring!  Lynne said that if I didn't spend my time making giant pin cushions and robins I would have finished mine by now!  And she also showed us the quilt she made her daughter from T shirts of shows she's either appeared in or loved watching

At Pitch and Stitch this morning Anthea was working on the Twilight Silhouettes hanging she started at a Gail Lawther Workshop

and Sally has finished the stunning quilt she's made for her son - a beautiful example of foundation piecing.

So everyone's been very busy!

We are enjoying having Corentin here for work experience and have found he's an excellent excuse for a day out!  We had a lovely daytrip to London last week.  We saw lots of sights, walked along the Thames - although because the tide was in there were a few problems

watched the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace

and enjoyed a delicious Italian lunch in Covent Garden - where I was very impressed with their flower displays

and Corentin was very excited to see that the crates were from near where he lives in France!

Oh, and by the way, if for no other reason you should come to the workshop for the chat - you would not believe what they get up to in Witney these days!!