You are a lamb, NOT a human!

Our lamb has been drinking us out of house and home. I never really stopped to think how much milk he was going to consume when we first got him, but let me tell you it's a LOT!! Thankfully he is old enough to be weaned, and our research (gotta love google) tells us that cold turkey is the way to go. Poor thing, not only is he an orphan, but he gets the milk ripped out from under him too. So far he has been coping OK though. We've made him a lovely grass cordial which we've been feeding him instead of the milk. Although he has access to water, we haven't seen him drink yet so want to make sure he keeps his fluids up. He seems to look forward to his feeds, regardless of what's in the bottle. He has taken to nibbling at various grass and weeds so we know he's not going to starve.

He will come and stand at the downstairs door and baa when it's time for a feed. If he see's me down there he pushes up against the glass door as if he can just force his way in. Once inside he'll have his bottle, then try his best to hide so he doesn't have to go out again. Just this morning he climbed the stairs and tried his best to be invisible. I coaxed him back down but it was an effort. Then he tried to play chasy around the room, until I grabbed him and basically forced him out. He reminds me of a cheeky toddler who doesn't want his nappy changed.

Yesterday when the other 8 sheep were up near the house, I took the lamb out for a walk in the paddocks. I took some old bread to feed to the sheep too.  We went right up to the grandpa of the flock and the lamb had a bit of a sniff at him. I walked down to the dam with all the sheep, but once the bread ran out, they stopped following. Of course, the obedient little lamb followed me though. I'd go left, he'd go left. I'd stop, he'd stop. The plan was to get him to feed on what little grass we have, and to join the flock and go live in the paddocks with them. He had other ideas! 

I left him in the paddock while I checked the letterbox, and heard him baaing to me. Once I  got back though, he'd gone and I dared to hope he'd gone off to find the other sheep. No such luck! I got back to the house and who was patiently waiting in the backyard for me? I'll give you one guess. Not sure how he found his way in, but he did! He's now got access to the front and back yards, and will not listen when I tell him he is a sheep and must go and live with his kind. I'm happy for him to live where he pleases, but he hasn't got enough food where he is, and no company. The cat is still scared of him and keeps his distance. 

Here's another few pics of the lamb, he's 3 weeks old here. He's actually getting to be a handful, he's a big boy now and isn't exactly gentle. I had a massive bruise on my thigh because he stood on me in his frenzy to be fed. He races up whenever it's feed time and nearly bowls me over. He also thinks he's an indoor pet, as I feed him downstairs. He is very reluctant to leave afterwards, I have to force him out the door. He remembers the old lounge chair he used to sleep on when he was a newborn and jumps up there and tries to settle in for a sleep. He's a pretty clean animal, if we could house train him, he could live downstairs! He's also adept at climbing up and down stairs too!

How I started stitching

I'm always interested in how others started their stitching journeys, so thought I'd share mine. I had always been somewhat creative and interested in crafts, but hadn't found my "thing". Anyway, I wound up hospitalised (for a total of 5 weeks!) when I was pregnant with DS #1 and the hospital had a trolley with various bits and pieces on it go around the wards. I bought a clown mobile kit to make from it and after I finished that my MIL brought me a teddy bear long stitch kit to do, which I completed in record time. Once DS was born and I was back in the real world, I bought a cheap and nasty stamped cross stitch kit. I can't even recall what the design was, just that you could not tell what colour went where as the lines were all over the place. In the end I tossed it.

From there I tried my hand at stitching a greeting card for my sister. I seem to recall the pattern came from a book, maybe from the library? It was an urn with flowers in it, and a small bird. Even back then I changed patterns to suit myself, as I decided to balance things up and add another bird on the other side, LOL. The rest, as they say, is history! Here's a pic of it, bottom row, middle card:

I can't really remember what the rest of the pictured designs are but I'll give it a shot. The top left one was another card for a baby in my mother's group. The design may have come from one of the UK magazines, Cross Stitch Crazy or Quick & Easy Cross Stitch maybe. The top middle design was for my step-grandmother and came from a book. The cat card (top right) was also for her, from a UK magazine again. The golfer one (bottom left) was for my dad, as was the bottom right seahorse design, both from a UK magazine.

We have a winner......

I'm surprised the "guess my cross stitch WIP" contest was won so quickly. Well done to Alex, who guessed my project was the Santa from the "Simply Red Ornaments" leaflet by Imaginating.  I'll email you shortly Alex.

I actually have 3 cross stitch projects on the go right now, very unlike me. I've started another EMS animal baby design for the bushfire fundraising quilt, I'm working on the Santa, and I've still got the welcome banner going, to go to the bushfire survivors.