When the weather gives you spring...

We've had basically no snow this winter, and lately the temperature has been getting above freezing during the sunny daytimes. It feels like spring, but it is still January. My husband said the other day, well, if the weather is acting like spring, then we should act like spring, and start working on our normal spring-time chores and property fixups.

We walked around, and decided where the next side of the yard fence would go, to keep the dogs a bit better contained (hard to stop the disgusting poo-eating behavior when you can't see them, ahem), and to better define the distinction between maintained yard/orchard/future pasture.

One of our goals this year is to get the rest of the yard fenced, so we have a safer place for the dogs to be, and a safer place for the kids to be, requiring a little less parent supervision. This way we are hoping that the dogs and kids (and thus us!) can be outside a lot more, but in a more contained space. That was part of the idea behind having the new side garden, and the playstructure right there, so that we could be close enough, but each be doing our own thing if desired.

As you can see from the pictures (taken at dawn as the moon set and the sun rays then started to hit the mountains to our west), there really isn't much snow! It might be a bad year for the river levels, and for wildfires, if we don't get any significant snow in the next couple of months. And this canadian expat is seriously jonesing for some white blanketed views!

I think this is going to be one of those 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade' times, and the mister was already out earlier this week doing some pick up of leftover logs/boards from the side garden fencing we did last spring, and used them to keep working on burning the stumps out of the bottom of the yard. There is always work to be done, and if winter snow isn't going to force the work to stop, then I guess we had better make use of this time, who knows what weather the next months will hold!

My Herb and Flower Area - Part Four

So, at long last, here are the after pictures of my new flower and herb area. I'm loving this long expanse even now, when there is a dusting of snow over the healthy layer of leaves I used to tuck the plants and bulbs in for the winter. (Missed earlier posts in this series? Here are parts one, two, and three.)

Once I got my husband to help with the back breaking work of using the pick axe and shovel to break up the stoney, quack grass filled soil, it was fairly straight forward to pick out most of the rocks and weeds, mix in some pig manure, and transplant the herbs and bulbs from the various areas around the property that they were growing at before.

It was a several week process, done in bits and spurts when we had some free time with either sleeping or cooperative kiddos.

But I was pretty motivated to get it done, so we cranked away at it and it was done before the first snowfall. When I was planning it out on paper, I wasn't sure we had enough time to really get it in this fall, and thought it might be a project that needed to wait until next spring and fall, but I'm pretty happy we got it done. It means that much more space in the lower garden for growing veggies next summer, and the herbs will be so much closer to the house in this area. Not to mention the flower viewing will be much more appreciated in this spot, near the chicken coop, where we are a lot more frequently than down in the lower garden.

My Herb and Flower Area - Part Three

Missed earlier posts in this series? Catch up with part one or part two.

So the new area was born once I realized that we would be expanding the side garden again next spring into part of the past summer's pig area, and once I realized that the new herb area I set up in the side garden this past spring was really not large enough even for the plants presently in it. Looking at the space we would be expanding in to, I realized that for at least the next few years, there and potentially longer, there could be a slice of space between the garden and the chicken/orchard area that could definitely be a permanent flower and herb bed.

 After scoping the area out, I started making a list of all of the plants I would like to put in there. First I listed all of the plants, both flowers and herbs, currently in the lower garden. Then I included the additional ones in the side garden that weren't just duplicate herbs. Next I thought about what other plants from around the property could or should get moved in. I came up with a few that may get moved in as well as all of the bulbs and herbs you've seen from the past posts that are in the gardens currently.

I also added some new herbs/flowers to my list that I would like to try in future years: echinacea, bee balm, lemon grass, mint. Some of these are on the list to add for next spring, some are likely further down the road, and some likely will end up elsewhere than in this bed, but they were all added so that I had a list of what I might like to fit into the new bed.

Once I had a list of all of the plants I might want to put in this new bed, I did some sketching. I went back through my old pictures of the plants throughout the last couple of gardening seasons, and wrote notes about the timing of the flowers on the herbs and bulbs, how tall the plants were, how big they got, etc. This sort of information helped me decide where each plant would go, and what other plants would look good near it. My ultimate goal was to have a bed that looked good throughout the summer, not just at certain time periods. Thus I wanted to have the flowers intermixed so that the early ones weren't all clumped together, etc. I also looked at the plants in terms of splitting some of them, specifically some of the flowers, so that I had more of some of the daffodil and iris clumps if they were getting larger, especially some of the ones we like the best.

Then I measured the bed, measured some of the spacing that was and wasn't working in the existing gardens, and I sketched some more. Finally I came up with a plan of what would go where. Then I needed to wait until the pigs were gone so I could turn this grassy space into garden - ripping all of the grass and weeds out, adding some pig manure, and transplanting lots and lots of plants.

In the next and final part of this series I'll share the after pictures, of what the plan on paper translated into on the ground! I know I promised pictures this time of the finished product, but I thought a bit more explanation of the process I went through in deciding what went where was in order first!

My herb and flower area - part two

Once we had the new side garden area in the works this spring, I decided to take some of the overflow from the main garden's herbs and use some of the area in the spacious but potentially weedy and underwatered new side garden to expand our herbs. Some plants, like the Dill and Cilantro, really were only planted in this area this year. Others, like the Oregano, Chives, and Garlic Chives, were broken off of their clump in the lower garden and moved up. My theory was duplicates have twice the chance of surviving! Partly the new area was a test, to see how well those plants would do in the new area with minimal watering and care. And partly, it was to get those much used herbs closer to the house! How convenient to pop down to pick up a couple eggs and be able to also grab some herbs for the next meal on the table, creating a one-stop-shop sort of experience

The area filled in really nicely, and was looking really great even after the weeks of neglect both gardens received around Baby E's birth.

However as the end of the summer approached, the situation was looking a wee bit overgrown. Again I had failed to give each plant the space it really needed to have enough space as it got big. I seem to plant everything so it looks nicely filled in about half way through the growing season. Which works fine when I can pull some of the plants part way through, but not when each plant is important like this area! Below you can see dill flowering and going to seed, oregano flowering in the back, kale and parsley competing for space with lavender and cilantro, and both common and garlic chives feeling out-competed! Yup, it was a mess, and add in the weeds that I never really got around to dealing with in the side garden this year, and if it hadn't of actually produced a heck of a lot of dill seeds (among other small harvests of kale and parsley and chive flowers), I would have written it off as a disaster!

Instead I'm considering it lesson learned, and thus decided that a new herb and flower area in the soon-to-be expanded side garden area is in order. The pigs did a great job tilling the area up, and we're essentially doubling the side garden next year, with the lower half being planned for pigs again. Next up is a late fall look at the new area - transplanted plants and everything!

Missed a post of the herb and flower area series? Read part one here.

My Herb & Flower Area - Part One

The first spring we lived in this house, we were surprised and excited to discover spring flowers emerging from bulbs in a neglected weedy bed by the carport. First daffodils, then tulips emerged and bloomed, adding some cheer to our front area.

When we had moved in, it was mid summer, and we assumed that the bed had been used for something in the past, but it was filled with dried up weeds and grass, so we didn't think it had anything else in it. For 2010 and 2011, we tried to water the bulbs occasionally, but they didn't really get much attention otherwise, although we tried adding some more tulips and daffodils one fall from cheap on-sale bulbs from the grocery store.

Then the year before last, in late fall when my best friend from back home was visiting, we dug all the bulbs we could find from that neglected bed and put them in the end of the lower garden, right beside the gate. At first it was more for safe keeping until I could come up with a better spot where they would get the water and weeding they deserved and needed to flourish, but quickly it became more than just that with the addition of more bulbs from the rental as it finally sold the next spring, and the area started filling in with flowers.

spring 2012

Then the area started to transition into what it still is today with the addition of herbs. I grew my own herbs from seeds, which transitioned the area from the temporary flower spot to the herb area. The garlic chives that overwintered from the year before got moved from their row to a discrete clump - unintentionally being the first herbs of the spot. How I ended up with those seeds I have no idea, but for whatever reason I threw them in the ground the spring before and they grew, then overwintered, and that clump has since started so many more by seed around the garden that I've gone past giving them away, as everyone who wants them now has them, and I pull them as weeds!

spring 2012

The rest of the herbs have since flourished through the last couple summers and the close of this gardening season has brought about my realization that this spot is not big enough for even the ones we have, let alone room for more that I'm planning for next spring.

mid-summer 2012

fall 2012

spring 2013

early summer 2013

mid summer 2013

late summer 2013

As you can see, I vastly mis-judged the amount of space each plant would need - and some of the smaller (shorter) plants have been totally overgrown by the taller herbs. More space for each plant is definitely needed for them to grow!

Stay tuned for part two, an update and tale about the herb area in the new side garden area we started this past spring. Part three will involve a sneak peak at the newest garden area we are currently working on, and might include pictures of a new herb & flower bed over there!

On future goals and things to learn

I started this post near the end of last month, before the craziness of September hit, and then never had time to come back to it and publish it. However, looking back at what I drafted up, I'm finding it amazing to see what progress I've already made towards these future goals I almost shared! I inserted my progress in bold italics...

I'm slowly surfacing from new-baby-itis, and I'm realizing that since back in January I didn't really set goals for the year other than having a healthy baby, I'm starting to feel a bit aimless. Now let me assure you that my number one goal this year is still to have a healthy baby - that doesn't stop just because she's out in the world. Oh no, I'm still breastfeeding her like crazy, and we won't be starting to introduce solids until she's good and ready (whenever she decides that is). So really, for the rest of the next year plus, I'll still be primarily focused on keeping myself well watered, de-stressed, and eating as healthy as I can manage in order to keep her as topped up on breastmilk as I can.

But I'm starting to feel a bit restless, which generally means I need to define my future a bit more clearly for myself. Some things I'm thinking of putting on my learning goals list in the near future include:

• making our own vanilla (I happen to know a great recipe book with this in it is hidden somewhere in the house for my upcoming birthday!)
• making soap
• looking into essential oils, maybe buying a first one or two - peppermint? lavender? (I'm hoping next month to get an intro pack of 3 doterra oils - peppermint lavender and lemon) 
• making and freezing/canning? our own chicken stock
• sourdough. I wanna bake bread with it - thus my own starter is needed... need to learn more!
• ferments? not sure about this one, still don't know enough to feel comfortable
• brewing my own beer now that I'm not pregnant!
• decide on a chicken breed or 2 to stick with from the seven we have currently... and decide whether to add to the flock this coming year or try to hatch our own - need a rooster first for that though! (We brought home a free americauna cross rooster last week, he's young still, and apparently pretty shy, but we'll see how that goes over the winter and then perhaps settle on Speckled Sussex if he doesn't work out) 
• getting back on the cloth diaper bandwagon I've not yet got started on with baby #2 - every time I put her in them she has a crazy blowout poop. totally coincidence, but not making my life easier! (I determined that the problem is our old ones have shot elastics, and the inserts needed to be replaced, something about using them solid for almost 3 years with Little M! I've started to order replacements, 5 should be coming in the mail later this week, and I'll slowly build my stash back up!)

Other future plans I need to think more about in my free time (usually when I'm walking the baby getting her to sleep, or nursing her at night)

• setting some (easy) rowing goals
• doing a better job recording our garden harvests for planning for next year - for example 22.5 & 6.5 lbs of potatoes needs to be written down somewhere or I'll forget come next spring let alone next fall! (I've started developing a spreadsheet that I'll print and put in my home notebook once it's finished, with columns for seeds sown, amount eaten & preserved, etc)
• figuring out a plan for next spring's most likely outside big chore - in-ground irrigation and some grass seed, plus figuring out the ideal fence location on the east side of the inner yard.

Well, there you have it, some plans and dreams for the future year. Hopefully this will give me some guidance on lonely evenings and quiet days for what to research and think about! Nothing like setting goals to get me motivated :)

Electric fencing for the pigs

So late last week (right about when Little M was at her crankiest due to the virus she had over the weekend!), we finished the electric fencing for this year's butcher pigs. Really my husband finished it, since I was inside with the kiddo's :) He did most of the work on the fencing, I was mostly supervisor, kid wrangler, leveler, and occasionally dirt pounder around the fence posts.

the pig enclosure goes from the pig shelter to the right, down the line of fence posts, across the bottom, and back up the left side, with the new side garden area (with the peas and hay bales) being excluded. It is about 60x90, minus the garden area.

yup, this post hole is deep enough guys!

My husband cut the posts for the perimeter himself from trees on our property, and built the charger cover from scrap wood we had in the garage, so all we had to purchase were the electric fence components (wire, charger, grounding rod & clamp, fence-post wire insulators for t-posts and wood posts, and end/corner donut insulators, and extension cords), so the whole project came in within our fairly limited budget. We initially were looking at a solar charger for the fence, but after reading and hearing some mixed reviews about the one we were looking at and it's ability to keep animals in, we decided to go with a plug-in charger that could also be used down the road for larger animals over a larger area. This meant running 150 feet of extension cord from the house down to the pig area, but we figured that the line loss would be fairly low, and that compared to the reported lower strength of the solar charger, the plug-in one would be our best bet both for the pigs now, and for other animals in the future.

The fence wire might not be the prettiest, which was to be expected as it was our first time working with electric fencing, but it is totally functional and is working great to keep the pigs where they are supposed to be. They have each encountered it several times, and know to be wary of it. Of course, it helped that they were in electric fencing with their mom when we got them, so they already had experience with electric fences. We kept the hog panels mostly up, so they still use that area for sleeping, water, and their feed bucket, but they are often out and grazing in their pasture, which is great to see!


The only problem though, is that the dogs can (and do) jump right over the fencing. Which means they can chow down on pig feed if we aren't watching and keeping them in the right part of the yard... Sigh... We so need to finish our yard fence, but it might not happen until next year, as the chicken fence is now the priority. Without a secure chicken fence to keep the chickens away from the pig electric fencing, the chickens are limited to their small (and bare dirt!) outside enclosure off their coop, with no greens and bugs to eat really. I read that the electric fence could kill them if they hit it, so until we get the chicken fence (and future orchard fence) up, they are penned up. We are currently working on that fence though, so hopefully within a week or two it will be ready. Now that the mister is back at work (and on nights!), getting things done has really slowed down. Plus the 100 degree heat we've had for the past several days has put a serious cramp on outside things apart from after the sun has fallen behind the hills in the evening.

Setting priorities to get the necessary stuff done!

So the mister is on true nights for the next 3-6 months, meaning 4 days a week he's leaving the house at 5 when we are eating supper, and returning at 5 in the morning when we are all soundly asleep. This means that for most of the day Little M and I  (and the dogs!) need to stay as quiet as possible. On Saturday this worked out well, we had some errands to run in town - recycling to sort and drop off at the recycling depot, and potatoes to pick and buy at the gardening store. Sunday I had grand plans of spending most of the morning outside putzing around the property. We have lots to do, but I wasn't going to care if we got anything done, feeling that keeping the house quiet was goal met enough. However, we woke up to this, which kept falling for over 2 hours in thick wet bunches!

So the wet snow falling and slightly sticking kinda put a damper on our outside plans, so instead we ended up inside in a somewhat cloudy-dreary house. What to do? While Little M occupied herself with a little game while swinging herself in the much-too-small baby swing, I decided that since we're getting down to the last (less than 10!) weeks of this pregnancy, I likely should have a master list of what I want to get done before baby arrives, so that I can prioritize the most critical items and let myself relax the rest of the time... For example, I've been spending a lot of time and energy on the new side garden space, which really isn't one of my yearly goals, let alone a goal for before the baby gets here, meanwhile there are definitely things that need to get done before baby comes that I've been putting off.... Hmmm... So time to start prioritizing my limited time and energy I figured!

I won't bore you with a play by play list of what all I need to do, but lets just say I was fairly specific, writing down small chunks of tasks that would each be easily do-able with the energy levels and time windows I typically have. By the late morning, I had my list complete, broken into sections - Garden, Property, Little M, Cleaning, and Baby, and then color-coded by month. Month, however, ended up being a bit of a mistake. There were some things that had specific months for completion - planting certain vegetable starts out, or certain baby doctor appointments for example, but for the most part, I just shoved everything else into April, although I sorted it by importance. I'm not yet sure if that will leave me feeling overwhelmed and make me attempt to get everything done, or if it will work in that I do the things I have time for and don't get done the less important things. Time will tell!

Already yesterday I did 2 of the more pressing tasks that I had definitely been putting off for much too long in favor of new garden fun chores - I made contact with a doula about her availability for our due date time window, and fixed the kitchen sink faucet which had (again, sigh), come unscrewed from its base so was requiring two hands to turn on and off. So I'll consider the list successful thus far :)

Moving the chicken coop

So over the Easter weekend we were rather busy! Not only did we fit in 2 easter egg hunts and Easter lunch with some close friends who have a daughter a bit younger than Little M & the girls' paternal grandparents, but we moved the chicken coop from the old location, where it was when we bought the property, to its new home in the new side garden!

The mister and I were about to start putting the temporary fence up around my new garden area for the year when I realized that if we were going to move the chicken coop at all, it was really now or never. You see, once we have the temporary garden fence up, the next step would be to start installing the fencing on the log posts we've been installing. And both of those fences would preclude moving the chicken coop into that space.

We were wavering because

1. I wasn't sure the chicken coop was structurally sound enough to survive being jacked onto sled logs and dragged around the property, and
2. I wasn't sure we had the time or energy this spring to devote to moving and leveling the coop into the new side garden, getting the outside secure enclosure disassembled, moved across, and reassembled, all in addition to getting some sort of fenced new garden area set up along side the coop in the new side garden area (not to mention the normal spring chores we have!).

But since the mister's mom & stepdad were here for the weekend, we decided that if it was going to happen at all, this was the time, and so we decided to just go for it, because the benefits of having it over in the new area far outweighed the additional work and risks moving it would mean. After all, if we hadn't of moved it, the coop would have been where it was for at least 5 years until we could afford to build a new coop and garden shed in the new side garden. Since we've been having problems having the coop over there in terms of dog-chicken interactions & poop eating, we decided the hassles involved with moving it would be far outweighed by not having the hassle of the dogs and the chickens overlapping in the existing orchard area in the future. Of course, it means that we are now thinking about relocating the pig pen as well, but since we aren't set yet on having another pig this year, we may have next spring to get that relocated to a better spot.

So, Saturday around noon we started jacking up the chicken coop, in preparation for placing logs under it to make a sleigh to drag it around on. This went fairly successfully, the mister had a pretty solid idea of what he was doing and it seemed to work just fine. There was a slight hiccup maneuvering around the closest corner of the pig pen, but the mister's stepdad was able to wiggle the fence post loose enough to bend it sideways, and so we will just have to re-set it later to get it secure again, no big deal.

The real issue came once we were down in the bottom field. There was a patch of ice/snow and a muddy patch placed in just the right locations, near a tree we were trying to go slowly around, and the jeep got a bit stuck due to the weight of the coop behind it. In the process of trying to get going again, the chicken coop was pulled with too hard of a pop, and it came right off the log sleigh! Oops... Luckily, after a bit of re-jacking and manuevering, the guys got the sleigh back under the coop and the jeep unstuck, and headed up and around to get the coop into the new side garden area. By then, it was almost suppertime. They were able to mostly level the coop, although the floor joists had been torn off in the move, so Sunday morning a bit more work was required to get the floor adequately supported again.

Sunday evening the mister and I were back out there, moving the outside secure enclosure across from the old location, and tidying up the old coop area. We wanted to have at least the side fencing back up on the outside enclosure in the new area so that we could let the poor cooped-up chickens out, but we didn't quite get done in time, so the chickens will have to make do until later this week when the mister is on his days off.

Of course, we also didn't quite get around to fencing my new garden area off from the dogs, so planting in the new area will have to wait until later this week too... Not a big deal, since that area isn't at all the priority this year, and I did get around 10 wheelbarrow-fulls of dirt/chicken manure moved across from the old outside pen area to mix in with the soil. There is also a bunch of pig manure to be moved across from last year too, and any number of other chores to get that new garden area starting to be more functional, so I figure this next month we'll slowly work on it, fence post by fence post, wheelbarrow-load by wheelbarrow-load, and just not stress about it at all! :)

Slowly tidying up the area where the coop used to be. We haven't quite decided what will end up over there, but we've got nothing but time.

I love March and April because we just get so much done around the property every year!

Happy Spring?

Not a lot to report here. We've been doing some more seed starting (some early romaine lettuce and lots of peppers followed the onions). Little M's sunflowers sprouted and are likely nearing the transplant out of their 4-pack stage. We of course got a very wet and very unwelcome 2-3 inches of fresh snow this morning, startling everyone as most of the snow had melted except in the deep spots down in the shadows of the hills in the fields down by the creek. Happily it was (mostly) melted by the time we got home this afternoon from an afternoon appointment down in the 'city'.

The gate into the new side garden area, as seen from the back deck.

The mister and I have been doing some great fence-building work. And by we, I really mean him, although I've been helping him keep the posts level and pound the dirt in around them! We've got a fair number in, including cross members making up the H-braces on the ends of the fence; many more than the 2 around the gate that the picture shows, I just couldn't bear to take a picture with all the new snow this morning! We're getting to the point where he'll need to cut some more from the woods if we are to continue, though. I think we might be able to make it work with what we have now in terms of the new garden space, with the addition of some temporary t-posts, and the additional fence area between the house and the new garden space will just be an added perk to keep the dogs a little more contained until we get the entire perimeter more secure. Once we have the fencing up on it, I'll do a more detailed post about the fencing stuff.

Hope you enjoyed the first day of spring in your neck of the woods!

New Garden Planning - the side 'yard'

In the presence of more energy aka more time to do things these days, with the house back to the good-enough stage after my pregnancy-induced lack of cleaning this past fall, and in the absence of any grabbing-my-attention-yarn laying around, I've been working on something equally as easily picked up and put down as a batch of knitting - garden planning! Or rather, NEW garden planning! That's right, I've been sketching up plans for the new side garden I've been thinking about for about a year now. Mostly just coming up with ways of planting and orienting things to maximize the space available, but also spending some time thinking about chicken coop designs and greenhouse/potting shed ideas. If you are on pinterest and want to check out my garden inspiration board, click on over here, and to check out some greenhouse/compost bin/homesteady pins, click on over here :)

I'm sure I'll pick up some great yarn soon, as a couple of my plans for decorating Little M's big girl room involve some knitting & crocheting, but in the meantime, whenever I've got a spare couple minutes in the evenings, I've been picking up my plans and sketching out better details about where the raspberries will go, how we'll separate the chickens from the garden, and all those fun details.

Of course, with this baby coming this summer, I don't really plan to do much in the way of implementing this new garden area, after all, this will at least triple our garden space, and moving the chickens over to there will require either some serious shed moving or a whole new coop. These are more long term, 5 year plans. But I'm sure we'll put something in the ground there this year, even if it's just some extra raspberry plants when we thin out our current patch this spring, throwing up some junky fencing around it, and putting a pile of pig & chicken manure over there when we clean out Pat's old pen & the chicken coop this spring.

The really nice thing about taking my time on the evolution of our property plan is that over time we learn how we use the property, and what our plans are longer term for it. I can only imagine how much re-doing we would end up doing down the road if we had of implemented all of our plans after the first year of living here! This way we have goals, but can live with them in theory for a couple years and be comfortable with how well they will work for us before we put them into practice!

Woodworking in the chillyness

Brrr.... it is cold woodworking in an unheated garage in below-freezing temperatures! Little M's play kitchen is temporarily on pause because I managed to install the middle foot a little lower than I should have (something about screw heads snapping off got me a little frustrated and not quite as focused on my assembly sketches as I should have...), so I need to recut the middle divider between the cabinet half and the stove half... and I've been putting off doing that because it has been freezing here lately!

The first day I powered through the cold temps, but since then, I know what cold is, and don't wanna go back there! (Also it could be due to the fact that the mister just changed from dayshift to swing shift, on different days, which meant that he worked every day but one this past week, and for the first time in over 6 months is working through our supper and bedtime & sleeping well through our wake-up time, which means a total shift in how Little M and I operate around the house!) However I'm hopeful that either this afternoon before supper or tomorrow afternoon while Little M is napping I can get that last piece cut and at least have her play kitchen all assembled for her birthday morning, even if it isn't all painted yet. (And I'm glad that we've been through this adjustment period of shift-changes many times before and so although it never gets easier adjusting to change, by now I at least know that we need to give each other time and grace to allow us to adjust, and I know that the new schedule will get easier with time!) Play kitchen pictures to come!

Pinterest inspired challenge - wall art for Little M!

So months and months ago, back when I was just starting to get hooked into Pinterest, I found and pinned a cute little kids name wall art piece that I thought I could easily replicate for Little M. I found my inspiration at this cute little shop called Penny Paper Co.

Well, as it turned out, I didn't find it quite so easy to recreate this in any of the programs I typically use, since I don't have any real drawing or designing programs. Then I realized that it might be easier to do in powerpoint. And after a while longer than I really had to devote to it, and longer than I planned to spend on something so seemingly simple, I was done! I think it turned out fairly nice, and looked even better once matted and in a frame on her wall.

I'm linking up to Young House Love's Pinterest Inspired Challenge. There are lots and lots of great projects over there, so head on over and check some of them out!

Our weekend

My husband normally works weekends, so from late morning until bedtime, Little M and I fend for ourselves. This means I get to be the one choosing to have the TV on or off, music playing or quiet, etc. Not to mention, I don't get time to really work on any current projects, mostly we just do the routine stuff - light cleaning, meal prep, feed/water the chickens & dogs, and some playtime.

My husband came home sick from work Saturday, and stayed home Sunday, so while he lounged around as he started to feel better Sunday afternoon, he kept an eye on Little M for a bit so I could get out of the house and work on some projects outside in the beautiful warm weather we were having. I was able to put a roosting bar up in the chicken coop, thin out some little trees in the front yard, and get the last couple door trim pieces cut. Pretty great progress I was thinking.

Then I realized that it was 4:30 on Sunday, and I hadn't started supper yet! And the house was a complete disaster, clean clothes waiting to be folded and put away, the floor needing swept, the table needing tidied up, the sunporch needing vacuumed, and Little M's toys strewn about the living room. Not to mention the kitchen wasn't quite as tidy as I would have liked either. Whoops!

I managed to get supper on the table by 6:30, and the house cleaned up while the enchilada casserole was in the oven. What a relief! I feel so much more calm and relaxed when the space around me is clutter and mess free! After supper Little M and I finished our cleaning spree, vacuuming the sunporch and getting it straightened up from my projects. No photos from the weekend, I guess we were just too busy! We did get our first blue/green americauna egg over the weekend though, which was pretty exciting! It looks so pretty next to the various shades of brown eggs! I'll try and put some pictures of the selection up later in the week :)

DIY fabric bins

Last week I pinned a fabric box tutorial that involved fabric & cardboard - both things that I had on hand. It took me a while to get time to make one for myself, but finally on Saturday I took some time in the evening after putting Little M down to bed and quickly put one together. I used the dimensions shown in the tutorial, although it turned out smaller than I had expected. When I make more bins I will enlarge the bottom and side dimensions to give it a larger bottom footprint. The tutorial was easy to follow, though, and I like how this first bin turned out.

We have lots of spots around the house where we could use nice fabric bins, either instead of the temporary cardboard boxes I've been using lately until I bought or made ones that fit us and the space better, or in spots that I have yet to design (buffet behind the couch for toy bins?). I don't have a lot of any fabric type, most of my fabric is from scavenging through my MIL's fabric collection for a quilt I had been thinking of making last year that just never happened. So if I want the bins to match, I may have to get more fabric!

Photos from a busy weekend

Since one of my current goals involves learning to use our newish digital SLR camera on the fully manual setting, I figured that I should set myself up to succeed by 1 - sharing that goal with all of you, and 2 - sharing my photos on here more regularly even when they aren't strictly garden or project-related! Keeping that in mind, here are some pictures I took this past weekend. I think they turned out fairly decently, although I know there is room for improvement - particularly with the white balance settings... :)

Over the weekend Little M and I kept ourselves busy - we went on a couple walks, so that explains the chickens and the scenery shots, and then we decided to change the furniture arrangement up in our living/dining room to see if a different floor plan would work better for us, so that explains the inside shots. Thanks for looking & hope you enjoy them!