White Washing

I think I speak for both my oldest son and myself when I say we are getting really excited that our chicken coop remodel is nearly finished *grin*. It was great when Hubby was home and he put in a brand new door so that we could get in and out of the house easily but since then it's just been me and the kids :)

The last couple of days we've been cutting, hammering, sweeping and scraping the walls using a wire brush to get any old paint and muck off of the walls in preparation for white washing the walls. With all of the dust and dirt that was flying around I thought it wouldn't hurt to wear some masks so that we didn't breathe to much of it in :)

There haven't been any chickens in this old house for quite a few years and we found numerous holes in the floor that needed to be covered to stop any mice or rats from coming in and then there were a few larger ones leading in from the old nesting area that required some larger boards to seal off the main room to keep any other animals out that might find their way in. We do have a really big problem with raccoons and mink so I want to make sure that our new little babies are going to be safe. Plus we don't have any need for nesting boxes until later this fall when the chicks mature enough to start laying some eggs :)

Thankfully I know my way around a skill saw *grin*. K and I scavenged through the old lumber pile by the wood shed looking for boards that didn't look to rotten and then dragged them up to the house where we could measure them and cut them to the right length for the wall we needed to cover. From there we took them back to the chicken house and started to close in the wall.

Oh boy did we have some good laughs!! K was having some trouble getting the nails started while holding the chicken wire tight behind the boards that we were nailing up so I held the wire all the while cringing as I hoped he wouldn't hammer my fingers LOL. He thought it was hilarious that I was so worried yet only minutes before he was eyeing me up skeptically as I balanced boards on the saw horses and he was worried that I wouldn't know how to use the saw :) Yup, we are quite the handyman duo *grin*.

So with all the wood work done it was time to give the insides a nice clean coat of paint with a lime white wash. It's good and cheap to make, brightens up dark and dingy barn rooms and as an added bonus it helps stop any bacteria from growing.

Just in case you're interested here's how I made it :) You will need a bag of Hydrated Lime. Make sure you get hydrated lime and NOT dolomite or garden lime. Dolomite is the greyer colored lime that you can find at grocery stores and garden centers and it is okay if you put your hands in it but Hydrated lime is a purer white and usually can be found at any building supply or farm and feed store and it has a big warning on the front of the bag that it is corrosive so when you handle it you want to make sure you wear gloves and preferably a mask when mixing because you don't want to breathe in the powder as it flies in the air.

Using a large plastic pail to hold the lime and a large coffee tin as my make do measuring cup I scooped out five full coffee tins of lime and put them into my plastic pail and then I added just under two gallons of water and stirred it well to combine the water and lime. Protective eye wear is a good idea at this point to keep it from accidentally splashing in your eyes. You want it to be a nice thick paste so don't add your water all at one time or you will have to add more lime :) Now you can tuck it away for the night. This makes what they call slaked lime and is actually the base of house plaster if I'm correct.

The next morning or whenever you get back to it, take your pail and pour off any excess water that is sitting on top of the lime paste. This is water that the lime couldn't absorb. The paste as it stands now is much to thick to paint with so you will want to thin it with some salt water. I used 2.5 pounds of pickling salt to one gallon of water mixed well together and then poured a little at a time into the lime paste. You want it to be like the consistency of pancake batter but make sure you don't add to much water! You can't add more lime anymore at this point. Once you have thinned your white wash to a spreadable consistency you are ready to paint :)

Wearing our rubber gloves and eye protection we got to work painting on the white wash. Oh my goodness this stuff is AMAZING!! It spreads on nice and thick so you get good coverage and even though it looks a little grey while it's wet it dries bright white! Our chicken coop has never ever looked so clean and good :)

Only a few more days and our babies arrives... just in time for Easter!!

Hugs,
Rosina

Deliciously Green

I generally try not to make new year's resolutions as I have a terrible time keeping them but this time I made a promise to myself to live this year intentionally. I want to grab the year by its horns and live it to the fullest, taking control of my days and getting the most out of them for both myself and my family :)

There are so many facets of our life that that encompasses. Such as my desire to slow down the rhythm of our days in order to make even more time to cherish my family, enjoy the simple things life brings no matter how small, increasing our self sufficiency by growing more vegetables and raising more livestock, and fine tuning our diet to try and make sure the foods I prepare for my family are as wholesome as possible to name just a few.

That last one is a tough one though but I'm working on it :) Which is actually where I'm heading with this little ramble that I've taken you on *grin*.

For the last couple of months I have made it a morning habit to blend up a surprisingly yummy spinach smoothie for myself and the children :) When I first thought about making a green smoothie I was a little worried that I was going to hate it despite my want to love it but I think the whole scary thing was in my head because I do really like it *grin*.

I pack my blender right to the top with fresh spinach leaves along with a little bit of fruit, a splash of maple syrup and ice cold herbal tea. Usually I put in an apple or a pear but blueberries are delicious and soon there will be fresh strawberries from the garden to add :)

When I first started making it I was using plain water as my liquid to help puree everything in the blender but I love the extra flavor that herbal tea provides. Our latest favorite is raspberry and each morning after I've used up what was in the fridge I replenish my mason jar with hot tea and pop it into the fridge for the following morning :)

I think I'm going to have to start making two blenders full though as it seems the kids want to drink more and more of it every morning *grin*. I'm not complaining though but tomorrow I'm heading out to weed out a patch in the garden so that I can plant a whole lot of spinach :)

Hugs,
Rosina

PS. Looking for more yummy recipes?? Check out this week's Hearth and Soul blog hop :)

Fluffy Tissue Easter Chicks ~ Kids Craft

Easter time's a coming, Easter time's a coming.... *grin*.

I loved making these fluffy tissue chicks when I was a little girl, twisting little bits of tissue paper on the end of my pencil and sticking them onto paper in the shapes of hearts, chicks and other animals. I'm seriously just like a little kid when it comes the crafting! I can't wait to get in there and cut and paste along with the kids no matter what the occasion LOL.

Since Easter is actually just about here I thought we'd better get going on some special crafts! Out came the construction paper, odds and ends bits of tissue paper, pencils and glue and we got cutting :) This is such an easy craft with such cute end results that you've got to try it if you haven't before!

Cut any color of tissue paper into a whole lot of little 1.5 - 2 inch squares and then cut an egg shape out of construction paper or cardboard for each child plus yourself :) Next take one square of your tissue paper, place the eraser end of your pencil in the center of the square and pull up the sides of the paper and scrunch it all up around the end of your pencil.

Dip the end of your pencil into the glue...

then press your pencil end with the gluey paper down onto your egg cutout and repeat :)

You just keep squishing and sticking your scrunched up tissue paper to your cutout until you've filled the whole thing up and made yourself a fluffy little chicky :) We made ours look like our chicks were popping out of their shells on the bottom but you could even decorate them like easter eggs with different colored polka dots or waves and so on all over them. They make fantastic fronts for Easter cards to. So fun!! I just love the great 3D texture you get from all that tissue paper :)

I had a bit of yellow ribbon in the cupboard so I punched a hole in the top of each of them and threaded the ribbon through to hang them up in our family room window :) It was a good thing I wanted to hang them as it gave me incentive to finally take down the cinnamon stars that were hanging there from Christmas! I know I'm terrible aren't I *grin*.

Have fun making some :)

Hugs,
Rosina

Taking In The Beauty Surrounding Us

Talk about disbelief this morning! This was the scenery that greeted me when I looked out the kitchen window as I made breakfast. It didn't last long but it has brought below zero temperatures again despite the gorgeous sunshine that graced us today :)

I wanted to treat the kids today so we went down to the little corner store and they got to pick out a little candy and we drove the end of the road where it narrows and stops abruptly...

where the wooden planks and rocky edges join as one with the Johnstone Strait :)

The hues of blue welcomed us and the icy wind whipped around the car but the view was divine. We are so blessed to live only minutes from the ocean. It has to be my favorite place on earth to be :)

So while the kids munched on their treats I enjoyed the weekend edition of the paper...

and they all took turns using the binoculars to look for ships and signs of whales and seals. We had an amazing experience of seeing one of the young bald eagles testing out its hunting skills as it swooped down and attempted to snatch a fish from the ocean's surface! It missed but still very cool :)

Crew boats heading out to the nearby camps had a bit of a bumpy and lumpy trip today as they crashed their way across the strait through the white caps and I was just happy. Oh so happy taking the beauty in around me and listening to the giggles in the backseat :)

Hugs,
Rosina

Growing Colonies Of The Fuzzy Kind

I thought it would be fun to share just what we're growing in the kitchen this week :) No it's not vegetable seedlings or easter grass.... think a little more creepy *grin*. We're raising our own colony of bacteria :)

We started with three petri dishes and to try and keep it as scientific as possible I got my oldest to boil and sterilize all of the dishes before we started so that we could keep as much extra bacteria out of the equation as possible.

As soon as our petri dishes were ready to go we filled them with agar or in our case gelatin since I didn't have actual agar :) We brought one cup of water to a boil, stirred in one teaspoon of sugar, one package of knox gelatin and a few drops of orange food coloring and simmered the whole thing for 30 minutes. Once the 30 minutes were up we portioned out the gelatin equally into each of the three petri dishes and waited for it to cool and set.

The next step was to decide just what we wanted to swab and transfer into our dishes. K had such a hard time picking since we could only use two dishes and he wanted to try so many different things :) So he settled for the kitchen sink and the telephone with our third dish as the control.

At each place he took a clean q-tip and swabbed it all over their surfaces and then he took it to one of the petri dishes and gently rubbed it over one quarter of the gelatin then turned the dish 90 degrees and rubbed it again over the quarter section making sure that he pulled some of his strokes through the edge of section he swabbed last until the entire dish was covered :)

With each one carefully labeled...

it was time to wait and see just what would happen!

We're five days into our experiment and things are growing and remember all that sterilizing we did in the beginning so that we would have a super clean control petri dish? Well that baby is growing some funky fuzz of its own! LOL.

If you grow some colonies of your own let me know. I know my son would love to see what grows in your petri dishes *grin*.

Hugs,
Rosina

PS. Looking for more crafty ideas or inspiration? Pop over to Natural Suburbia's Creative Friday and see what others are up to :)

Peek-A-Boo

I think I want to be like this guy. Hanging out in the pond, partially submerged, taking in the scenery but keeping outta sight *grin*.

My days seem to be moving at lightning quick speed lately. So fast that I can't seem to catch up. We're still working on repairing outbuildings and getting the garden beds weeded and on top of that I've stepped up our homeschool routine. Those of you who know me well know that I'm a bit of a tidal homechooler with our learning coming in waves of high activity followed by more calm and relaxed phases. Well right now we're in hyper drive *grin*

I like to finish up our school year by the end of May because we have better things to do like camping and playing outdoors but that means we have to hit the books hard :) We're right on track though! K has finished up his math and english texts and we have a few key topics to touch in science and social studies still but it looks like we'll be done on schedule.

I'm actually really proud of him. I have never done any testing of any sort but I thought since he's getting a little older now and heading into grade 7 that I'd feel him out and see how he would handle some light quizzes where he knew he had to do the best he could. He really took to them and got A's and B's for his marks :) He was so proud of himself and it gave me a really good gauge as to how he's retaining this year's materials. Looks like things are sticking! LOL.

Most of my online time this week has been spent reading the homeschool boards and checking out what is available for our fall semester to. I was talking to Hubby on the phone the other night joking that I've been eating, breathing and sleeping math texts LOL. I had no idea that there were so many choices for math and I have come across some really cool looking science programs to. I love picking out new books :) We're still using Sonlight as our core for history, readers and bible but I always supplement their english program and add more science materials and of course add in math and the extra electives.

So that has been keeping me mighty busy but I'm hoping to pop over to see what's happening on your blogs this week! If you've emailed me and haven't heard back from you I promise I'm going to catch up :)

Hugs, Rosina

Exploring the Estuary

Yesterday we packed up the kids and headed off to one of my favorite local trails but when we got there we found that the bridge heading into the estuary had been fenced off.

It's hard to believe that this weathered foot bridge used to be a single lane bridge that I drove my car across four times a day, three times a week to reach an elderly woman I did home nursing for. Over the years the decking started to deteriorate so they built a foot bridge over the old bridge but it is getting soft in spots and sometime this summer the whole thing is going to be removed. Hopefully they will replace it but that is still not a sure thing.

Of course us local yokals don't get scared off by a few signs with bold red lettering and we skirted around the edge of the fence and headed on into the forest *grin*.

To be on the safe side we did go single file except for the little guy who went along with his daddy :)

As we wandered through the forest we were surrounded by amazing old growth trees. They are true giants!

This one was actually completely hollow inside and was big enough for all three of my kids to fit in and my dad for a photo. So much fun!

Where the old cottage used to stand there is now the above sign with all sorts of information on the different plants and animals that can be found along the trail. When the elderly lady that lived here passed away the property was donated to Ducks Unlimited and all of the old buildings were removed so that the grounds could return to their uninhabited state. I used to stand in this very spot when it was her kitchen and stare out the windows watching the river, swans and deer pass by. So many fond memories.... now only stories to tell to my children.

Just past the old homestead site is the estuary :)

The kids had fun exploring the grassy banks of the river. It wasn't long before the rain started though so we had to head back into the forest to take cover *grin*.

As we wound our way back around the loop to the main trail we took our time checking out all of the different mosses, poking and petting each one and talking about how they were all unique.

This tree always draws a lot of interest when we visit to as we try to guess what sort of animals may have been gnawing away at its pulpy insides :)

So many things to investigate along the way. The poor little guy got all tuckered out towards the end though and Hubby was more than happy to carry him like a good old sack of potatoes *grin*. What a turkey!

Hugs,
Rosina

Weekending

Oh happy weekend :) We got to see some more of that ever elusive sunshine so I took my baby tomatoes outside for a little light therapy *grin*. They were outgrowing their little jiffy sevens anyways so it was time for an upgrade to larger pots. One of the cool things about tomatoes if you have never grown them before is that you can re-pot them and bury them right up to their necks in soil so that just their leaves and a wee bit of stem are sticking out of the top of the dirt. This actually helps them to grow a stronger root structure all up that buried stem. The only tricky part is when you have short and tall seedlings. Sometimes the taller ones don't get buried quite as deep as you would like :)

Hubby tackled the big job of trimming all of the hedges that surround our home. They are quite extensive as they run up and down our long driveway and fully enclose our backyard but this year he had it a bit easier :) In past years he would cut them using heavy clipping shears but he finally spoiled himself and bought an electric one which makes the job much easier and quicker!

L and I spent a good chunk of the morning out in the field raking up leftover hay from feeding the cow over the winter and putting it into the compost bin. I took a minute to turn some of the compost already in the bin before adding the hay and it is already turning into black gold. It won't be long now and we'll be able to use it :)

The boys kept themselves busy in the dirt pile creating roads with their tonka machinery and creating pirate hideouts for their playmobil men to play in. Of course a pirate play scene wouldn't be complete without an ocean to float their boat in so a mud puddle was created *grin*.

I had mentioned how we were dreaming of camping the other day and Hubby must really have camping on the brain because out came our travel trailer and it got a good scrubbing :) All of the windows got a new coat of silicone around them to prevent any leaking and it's all plugged in and raring to go!

And today we loaded up the kids into the truck and hit one of my all time favorite trails along the estuary. I'm completely exhausted tonight so I'll have to share more photos of our nature walk tomorrow :)

I hope you all had a great weekend to!

Hugs, Rosina

Felted Mushrooms with a Secret

Last December I made a couple of these wonderful little felted mushrooms to send to my seasonal swap partner and I have been meaning to make more ever since and I finally got a chance to do it :)

I found a lovely tutorial for creating a secret mushroom with a great hiding spot for a message or poem to be hidden within the wooden tree limb stem. I just happened to have some alder limbs that I had cut into smaller chunks drying in the basement and used hubby's power drill to drill the hollow spot in the center and it was just perfect for a rolled scroll to fit in :)

I didn't have any sheets of red wool so instead I used some of my dyed merino wool roving that I had and created a felted circular shape. To create the wavy mushroom cap I actually put the felted wool circle on top of the wood limb and wrapped an elastic band tightly around the cap about one inch from the top. As the elastic pulled tightly around the wool it created a gathered and ruffled sort of appearance and then I through the whole thing into the dryer for about 10 mintues *grin*. When I pulled it out the heat had dried the wool up nice and tight and held its shape perfectly when I pulled the elastic band off :)

Of course since we are jumping head first into spring and we spotted our first dandelion today I thought it would be very fitting to hide one of our favorite dandelion poems inside :)

O' DANDELION

O' Dandelion, yellow as gold, what do you do all day? "I just wait here in the tall, green grass, 'till the children come to play."

O' Dandelion, yellow as gold, what do you do all night? "I wait and wait, while the cool dew falls, and my hair grows long and white."

And what do you do when your hair grows white, and the children come to play? "They take me in their dimpled hands, and blow my hair away!"

~ by Marlys Swinger

I can't wait to hide more little notes inside them for the children to find!

Hugs,
Rosina

PS. Looking for more crafty ideas or inspiration? Pop over to Natural Suburbia's Creative Friday and see what others are up to :)