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Sunday 13 July 2008

STOAT TRAPS, WINE & QUILTING


What an incredibly beautiful, glorious day it's been today! Clear blue sky, a high of about 17degC, and beautiful sunshine. I love Auckland in mid-winter - especially on days like today when it forgets to be winter.

Went up to the Waitakere Ranges this morning to tend my trap line. Idiots have been at work, with the first 2 traps missing completely, trap 3 sprung with a beer bottle, and traps 4, 5, 6 also sprung. Traps 12 and 13 both had dead rats - one dating from around 22 June (yuk - not much left of that one), and one within the last 24 hours - still blood on the kill-plate, and rigor mortis.

The dogs love running down the hill at top speed, racing me on my pushbike, and then the slow walk back up from the dam to the top of the ridge.
Disguised all the traps with ferns and stuff to stop nasty Homo Sapiens from messing with them. We've had 2 Hihi mistake them for nestboxes, which was the original reason for the disguise, but I think H.S. are more of a menace!
Came home and did more tidying in my craftroom - order is starting to rise from the chaos - labelmakers rock!
Wine, Whine, Wine
Transferred my Persimmon wine from the 30-odd litre barrel to demijohns - whew - just the smell of the alcohol content could knock you over. Filled one up too high, and once the pressure built up, it blew out through the airlock - messy!
The Rice & Raisin has stopped fermenting, and gone out to the cold garage, but the 2 DJ's of mead are still going.
QUILTING
Sewing Class at Newson's yesterday, with another new block, and a whole heap of techniques we're supposed to learn before we get our next "challenge pack".
Talking of challenge packs, I'm starting to veer towards either a carry bag, or maybe something like a rubbish bin cover.
Wendy & I visited Jillianz Patchwork & Quilting centre afterwards - they've got a Nolting Long Arm Quilting machine, that uses a pantograph and a red laser light to read the pattern, while Jill drives the machine by hand - very impressive.
They had a really cool "Farmyard" quilt they were free-motion quilting - that gave me a few ideas for the bloody challenge.
I've signed up for a Mermaid Quilt class - hopefully I can source most of the fabrics from my stash, and not have to buy too many. Ku, the lady running the class, has a beautiful "Maori Legends" series of quilts, and this class teaches the techniques she uses in them.

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