The Winter of the Outbuildings

This has been the winter of the outbuildings. My goal this winter was to get the backyard ready for spring planting, chickens and hopefully goats.

The first building built was my garden shed. As is true with most of our projects it is only partially finished. It still needs the door and the shelves inside but I am thrilled to have a place in the garden to store all my gardening tools. Erik got it to this stage before Christmas, the winds came and knocked it over but thankfully didn't damage it. It is now staked down and has withstood fairly substantial gusts of wind since then. Oh, and paint. It needs to be painted.

Next we started work on our chicken coop. Or the "Chicken Palace" as I've started to refer to it. I spent more hours than I want to admit pouring of coop/enclosure designs at Backyard Chickens. Then based on a few of them, drew up some plans.
And the work commenced.

Erik has slowly gotten better at delegating through the whole project and so I've been able to hammer quite a few pieces of the coop together.

I quite enjoy it. And it sure beats standing out in the cold just watching.


This is as far as we've progressed. Still quite a bit of work to do but it's getting there.


We've even put down leftover linoleum from our kitchen on the floor of the coop to make the plywood floor last longer and make it easier to clean out. The front here will have large doors that open up (also to help with ease of cleaning). And those holes at the back (the black squares right now) are where the nesting boxes will be attached. The nesting boxes will open from the back so that we can reach in and grab the eggs from there. The whole area will be enclosed with chicken wire and we found a neat door at Cart'm for $5 for the door into the run.


Here's an overview of how the backyard is progressing. It's the view from the backdoor. Eventually the goat enclosure will go back to the left behind the garden shed.
Slowly, slowly projects are getting done.

More Projects and My Excuses

I have been remiss in posting as of late and I am sorry.
So to sort of catch you up to date I'm posting pictures of most of the lovely projects that have kept me busy and away not to mention the getting back into the schedule of all things homeschooling as well as nursing sick kiddos back to health and trying to get my own health woes under control (darn thyroid).

This is the little stuffed soccer ball I made for my adorable nephew Will for Christmas.


Marilyn liked it so much I made her one for Christmas as well.


The boys each received a crocheted dinosaur, these were awfully fun to make.


And Hobbes. Hobbes belongs to Jessie.


This circle scarf belongs to my sister Mindy now, I made a red one for Hannah's violin teacher and an aqua green one for myself. I love the pattern.

I crocheted a blanket for my sister Beth but alas forgot to take pictures. I'll have to borrow it back for a photo op.

My MIL gave me a Joann's gift card for Christmas and it went towards the recovering of my dining room chairs. We were tired of sitting on plywood. You see, my wonderful mother recovered these chairs about a year and a half ago or so in oilcloth. They were easy to clean and really fun. Only Clayton decided it would be fun to jab a pencil down through the seats and then pick at the holes. So I duct taped them. And then it was fun to pull off the duct tape and pull out the old foam pad.
So.... new foam, regular cotton fabric, vinyl and a little work and they look as new ever (and are still easy to clean). The children have been dully warned and/or threatened about stabbing and otherwise destroying the new coverings.



And if you notice the feet of this chair, it is wearing socks. (Please don't notice the floor, I didn't sweep.) I've been crocheting "socks" to fit over the feet of the chairs so they won't scratch my floors any longer and I don't have to be forever buying those ridiculous little sticky foam pad things that don't adhere very long to the bottom of your chair. It's a great use of scrap yarn and it's quite colorful depending on how tall your "socks" are.

St. Lucia

This morning we celebrated Saint Lucia.

I've written about it before on Cowgirl Clippings.

This year is different though.

This year my darling Hannah has discovered Chapter Books. And not only Chapter Books but the Kirsten books. She started a week and a half ago and is at this moment half way through the sixth book! She has fallen in love with reading and this momma couldn't be happier. After finishing book three, "Kirsten's Surprise" she came and whispered, "Can we do that? Can we celebrate Saint Lucia." I tried to reply in my calmest voice, "Yes!" But I was really excited; I get to pass along some of my favorite traditions to my children!

Yesterday afternoon Hannah and I made the saffron buns (click the cowgirl clippings link above for the recipe). Last night at sewing circle I made her a "crown" to wear (I wasn't going to let her wear lighted candles on her head) and this morning I woke her up early and we made hot chocolate and coffee and she got dressed up in white with a red sash and the crown and woke everyone up to invite them to breakfast.


It was a wonderful morning of sitting around the table as a family, talking about the tradition of Saint Lucia, the bringer of light, but more importantly pointing us to the light of the world who's advent we celebrate at Christmas, Jesus Christ. And then also the reminder that we are to be lights in a dark world pointing others to Jesus.

And they got it. They understood this morning. They remembered Children's Corner on Sunday when Mrs. Porter talked about the light of the world. They connected the dots and it was a blessed morning indeed.

First Deer!

* Warning* Warning*Warning*
If you do not want to see dead deer pictures do not read this post.

Remember this amazing view from "hunting" with the kids?


Well, Erik went back up there on the last day of the hunt and... got his first deer!
He called a friend to help him pack it out and they brought it home in the back of his friend's pick-up. The kiddos were all quite fascinated.


Even Marilyn thought it interesting.


Ah...my mighty hunter:
I know nothing about these things, but apparently it's a 3 x 3. Erik shot it through both lungs and took off the top part of the heart.

And for the last few days it has been hanging in our shed.


The other kiddos went back in the house to watch Shaun the Sheep but Hannah sat on a paint can and watched Erik skin the whole thing.


Last night Erik and I stayed up way too late cutting and wrapping most of it. The rest we stuck in the fridge and I'll probably work on it some today and try and get started on making our own venison jerky. I'm kind of excited about that part.

"Hunting"

Yesterday Erik only worked a part day so we took the kids to Tillamook to get a few new pairs of rubber boots, had lunch at Denny's (Hannah and Ivan still had their gift certificates from the library summer reading program) and then came back up to Nehalem to go "hunting".

I was the only one who "shot" anything.

It was a gorgeous day and the views where amazing. No views of deer though. I think the deer heard us coming a mile away (at least).



Marilyn was hunting in style. The pink sunglasses only lasted so long though, and then they ended up in my pocket.


Clayton was the proud person in charge of the binoculars. I believe he is explaining to me the art of sighting deer. And he's wearing a tie with his sweatshirt. Now that is classy hunting wear.

We hiked down through some forest.


All the while looking for deer sign. Marilyn pouted because she wasn't quite sure that hiking through brush much taller than herself was any fun and momma wouldn't hold her.


The kids got really good at spotting deer prints, poop and rubs.

While Marilyn made sure that someone was still paying attention to her pouting and non-joining-in-ness.


And Ivan tried to hide like the deer.


We made it out of the trees to the logging road we drove up and started hiking back up to the van. Marilyn became the party responsible for the binoculars and as a result she and I lagged considerably behind the others.

But I eventually picked her up and made it back up the hill.


Erik had taken the boys hunting Saturday night and Sunday morning during Children's Corner at church the question was asked, "Does anyone know what time of year it is? What season?"
To which Clayton very promptly and loudly announced, "Deer!"

Looking forward to many more hikes in the future.

Projects

My fingers have been happily hooking with my crochet hook for weeks now.

I don't know if it's the fall weather or what but projects and ideas for projects have been swirling in my brain for weeks now and I start to go crazy if I don't release some of them.

So here are the projects that have left my hook:

A baby blanket for my new nephew William Heath Dante:
(Sorry I don't have a picture of the baby, I haven't met him yet.)


A little hat and booties for a friend's baby...

A blanket that I made for simple reason I wanted to try the pattern and I had a bunch of cotton yarn that I don't remember the project I collected it for in the first place. Love this one. The colors make me happy.


I suppose that doesn't look like tons when it's laid out like this but I've also been quilting like crazy. It helps that our church has started up a "sewing circle" on Monday nights and it's at a time that I can go. I've loved having Monday nights to sit and drink tea and work on projects while visiting with some of the women of our church.

Peanut Butter

This choosy mother does not choose Jif when it comes to peanut butter.

But I do hate stirring peanut butter. For awhile now we've been buying Kirkland Signature Organic Peanut Butter from Costco. It's in smaller containers than the Costco Adams peanut butter so it makes for easier stirring. I mean, slightly easier though still difficult, annoying and messy stirring.

I hate stirring peanut butter. Oh wait, I already said that. And usually there's always a clump that didn't get stirred in, or you didn't quite get to the bottom of the jar so the end scrapings of peanut butter are dry. I've even tried those lid stirrers that they sell with the mixing wand-thing attached...yeah, doesn't work so well unless you buy little tiny jars of peanut butter (I don't).

Enter my mother, "Oh, I just dump the whole jar into my kitchen aid and mix it for a few minutes and then pour it back in the jar."

So thinking my mother brilliant, last time I was at Costco I picked up Adam's Peanut Butter in the big jar; saved myself a whole dollar (which, when you're shopping with a calculator and hoping to squeeze out a few dollars to buy that school work book for your kids in the book section of Costco, is huge) and I got more ounces of peanut butter to boot.

Today, I dumped the whole jar of peanut butter in my kitchen aid mixer and used the dough hook. Turned it on. Left it for a few minutes. Came back to perfectly mixed peanut butter. Poured it back into the jar and the mixer bowl was an easy clean up.

I think my mother is brilliant.

And not just 'cause she knows how to mix peanut butter.