Meeting the locals!

Today I got to see my first wild Koala crossing the road almost right out the front of our farm! Now, as a 'former' wildlife ecologist, I have seen many wonderful native creatures, but the koala has always eluded me, so to see one so close (and also so close to home) is very exciting indeed! I will now have to keep a look out for them, and maybe we will go for a walk down one of the tracks nearby where I know there are many old eucalypts. Its also exciting because one day, when the eucalypts we have planted on our farm grow up, we could have the koalas at our place too (that is if they can survive the logging, cars and other threats in the mean time....)

The start of something good

Here we have the first few raspberries off our plants. Its only early days and last year we easily picked a kilogram of berries in one sitting. They are so easy to grow and so productive I find it incredible that they can be so expensive in the supermarket. We will probably eat many fresh, but also make our jam. Last year we made about 3 kg of jam, which has lasted us the year as well as having a few jars to give away as gifts.

The title of this post is also in reference to our very recent election! YAY! We are pleased to see our old governement out, and hopefully we can have SOME hope of better things to come.

No knitting or spinning news. Still working away on Brad's sock, and I've abandoned the jumper for our little one, since I'm not happy with the armhole shaping, and have had to rip it out once already. So I will probably just improvise on that. Photos once I have the back finished.

Wet

Well, suddenly the weather has changed from mild nice days to constant rain, with an icy wind. We had about 50ml of rain! It'll be a nice good drink for all my trees hopefully it will see them through what is likely to be long hard summer. Hopefully not too long and hot, but I guess we will just have to wait and see. My poor goats were quite taken back by the sudden change, and were shivering today, poor little things. I wish it would be so simple as to just bring them inside...

The little one is walking and running now too, with quite a lot of confidence. Rarely crawls at all. Her latest thing is to carry bags and other things with straps she can get over her neck. Here is a picture of her with my handbag, and her precious wombat toy. She LOVES wombats, I'm a little worried about once she gets more mobile, that she will try and visit them in their burrows, but we will figure that out once we get to it....


Not much knitting happening, but I've been doing lots of spinning as well as lots of fibre preperations. I've had bits of different fleeces lying around the house for many months, so its nice to put them through the drum carder, ready for spinning. Here is some mohair fleece I have spun,

and the final result the first 200g or so of mohair, plyed and ready for washing. I'm planning on dyeing this as mohair takes dye really well. It will probably become a christmas gift for someone.