just another day...

Hello lovely readers, I thought I would share a few photographs with you of a typical morning milking session for us. The photograph above is of the view from the grassy patch where we milk – all part of the beautiful farm we live on.

After 3 months of trial and error, our milking routine is pretty good – we milk after breakfast now:) Besides the fact that the early mornings are just way too cold to milk, Nancy and I just CANNOT work without something in our stomachs – neither can the rest of the family!

Now Nancy and I warm our backs while milking in the mild winter sunshine...it is bliss milking in such conditions...

I love being able to milk in the open.  Whenever a patch of grass gets too dirty, we move to another area of the field.  Molly is tied to a fence post to keep her from wandering and Nancy gives her some food while I do the hard work:)  Lol!  We are currently getting six litres of milk in the mornings and we leave one teat for Dude, the foster calf.

Izzie always comes with to milking – Nancy brings treats for her and does a mini training session with her while I’m busy.  Kisses...

Dude having his morning drink...Molly isn’t very kind to him since he doesn’t belong to her so we have to make sure she is secure and can’t get at him.

Dude is then picketed to a fence post to graze for the day.

He is really cute...too bad he’ll end up as meat one of these days:(

Molly is then taken to her field for the day to graze and to make lots more milk for us!

A job well done!

Dude currently has a friend. Snowdrop will be leaving the farm very soon, but until she does, Dude is very happy to have her as a companion.

Every three days I make butter – Molly isn’t a proper milk cow so she doesn’t give too much cream. However, we are more than grateful for the little she does give – it saves us money and is much healthier than store bought. Plus we are able to have whipped cream whenever we like.

Just over two years ago I knew nothing about milking and milk products. Now I know how to milk and how to make basic milk products like butter and kefir. Next step: learning how to make cheese...

Thank you Lord for the privilege of living here. I never thought we’d end up in such a gorgeous place and have our own cow, veggie patch and soon, chickens:)

Kelly-Anne

Pretty Purples Card with Tags

 

 

I had a delightful time putting together  this ‘pretty purples’ card for a lovely friend of ours who had a birthday last week

It really has been months since I last posted a card, although I have been making the odd one here and there.  The problem I have is just this...so many things I want/have to do, so little time to do them...I think I just have way too many hobbies!!

Here is the layout I used for my card – I designed the sketch myself on PowerPoint.

 

I had some simple but gorgeous purple paper left over from a card I made Rebekah for her birthday...I thought would work nicely for my design.

I added three tags to my card as well as plenty of ribbon.

I used four large pearls in each corner of the card and four tiny ones for around the stamped image.

The image I used is from Whiff of Joy – isn’t it too adorable?  I used brown distress ink to add some contrast to all the purple.

Finally I added a big white flower to the tags.

I would like to take part in the following challenges with my creation:

Stampin' for the Weekend - Tags

Crafty Creations Challenge - Tags

Divas by Design - Anything Goes

Papertake Weekly - All things Girlie

I hope you like my card – I shall to back soon with another one!

Kelly-Anne

Cold Snap

Brrrr...Friday morning our family woke up to an ice cold home! Looking out of the lounge window we could see snow sifted over the mountains nearby. What a beautiful sight...

It was incredible having snow so close to our farm, since we South Africans rarely experience such extreme cold.

My dad managed to snap a few photographs of the snow before the clouds covered the mountains.

The yellow-brown strip of land is part of our farm - as you can see, the snow wasn’t far off.

After these photographs were taken, the rain came again and the sky grew grey. We received bountiful showers of rain – thank you Jesus!

Although the rain is beautiful and the snow almost heavenly, I can’t say any of us enjoyed the cold – it was just about freezing outside and not much better inside. We kept the wood stove burning all day!

After lunch that day Mom, Nancy and I headed to town for some ‘retail therapy’. Nancy very sweetly treated me to a decadent waffle at our favourite ‘Fresh Bean Cafe’ and Mom had a coffee. After warming up in the heated cafe, we popped into the material shop and browsed through the gorgeous materials and fleeces. We also got a few things for Beth’s birthday from ‘Wool n’ Things’ – one of our favourite shops in Sedgefield!

Today we were so grateful for the sunshine:) What is the weather like where you live?

Kelly-Anne

Visiting {in Black and White}

This past Wednesday we finally got together with our sweet friends, Kaelah and Bethany. We live about 16km away from each other but each lead such busy lives that we rarely visit. Nevertheless, Kaelah and I managed, via email, to arrange a day that would suit us all .

Izzie came along to meet Kaelah’s Border Collie, Scamper. I can’t say the two of them ‘hit it off’ like we had had hoped:( Instead they stayed on their leads and we had a pretend dog show with Nancy and Bethany being the two very difficult-to-please judges.

Beth and Alanna, their younger sister, played beautifully together and at tea time we ate home baked scones made by me and drank yummy tea – thanks Kaelah!

I took a few snapshots of the day. I didn’t spend a long time planning, etc so they really are just ‘snapshots in black and white:)

Kaelah (left) and I at tea time.

On the trampoline...Bethany (left), Nancy (middle) and Anri (right) who popped in half way through the visit – it was good to see her again too.

Alanna cuddling Izzie.

Bethany.

Izzie found a chew toy to keep herself amused.

Please hop over to Kaelah’s (recently launched) blog for more photographs of our day together.

Have a wonderful weekend further!

Kelly-Anne

Emotion Photo Challenge @ Lucia Etc.

I am entering the above photograph of my three year old sister,Rebekah in Lucia's photo challenge for July - 'Emotion'.

Kelly

Sofia Eats Ice Cream, Laughs and Loves her Daddy

 

This morning our family headed down to the beach for a walk and to soak up some sunshine.  Afterwards the girls and I were treated to ice creams while Mom and Dad had coffee.  Sofia just had a few licks of her sisters' ice creams and smiled for more!

Sofia really loves to be out and about and is getting cuter by the day.  Already she has cut her first tooth and smiles at whoever takes the time to smile at her first.  This usually progresses to 'funny faces' and laughs.

Ahhh...babyhood is bliss...

The Life of Izzie: Part 4

Hello everyone, it's Izzie here again with another update on my life as a Jack Russell Terrier pup living on a farm with loads of people and animals.  You may notice this post is very late, but it is absolutely all Moms’ fault, not mine!

^ Aunt Rebekah and I playing in the field.  Just after this photo was taken, I jumped up onto her and knocked her to the ground, hoping for a game but all I got were screams and a rather flustered Mom who came to her sister’s rescue.  Sigh.  I really was hoping for a game...

^ Posing.

The family haven’t been up to very much lately, they’ve been very busy on the farm, hence the late post and so I’ve been doing things on my own quite a bit. However, Mom always does some sort of training with me each day otherwise I become completely out-of-control and misbehaved:( (I’ve mastered a number of tricks and now I’m on to learning how to dance on my hind legs!)

^ Winter is cuddle time!

About two weeks ago, the weather was so miserable and cold that everyone stayed cooped up inside with the fire going and I had to stay inside too, otherwise I think I would have frozen! My special spot was under the wood stove and that is pretty much where I stayed till Mom came to get me for a walk or to take me to bed. I love bedtime, when I snuggle up under Mom’s duvet and dream about warm days and things to chase.

^ I am so glad the weather has warmed up a little – I love sunshine!

But now I have happy days again that involve the morning milking session (I am allowed to come with and lend a paw in the mornings now!), chores done by the family while I sleep under the wood stove, followed by a short training session. Later I’ll go for a walk or play games with Mom in the garden. I usually get a bone to chew on while the family is busy with school etc.

Unfortunately I have had news from Mom that I am going to have an operation this month – I have to be sterilised and that involves a whole day without food!  I don’t really like the vet because each time I’ve gone there so far, it was to have an injection.  The cats went last month and they said it wasn’t too bad, but I’m not too sure...I’ll let you know though!

^ How do you like my pawtograph?

Before that happens though, my Mom and two of her sisters are going to visit friends of theirs in Sedgefield on Wednesday and they’re TAKING ME!! I have a play-date with Scamper, their family dog, who is a Border Collie! Be sure to check back soon for some photos of our fun together and to meet them now, visit their new blogs here and here!

Till then,

Izzie