why i've been too busy to blog...

I've been very busy as of late.  I built a chicken coop and pen for my little chicks, who have now become miniature chickens.  I built 5 raised beds for my garden and have filled and planted 3 of them.  And I've been landscaping and mowing and trying to create some kind of order out of the chaos WITHIN my house.  That's probably been my least successful venture...  BUT!  The children are alive and well, John is fed and happy, so I'll live another day to figure that all out ;)

So, the chicken coop was MUCH more of an endeavor than I imagined.  I mean, I though it would be a challenge, but the coop itself wasn't the biggest hassle, it was the pen.  In fact, even though my chickens live in the coop and pen, there's still work to be done on it to keep out the millions of things that like to eat chickens.  Oh, and P.S. - turns out I hate chicken wire.  Ridiculous, like playing with blackberry brambles.  Eeesh.  I'd say I put 30 hours into the whole thing all said and done, and I'd really like to do more to 'pretty it up', but here it is!

jack pretending to help ;)

i finally figured out how to do the nesting boxes!

i got the outside done and it was a little crooked...

but the inside looked great and i used an extra piece of wood as a perch

the nesting box i'm so proud of

and the inside!

yikes, you can see the crookedness even better with paint, so i'll be adding some trim pieces to hide that!  but i really like how the color turned out.  a very pale robin's egg blue.

i painted the inside because it was floor and porch paint and i thought it would be easier to clean than plywood.

when working on my projects, my kids run a little wild....

finished and in position!

we had a grand ceremony of putting the chicks in

getting the kids OUT of the chicken pen is the hard part now!

three beds prepped and ready thanks to help from my friends Sally and Grant

then my friend Mel came over and helped me plant and make the pretty, and Jack... well, he played with cups

squash, beans, edamame and corn

lettuce and cukes

the middle bed is peas, corn and some things that i hope are squash that i started as seeds and made the mistake of marking with washable marker.

i planted hydrangeas in front of the rail there, and a rosemary, and prepped a site to plant something where the trellis is.

and i planted rhodedendrons along the north/back side of the house

then i found a beautiful white climbing rose to put up the trellis

and here's a sneak peek at my next project!  putting flower beds around the trees so that i don't have to keep mowing over their roots!