We went lambing.....

....and it was amazing!  It was at the farm we went pond dipping at last year.

It was a clear, bright, freezing cold morning.  We arrived a little late, so Freddie and Betsy got a ride to the barn on the back of the quad bike while I got Meg up in a wrap on my back.

A lamb was being born as I reached the barn.

Here it is, a minute or two later, sitting in the sun with its brother or sister.  It was steaming when it emerged, coming from a warm wet place into the cold morning.  Poor little mite!

10 minute or so later, we watched the newborn getting up onto unsteady legs, to take its first few steps.

The farmer showed us the colostrum, and how yellow it is compared to milk.

Another ewe was started delivering while we were still watching the first one.  Annie the farmer assisted the ewe, as the lamb was stuck with legs and head in a tricky position.

When the lambs are out, Annie gives them a big swing, to help clear the fluid and mucus from their airways. There is nothing gentle about this!

Then Annie pulled the twin out.  The ewe didn't make a sound during the whole process - I had thought the lambing shed would be very noisy but it was not at all.

After this we went over to see the lambs that are being bottle fed.  There are 3 so far, each one the 'spare' lamb from a set of triplets.  They're in a pen, with a heat lamp in the corner.

One was very young, not even 24 hours old.  He couldn't suck from a bottle yet, but needed colostrum so Annie tube fed him.  Freddie poured the colostrum (from a local dairy herd) into the tube bottle.

Almost no mention of Betsy and Meg in this visit.  That's because they pretty much moaned the whole time we were there!  It was very cold, Meg wanted to get down, Betsy got a bit overwhelmed.  Oh well, hopefully they'll enjoy it more next year.....

A new quilting project

I've been sewing tonight.  After a break from the sewing machine and lots of evenings doing crochet or knitting, it's been lovely to sew again.

Craftsy are doing a free online quilting course, Block of the Month  
Each month you make two quilt blocks and by the end of the year you've made 20 odd blocks and quilted it.  Great idea!
I'm using fabric from my stash, though I did order some ruby red plain fabric to use too.


The first two blocks are 'sew and slash', quite quick and easy to make.  


Here is the asterisk block:

and the wonky hash tag:

I'm looking forward to the next two blocks!

Cold and muddy at the woods

We had a lovely trip to the woods today.  It was cold and sunny and quiet - in other words perfect!
There was falling in puddles, walking through the trees, and lunch in our favourite cafe. We saw bluebell leaves coming up, and the tops of very tall trees moving in the wind.   A happy day.

Land transport

We did a session on land transport at out home ed co-op yesterday.  All the families brought different things to do.


Freddie and Meg both enjoyed playing with the train set.

I brought a couple of big puzzles.

Jules did an activity on gradient and speed using wooden train track and Duplo bricks.

We took our big trucks, fire engines and ambulance.  The kids made crashes and rescues, and races.

One of the families made a bus, with bus timetables, bus stops and tickets to the village or the city.  Betsy and I loved this pretend bumpy ride to the village!  Another family brought a Big Track, straight out of the 1980s.


We also had some books to read, and digger stencils.  Betsy asked me to her a 'dot the dot'.  It was a lovely, relaxed afternoon with our friends.

Foraged fire

We spent a lovely afternoon at our friend's house.  Her garden backs onto a farmers field planted with small trees. The farmer lets them forage for wood, walk the dog and explore, so long as his land is respected.


So Zoe invited us over for a play, a walk and a fire.


Betsy really enjoyed hunting around for sticks.

We built the fire, and the kids found some bricks to make a fire pit.

Freddie tended the fire, he does enjoy it.

Playing with boats

I finished the top of my granny square cushion cover last night.  It's waiting to be stitched to a charity shop jumper to finish it off.  I used the leftover yarn from the granny stripe blanket.

Freddie was examining his feet this morning, and noticed one seemed to be larger than the other.    I suggested we draw around out feet and measure the outlines.

Sure enough, our left feet are smaller than our right feet.  Betsy and Meg declined to join in!

We went to the home ed co-op, the first time since mid-December (though we did go on the day out at the beginning of the month).  

We did some activities on boats today, as we're looking at transport this month.

A water table and some boats were set up in the kitchen.  The mop was used *a lot*!

Jules showed the kids how to make an origami boat.   I loved this.  I think we'll do another at home and see if we can waterproof the bottom with melted wax.

Bones and walks and cold

We went back to the monthly home ed group at the nature reserve today. We missed it in December. It was lovely to go again. The group meets at an old chalk pit that has been turned into wetlands and lakes. It's a beautiful place.

There is a purpose built wooden education building. Today there were lots of bones out for us to look at and hold.

Freddie worked on making a fire with some found wood.

It was very cold. We saw frost that looked like flowers, where the sun hadn't reached.

The light was luminous this afternoon.

The plan was to walk around the lakes. Freddie and Betsy are not great walkers. They're happy to scoot long distances, but scooters aren't allowed here. So we set off with the others. Pretty soon though we were lagging behind!

We didn't do the walk, just ambled for a while.

We saw a mouse hole. The little red and black bits outside the hole are the bits and bobs left over from mini mice meals. It's a mouse rubbish heap!

Meg enjoyed the view, looking at the ducks and swans on the water.

The dipping pond was frozen over. Freddie and Betsy tried to break the ice, but it was too thick. We spotted a little creature moving about in the water under the ice.

I noticed our shadows as we walked along so we took a photo. Meg was tootling about further along the path, so it's just the big kids and me.