Feather your Nest Friday, 27th November, 2020.

 Can you believe we have less than a month until Christmas?  If you are in the US I hope you had a very happy Thanksgiving.   Thinking over what we have to be thankful for is a beautiful holiday.

We have three days until it is officially Summer.   Summer is the hardest time on the farm.  We had a taste of the hot weather.  It is just a lot of work watering and looking after animals in the heat.   But in between I stay inside and this is when I get some sewing done and all kinds of odd jobs.  This week that included a lot of Christmas present wrapping and card writing. 

Thanks to encouragement from Jane I sewed the girls each a summer dress. 

I had this lovely light cotton fabric with Australian animals and birds and featuring Blue Wrens, my favourite.  I enjoyed sewing these so much.

I also made pillowcases for the girls.  Frozen themed.  There is no escaping Frozen or Rapunzel at the moment so if you can't beat them join them! 

Mum and I had a day trip to visit everyone and my sewing was a hit.   Mum and I had a lovely day. It was  busy with excited kids and baby Sidney who had grown, but lovely!

I made two large quiches and this used up 20 eggs!  

Each week it turns out I have enough eggs to share with family and then about five dozen spare.  Last week I used them to help someone.  This week I traded them.   I traded them for a caramel coloured Alpaca fleece!  It is huge, clean and beautifully soft!    I thought this was a good trade!

While Chloe was away having Thomas I took care of her animals.   She has Guinea Fowl, ducks, one goose, chickens...   One chicken was broody.  On the floor there were fresh Guinea Fowl eggs.   I used her long handled kitchen tongs (as to keep the skin on my hand) and removed the chicken eggs from under the hen.  There is no rooster so these were not going anywhere.   Then I placed twelve Guinea eggs under the chicken.  It seemed logical.  Well,  this week they hatched!! 

I didn't take photos yet but with instructions from Mel in the Tuesday Afternoon Club I made some scrunchies using some remnants.  They turned out really well.  Most of the girls in the family have really long hair so these will be good little gifts.

The garden is growing.  My big box raised garden bed is full of zucchini's.

A box of zucchinis!

All the work to fill the raised garden beds is paying off now. 

I have a lot of tomatoes.  They are doing pretty well.

I also have quite a few that have come up on their own and these have added to my numbers.  This year I have planted quite a few different varieties as a bit of an experiment.   

So it was a nice week!  I am ready for a bit of a break tomorrow.   But I have things pretty organised for Christmas and am happy about that.  One year Laine said to me how she did her wrapping really early.  Then in December she was not well.  She was so glad she did that wrapping ahead and now I think that if I get a chance then do it!  I will be glad later!  

Mum was doing the same.  But she hates wrapping.  So I went over and I wrapped and she wrote cards and slapped them on.  We conquered a big lot of gifts and covered the dining room table with them.  I think Mum was glad about that.

Thank you to everyone who has replies to Laine's Letters.  I am showing her the replies.  At the moment she has no computer. She has been writing the letters on her phone!   But next week she is getting a computer.   Also I have two more letters here already to publish.   This has added a lot of joy for me.  There are people who never fail to encourage and she is one of them.     We have all noticed and felt a lot of stress.  It is almost Christmas.   I am thinking lets add as much joy as we can.   I was packaging up some parcels to post.  I thought of Vicky.  One year a parcel arrived.  The posted brought it to the door (back in my city days!) and it was covered in pictures of Father Christmas.   The postie smiled.  It was beautiful.  Everyone who saw that parcel on its trip from Ohio to Adelaide would have smiled!    So now I am decorating my boxed up parcels just like Vicky.

I hope you had a good week. How did you build up your home, pantry, garden?  How did you add joy where it was needed?  I love to hear what you have been doing.  There is lots of beauty in the ordinary! xxx