I made this quilt from the line Hideaway for Moda by Lauren and Jessi Jung.  When I first saw these prints, I new they would make a perfect quilt for Baby M.  The colors are so bright and true, just like he is!  Also, there is something so simple and perfect about a patchwork-square quilt.  Every child really needs at least one.  You can read more about this quilt in the original post I wrote back in January.  Since then, it has really become our go-to quilt for snuggling under on the couch at the end of a long day.  It is a great lap quilt, measuring about 48″ by 60″.

I hope you enjoy the many quilts, I know I can’t wait to see what everyone else is making!  Thanks for stopping by!

 I did some major fabric purchasing right after the New Year, and since then, I have been trying to be good and not get anything more. But this fabric called Summersville by Lu Summers was way to good to pass up.  I had been admiring her hand-printed pieces in her Etsy shop for quite some time, and when I heard she was making a line for Moda, I knew I had to get some.  Fabric.com had a great sale a few weeks ago, so I picked up three different one yard cuts along with some fabric to make Miss C a couple of pillow cases.

The fabric finally came today and I opened the package and promptly threw the fabric in the washer and dryer.  I had been dying to use this particular fabric with Miss C.  She LOVES coloring and has became quite good at it.  We broke out some sharpies and went to town. It was great fun.  We only had a few bright colors, and they were thick-tipped markers, so tomorrow we will be picking up more.  I can see this being such a hit with kids, wouldn’t it be great at a party!  Someone on Flickr suggested ironing freezer paper to the back of the fabric before coloring it, so we will try that tomorrow.  I see so many possibilities for this line, I will be placing another order this weekend, this is going to become a huge staple in my house.

I have also made a few gifts for friends lately as well as clothes for Miss C and I finished my Katie Jump Rope granny square quilt top.  I hope to get some time on Mother’s Day to piece the back and then baste it.  My plan is to hand quilt it and have it ready for the Woodstock Fair over Labor Day weekend.  Should be doable!

**  We did lots more coloring today, take a peek (ironing freezer paper on the back worked great for this)!

Our big producer this time of year is asparagus.  We get a bundle like this every couple days.

We had a campfire at the end of the day and cooked everything outside — our own pork chops, fresh lettuce from the garden and pie-iron pies for dessert.

And what campfire would be complete without some roasted marshmallows.  It was the perfect day to spend outside.

So far, I have made her two new skirts, two “up-cycled skirts”, and three pairs of short-pants as we like to call them here.  I have been going through everyone’s drawers and closets performing my twice-a-year seasonal/too small clothing swap.  Big J seems to be fine, as does Babay M, considering I still have all of his big brother’s clothes as hand-me-downs, but the Miss is in need of some more attire.

Before I head to the store for a few basics, I want to try to make as much as I can.  What she mostly needs are t-shirts and a few more cotton-jersey shorts.  Also, a few nightgowns.  It is just so easy to make clothes for her at this age and with my serger, I really have no excuses.  Hopefully by the end of the weekend I will have knocked out at least three shirts and one nightgown to add to what I have already made.  She still has tons of shirred sundresses from last year that still fit, thankfully.  I think I will also likely make Baby M a few more pairs of pants, he lives in the three pictured below, I think he looks so adorable when wearing them.  Also, I doubt I will make anything for Big J this week, but maybe he and I can do some printing on t-shirts for the summer.

Our pond last year, April 2011

Our pond this year, April 2012

At least the ducks and the geese still have enough water to swim around in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CCGQmPPZf0

Our fruit trees are also a little bit sadder this spring, though not terrible.  They were overflowing last year and are must less numerous this year.  Compare these shots.

Spring blossoms last year, April 2011

Spring blossoms this year, April 2012

Lastly, we’ve don’t’ have any baby lambs yet. It could be that we had an inexperienced ram, but we’re still hopeful for baby lambs before the weather gets too hot.

Baby lamb from April 2011

As soon as we have baby lambs (if we have baby lambs), we’ll post here.

If you like this year-on-year comparison, check out these others:

• Pond comparison (January 2012)
• A very wet summer (August 2011)

Today was the opposite!  We have a number of large spring cleaning projects we will be tackling in the coming weeks, the most pressing of which was the barn.  For some reason, our animals were not big fans of their hay this year, and more than the normal amount ended up on the floor of the barn.  We think we have figured out the problem and next year we should be fine, but it made the barn clean out extra labor intensive.  Thank goodness Mike is a master on the tractor.  In the short video below you can see the technique he mastered.  He would push the waste materials forward, then drag them backwards to break them up before lifting them and taking them to our compost heap. Looks like we will have more than enough fertilizer for the garden next year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNROa1vBIT8

We got 12 Rhode Island Red pullets (all females) and 4 Buff Orpingtons in a straight-run of both males and females.

The Reds are exceptionally good layers and are very tolerant of New England winters.  The Orpingtons are one of our favorite breeds, but slow and friendly and thus susceptible to local predators.  We got a straight-run because we hope to get some roosters out of the mix.

For the next week or so, we’ve set them up on a storage container in the house.  We’ve move them outside when they outgrow this space, which won’t be too long.

These guys are all for egg laying or roosters.  Our meat birds will be coming later.

Normally the month of February feels never ending and I can’t wait to get to March.  March is already more than half over and I don’t even know where the past few months have gone.  Time is flying by at warp speed, which is mostly a good thing, but not always.  We have been doing our best to keep up with everything on the farm, in the house, and with the kids.  At the end of the day we prioritize spending time with those that we love, so, stuff has been piling up.  We are now in the midst of a major rush to get many things crossed off of our to do list.  Here are a few of the things we have been up to.

This morning I made a MAJOR trip to the Post Office.  I sent our cow pelt to CA and a sheep pelt (not ours, but it was going to be tossed by our butcher and it was VERY soft) to PA to be tanned.  I also mailed two baby quilts off to friends from graduate school.  Additionally, I FINALLY mailed out my three Pay-It-Forward bundles.  You can check out what they included here, or not, if you want to be surprised

The weather has been amazing and we have some major garden and fencing tasks to tackle.  In addition to our 50′ x 100′ garden in the back, we are putting in a few smaller beds in the front for things like lettuce and root crops.  I need to have closer access to things that need very regular weeding and watering.  The big garden will be for big crops like potatoes, tomatoes, corn, and squash.  Mike is de-rocking and prepping to till.  He added a new gate to the garden and fixed the fencing.

Additionally, we have decided to put up some more fencing in the back.  Our sheep have complete free range of our “back yard”.  This has worked fine as they keep the grass mowed and have been really polite.  But our flock is getting bigger, plus Baby M likes to wander, so we are putting up some gates and fences that will keep the sheep contained and out of our “back yard” and also make it so M can’t wander to the pond.  The poultry will still have free access to everything, but they are not a problem.  Speaking of poultry, our entire flock of seven guineas went missing one day.  We had been lax about closing the coop up but then were finding broken eggs in the morning so were being very diligent about closing it.  About a week into doing this, the guineas went missing.  I hate it when you try to fix a problem and end up causing another one.  We also hope to get an incubator this year so we can replenish our flock.

This weekend our sheep will get shorn and we will vaccinate the ewes in prep for lambing, which should be in a few weeks.  This is our ram’s first breeding season so we hope he has done his job well.  We will know better after tomorrow when we can see their bellies.

The weather has been incredible, we never really had a winter and this week it is supposed to hit 80F!  The kids and I have been enjoying having picnics on the front and playing in the sunshine.  We also started a bunch of seeds this week, mainly cool weather crops, in our grow tunnel.

Finally, last weekend we celebrated our anniversary with a homemade fondue extravaganza.  It was pretty amazing, we followed Alton Brown’s cheese fondue recipe and had an assortment of veggies and bread.  We also had a broth pot and dipped cooked seafood into it to warm them up.  We finished it of  with a round of chocolate fondue.  We made biscotti and sponge cake and had tons of fresh fruit.  It was wonderful

We hope life is busy and happy wherever you are!