A Crafty Yarn

You just cannot beat this view!!!  Let me always remember how fortunate I am to be able to wake up to sunrises like this!  

My friend Andrew recently gifted me with a huge amount of pears and apples.  He did the same thing last year and I stuck with pretty traditional preserves.  I did a little of that this year but I also branched out and tried some new things as well.  It's been a fun few days of canning! Apple Butter, Pear Butter, Vanilla Bean Pear Butter, Elderflower Pear Preserves, Apple Sauce, Apple Pie Filling, Cinnamon Pears, and the true star of the show, Rosemary Pear Butter!  

The girls are now enjoying their larger pen....that's right... IT'S DONE!  Wahoo!!!!!  I used a pneumatic staple gun to attach the chicken wire to the wood pieces.  Then I ran chicken wire over the top of the pen from the new fence to the chain link that makes up the outside.  Making the door was a little tricky but really kind of fun...in a jigsaw puzzle sort of way :-)

The cross pieces were only mildly challenging after the fence posts.  I will say though that they were intimidating since they were all going on a slope.  I'd put one up and run out in the yard to make sure that it didn't look too crazy.  I'm really happy with how it turned out!  

When the chicks were finally big enough to put in the coop and small pen I wanted to find a way to expand their grazing area.  Free ranging just isn't going to be a possibility for me because I'm trying to add plants into the yard and those girls can do some serious damage!   My solution was to put up a chicken tunnel...chunnel! :-)  I put this up along the back fence line by zip tying netting to the chain link fence and using landscaping staples to attach the other side to the grass apx. 3 ft. from the fence.     This has been working great but it's not a long term solution... It's fine while they're still relatively small but not only will they need to have more room, I eventually want to plant grapes along that fence line.     I finally decided that I'd have to erect a permanent, large pen...   So have I mentioned that I live on a mountain....and have a lot of rocks in the clay... BUT...it had to be done so I started digging.  And digging...

  Now that the chickens and garden are all doing their thing I’ve gotten to enjoy some time in my studio!    

  The chickens, they are a growin’!  

 The garden is already feeding us!  Greens, herbs, and garlic...

I’m so thrilled with how well the garden is doing!   I could not ask for more! And I'm really excited to see that the vertical gardening experiment has been a success!

The girls are growing so fast!   They can hop right out of the brooder so I’ve had to add some chicken wire around the pool walls.  

The girls have arrived...and they are ADORABLE!    We got 2 Speckled Sussex, 2 Rhode Island Reds, 2   Black Australorps, and 2 Blue Laced Red Wyandottes.   I have to give props to  Meyer Hatchery  ...it's rare to find a company that will mix and match as well as ship small numbers of chicks!   All of the girls arrived healthy and are thriving!  

I've been seeing a lot of different vertical gardening ideas on Pinterest lately and this is my first attempt …   These PVC pipes were left behind by the previous owner.    I used Dan’s door knob hole cutter to make the circles.   I then buried them each about a foot deep and filled them with soil.   I planted strawberries on the sides and some marigolds in the top.

I'm impatiently awaiting the arrival of our chicks!!!   I was able to get their coop finished up today though!   It’s double walled and insulated with expanding foam spray.   The roof is a clear corrugated PVC sheet.   The tile was apparently a remnant of a previous project because they were laying in a pile behind the studio when we moved in. The tile will protect the floor as well as make it easier to clean.   The nest box was made from some leftover plywood and the roosts are the old stair rails from in the house.

I recently joined a local Heifer International volunteer group.   The leader of the group is a lovely woman who made me immediately feel welcome and I’m really looking forward to getting to know her as well as the rest of the group. Earlier last week she called and asked if I would be interested in going to the Heifer Ranch   for a Lambing Weekend.   I have to say that it was one of the best times I’ve ever had.   I got to witness several ewes give birth, met some fantastic people, and listened to some incredibly enlightening lectures.   The ranch is an extraordinary place and I highly recommend taking a visit there at your earliest opportunity!  I spent time cuddling these little cuties:   I met this fellow...    and this silly guy!       I discovered that I absolutely LOVE milking goats!     We took a walking tour...and a goat along for the walk....   The bee-keeping demonstration was an unexpected treat!  

Around six years ago I posted about my amazing find of this seed starting greenhouse .  It has served me very well over the years!       We recently had a strong wind storm and the little greenhouse blew down.   It was an especially sad day since I had just planted all my seedlings.     Enter the new and much larger greenhouse!

AND here’s one of those beautiful days I referred to in my last post!   Less than 2 weeks after the ice storm and I’ve been able to play in the garden all day.   Today I got all of the raised beds filled and I built this smaller bed over the body of our storm shelter.   I have a frame to put over it so that it can be used as a cold frame in the winter.

Growing up in the North I’m very accustomed to snowy winters.   Since moving to the South I haven’t had an abundance of snow to enjoy in the winter but it’s totally worth the trade off when you get to have a summer-like day in the middle of what is supposed to be the cold season.   This was not that day!   Today I got to experience another sort of winter weather that Arkansas offers….an Ice Storm.   It has a negative effect on the power lines and the roadways but it is so beautiful!

Now that all the year’s gift giving is over, I thought I’d share a few of the items I made in 2013...