Off The Grid And Loving It

  Grow plants for free by trimming off the tops and popping them in a container with a bit of water,  keep topped up and you will have a continual supply of fresh greens to hand.  When they get a bit bigger put them in a pot or straight into the garden and they will grow for you to harvest.  Add a bit of compost, a touch of fertilizer and your kitchen top garden will keep on going.   The plants above are beetroot, carrot, celery and chinese cabbage - try them all out and see how well they grow for you.  

  Really misty morning over the paddocks - not that the stock mind - they just carry on as usual no matter what the weather and food always takes precedence over looking :)

 Hay garden at the end of Summer Old drawers recycled into  lettuce beds The more sheltered area of the garden Herbs, potted plants and things ready to be planted out - broadleaf plant at the back is Arrowroot Hen "camping out" at the end of the garden

Wild and tangled vine that caught our attention Ever gone past something a few times and not seen the potential ? Suddenly spotted it in a different way ?  suddenly it wasn't just an artistic photograph just waiting to happen, suddenly it wasn't just a vine to trim but potential weaving material - know what I mean ? this has almost woven itself - how hard can it be ? Now I am no weaver - in fact the weaver in the family has taken a definite disinterest in my many hints !  How hard can it be ?  The vine has practically woven itself - all I need to do is to trim if off and loop it together - surely ?  Artistic, twining vine just begging to be made into something  Well apparently, it is not quite so easy as I thought it would be - after looping it this way and that my weaver disinterested party is now pretty interested to see how a non basket weaver will attack this wee problem and exactly how the finished product will look.  I can see him ...

These are the much cooler shorn sheep wondering what else is going to happen ! We went over to a fellow weavers to find out how to warp up a loom (properly !) and spotted two beautiful fleeces in the garage - mmmnnn ...... after a tour of the weavings inside her house and looking at  several Rya rugs she had made we could hardly wait to make  our own and the fleece was practically calling out to us.   We decided to use the fleece in the grease - that means without washing  and it is beautiful to use.  so far we have made a car seat head rest each and a cushion for a friend and one of the car seat head rests hasn't quite made it outside as it is on an office chair.  In fact I am using it right now as I type this :) Ecstatic to get this lot ! Fleece - we can hardly wait to get into this lot - going to be a mat, a car seat headrest and cushion  Airing in the sun and planning to weave this lot in rya, knotted weaving in the grease...