Rock On

As I mentioned we've been working on getting the yard in order. I had an informal goal of having things look nice for Jerry's 40th birthday party. There were two reasons for this: 1) The yard would be presentable for the party and 2) we wouldn't be working on the yard in the heat of summer.

First, we used some river rock from the side yard to a rock border around the pool. We knew we wanted rocks around the pool so toys and kids didn't get muddy, but we weren't sure what we would use to contain the rocks. We debated several choices and finally decided on just using the rocks we already had in the yard. Cheap and effective!

Next we ordered some landscaping rock. Ordering was the easy part! We got a 15 ton load of 3/4 inch screened "Walker Gold" granite. We knew it wouldn't be quite enough to finish the areas we wanted to cover, but the company we bought it from only offers full truck loads and we didn't think we'd need two loads.

So Friday March 22nd Jerry took the day off to work on some projects and we had the rock delivered.

The boys thought it was a fun place to play.

Then came the hard part. Spreading it all. We worked a little at a time. First we would weed and level the area to get it ready for rock. We decided against any type of landscape fabric for weed control. We sprayed weed killer and pre-emergent instead. Then Jerry loaded the rock into the wheelbarrow and I spread it with the rake. Unfortunately, the wheelbarrow tire gave out before we did. We ended up buying a solid one so we didn't have to keep patching the tire.

We didn't get done until right before the big party. In fact, we still aren't completely done. We ran out of rock. We knew it wasn't going to be enough, but it actually got us a lot further along in coverage than we thought. We'll have to order a few more tons from the landscape place to finish up the job although that just might have to wait until after summer when it cools down.

 Here are a few of the areas we spread the rock...

I think it looks really nice! Now we just have to work to keep it weed free.

Funny story about this area. We spread the rock and I added the stepping stones because we had decided we would remove this section of fence so it would be easy to get to the "outhouse" from the pool. See my lovely stepping stone path?

Well, apparently the fence was already there when they poured the concrete. This means that the fence is buried in about 8 inches of cement. So the stepping stones lead to no where. Needless to say, it will be awhile before we take the time to cut the fence (if we ever do).

Over the Hill

This is what Jerry's office looked like on Monday morning!

Cover Up!

About 2 months ago I had a mini nervous breakdown and told Jerry if we didn't get the septic caps (or "the poop caps" as I like to call them) covered I was going to go crazy. It's true. Ask Jerry. I just couldn't look at them any more. We have a beautiful pool and a lovely patio and right there in the middle of it all were these ugly green caps.

When we first saw the photos of our house in the listing it showed a built in grill and bar in this location. It looked very nice! There was even a sink! Here are those listing photos...

Here is what we saw when we got to the house. It was gone.

They had built the grill over the septic caps to hide them but neglected to leave an opening to allow access to the caps. Whenever a home with septic is sold the tank has to be pumped. This meant the built in BBQ and bar had to go.

We tossed around the idea of rebuilding it and leaving some kind of access door. Jerry said he didn't want to do that. So I started looking for a way to cover the caps that would leave them accessible. I came across this photo...

Most "planters" I saw were built with those retaining wall blocks that are slightly curved. I really like this planter because it had nice right angles. This style of block is a bit more expensive than retaining wall blocks though - I figured it would cost us about $600 in materials. When the brick guy came we asked him for an estimate to build us something like this. He wanted almost $1000, which wasn't too bad considering the materials were so much, but we decided to keep thinking.

When we went to look at landscaping rock we noticed they had concrete (fencing) blocks for a lot cheaper than the other block. We did the math and figured we could build the planter for about $150! And the block came in three colors, including one that matched our existing brick patio pretty nicely. Sold!

So a few weeks ago Jerry took a Friday off from work and we got it done! The hardest part was loading and unloading the blocks. It ended up the location nearest to us didn't have quite enough for us to finish the job so Jerry had to drive to another location to pick up the rest. We did find one dead scorpion attached to the blocks. Thankfully, we were wearing gloves and keeping an eye out for creepy crawlies!

We just set them in place. No mortar or anything. The wall is only two blocks high with a cap on top so even if it was knocked over it wouldn't do any major damage. The whole point was to make it easy to take apart so we can get to those caps when we need too.

At some point I would like to get a few plants in there but for now we just put a sheet of foam inside and covered it with some of our landscaping rock.

It looks so much better now. Not only does it look nice, it was much cheaper than we expected! My only regret is that we didn't do it sooner!

Friday Fun

Fridays are a light day for us as far as school work. This week after breakfast and chores we did a science experiment. We are learning about the heart and lungs so we tested our lung capacity. It looked something like this...

Each boy got to try it twice. Once with a normal breath and once with a big, deep breath. While we were busy with our experiment Annabeth decided to empty all the Q-Tips out of the box in the bathroom. Clean up was like a game of Pick Up Sticks!

To keep her out of more trouble, I let Annabeth watch a bit of Teletubbies. JD decided to join her for a bit. Annabeth is a little copycat so when he laid down and put his hands behind his head, so did she. So cute!

Please ignore the messed up drawer (some more of Annabeth's handy work!) and the dusty TV.  I obviously need to dust. That's what having the windows open on a windy day gets me!

Friday afternoon I decided to tackle the pantry. It was getting a bit out of control and the shelves needed to be wiped down. I didn't think to grab the camera for any "before" pictures.

Now I have some space available when I go grocery shopping! I do like having a bigger pantry right in the kitchen. The one on Trotter was just a big cupboard so we ended up storing a lot of our extras in the basement. No basement overflow here. We don't even have a basement!

If you want to know the method to my madness you can read about how I deep clean my kitchen. (Funny - looking back at that post I noticed I organized my spice cabinet the exact same way here as I did in Wisconsin! I mean exactly!)

In the past, I have always tackled my kitchen spring cleaning all at once. This year I decided to do things a bit differently. I made a little diagram of the kitchen cupboards and drawers. Each day I clean one or two and check them off my list. It has been working pretty nicely. I only have a few left to do and I'll be done.

The only drawback to this method is not having it all clean at once. By the time I'm done some of the cupboard doors will be dusty again. (Thanks, AZ dust that covers everything!)

This Week Around the Homestead

Thought I'd combine several tidbits from this week into one post and call it "This Week Around the Homestead".

 ************

We have owned this house for over a year. How we managed to live on 1.25 acres of mostly grass without a riding lawnmower is beyond me! Actually, I do know how we did it. A nice neighbor let us use his riding a lawnmower several times and when he wasn't home Jerry did it with our regular mower (not fun, fyi).

So with the grass turning green again, we finally bit the bullet and bought a little John Deere. It was delivered on Monday afternoon. Shiny and green... at least for now. Hayden and Wesley tried it out. Don't worry, it wasn't on.

Maybe when Wesley gets a little bit older we'll let him mow. He can definitely reach the pedals!

Jerry made one quick line in the lawn to make sure it was working before the delivery guy left and then just drove it into the garage. The first mowing would have to wait.

************

Monday was very windy. All day the wind blew and gusted. The pool was a mess. It cooled off quite a bit and then it rained. Some time during the night we lost two big branches off the tree in the back part of the lot.

We knew the tree wasn't in perfect health but we didn't expect it to split into three pieces. One branch fell to the east and the other to the west. The western branch missed the water faucet by about a quarter of an inch. The saddest part is the loss of shade for the chickens. It is the only tree out in that back area to offer them shade. We'll leave the one part standing but it's not big enough now to give much shade.

Not sure yet what we're going to do with the big (dead) branches. Guess we'll have to cut them up. (Anyone have a chainsaw we can borrow?)

************

We had our second irrigation of the season this week. I was a bit disappointed to see we were on the schedule for 7am Wednesday morning. Jerry actually enjoys irrigation and he would miss it. I got up, dressed, and went out the door to find our zanjero had already opened the valves for me. That turned out to be extra nice since Justus was sick (literally) right at the time I needed to go out to open the valves.

As I was walking back to the house, I noticed a gopher who had been flooded out walking across the lawn. Those stupid things are ruining our lawn so I did what Jerry did the last time we irrigated and he cornered a gopher... grabbed a shovel and split him in half. Disgusting, yet effective.

At 8am I waded out and closed the valves before heading back into the house to get everyone (except Justus) breakfast. As were were sitting at the table eating, Hayden said he saw a "rat" running around on the back patio. Thankfully, I had moved the shovel to the back just in case. I grabbed it and promptly dispatched my second gopher of the day.

************

Once every two weeks it looks like we have water front property... for about an hour or so until it soaks in!

************

Living out in the "country" we hear all kinds of animal noises. The usual birds, dogs, and cats, plus more farm type animals (horses, cows, etc). I nicknamed the rooster that lives next door Al - don't ask me why - I don't know. Al crows at weird times. At first I was a bit annoyed when he'd crow at 2am, but now I don't even hear it. We used to always hear a donkey too. We called him "Donkey", of course. I'm not sure what happened to him. We haven't heard him in a long time and I kind of miss him.  Wednesday night we kept hearing a goat yelling. (Yes, just like on that viral YouTube video.) It cracked me up every time I heard it. We keep hearing: "Hey! Heeeey!" Or maybe he's yelling: "Hay! Haaaay!" Haven't heard it again since. Bummer. I was hoping he/she would be a new addition to the neighborhood.

************

One last thing. Here's a video of the chickens coming when I call. Annabeth has always called them "cheep, cheeps"  so when I have a treat for them that is what I holler. Sorry for the unsteady camera hand. :)

Round Two

Unfortunately, we had another round of a tummy bug. This one seems a little less severe than the last time around. It has slowly worked it's way through all the boys except Wesley. He complained of not feeling so hot but never actually got sick. Thankfully, Annabeth seems to have been spared yet again. I'm not sure why. She still nurses once a day so maybe she's getting some extra immune support from me. Although last time my immune system didn't even protect me!

JD and Eli ended up being sick for part of the weekend. Being sick is no fun. Being sick on the weekend is the worst. You don't even get out of school work AND you miss playing outside all day.

Eli was pretty upset that he couldn't go outside and play with his friends even though he insisted he was feeling better. Wesley (and Annabeth) kept him company by playing a round of Trouble with him.

Annabeth thought the colorful, noisy board was pretty interesting. And just in case you're wondering... Wesley won!

It All Hinges on This

The coop was looking good, but we were still missing a very important part... the door! This was a small problem because we weren't exactly sure what we wanted to do for the door. I read on a chicken website about one guy who used a $20 wood screen door on his coop. That sounded great to me! Unfortunately, we didn't come across this helpful tip until after we framed the door and the only cheap screen doors we could find were not the right size.

Ana White had instructions in her plan for a door but it required a tool we didn't own (Kreg Jig). After much discussion we decided to just buy the Kreg. The good news is it worked great! And as an added bonus we can now build all kinds of things with Ana's plans... she's a big fan of the Kreg.

The door is basically a frame with hardware cloth in the top opening and a little bit of leftover siding for the bottom panel. We custom made it to fit our opening. We used 1x4s since Jerry was concerned it would get too heavy if we used anything else. It really looks great! 

Jerry chose the hinges and a little handle. There is also a little hook and eye lock to keep it closed. We plan to add a spring so it self closes so our little chicken wranglers don't leave it wide open and let the dogs birds out.

If you look closely, you can see the chickens are in the coop checking out their new digs. I was actually brave enough to let them sleep out there! I thought they might get chilly but they survived the night and have been sleeping in there the past few nights without any trouble.

For now I just put a scrap of siding over that cement block by the door to act as a ramp for them to get in and out. We plan to cut a little chicken door on the side for them. We also need to add a roost and nesting boxes eventually as well. We put up a little bit of chicken wire to make a "yard" and keep them contained for now. When they are a bit bigger they'll be allowed to roam a bit more. So except for a few finishing touches... it's pretty much done!

In case you missed them:
The Coop Part 1
The Coop Part 2
The Coop Part 3

Like a Ton of Bricks

When the pool was built we had to remove some of our brick paver patio to make room. Knowing we were going to have it fixed after the pool was done we had the demo guy save the bricks. He dumped them in a pile in the back lot. Back in January, the kids (including Roz - she was here visiting) and I spent a warm, sunny winter morning stacking them neatly on a pallet.

We knew we wanted the patio fixed before swimming season really got rolling so we made a few calls to get some estimates. It wasn't a big job. Just fixing a few bricks, straightening the brick line by the pool, and then adding a little bit to one corner to even things out. We didn't think it would cost too much since we had the bricks. We just needed the labor.

The first guy came. Jerry didn't like him. I didn't like him either when I saw his estimate! It was almost $2000! No thanks, we'll pass. The next guy was better. Jerry liked him. I liked his estimate. It was almost a quarter of the first guy's, but he said he was busy and wouldn't be able to get here for about 3 weeks. We said that was fine.

When it had been three weeks and we hadn't heard from him, Jerry called. "Thursday or Friday" is what we were told. No one came. Another call. Another answer. Another no show. Ugh. Then it was Spring Break and he went on vacation. Then another week passed. I was seriously ready to start calling around for more estimates when we were told "someone would be out today". Let's just say I wasn't too optimistic. But, I was also pleasantly surprised, because they came! Finally!

Unfortunately, the three man crew came without instructions. I told them what we wanted and they got to work. They had gotten here late in the day Thursday and didn't work long. I was a little concerned when they left that they didn't understand what I had said. (We had a slight language issue.) When they showed up on Friday morning, I asked them if they understood and they said they did. At that point there was really nothing to do but wait and hope they truly did.

They were done by lunch. And they did just what I said.

So here are a few "before and after" photos.

This first one is on the way to the guest house. We called it the "fiscal cliff" because Annabeth would stop and request assistance to cross it. The pool guys had to dig the bricks up here to run the electrical. Last summer I just laid a few bricks in the gap to make do until we got it fixed.

You can see the line along the pool fence needed to be straightened. Then we wanted to add a few bricks in the far corner to even things out.

Here are the after photos! No more "fiscal cliff"! But I still step funny when I walk here. It will take me awhile to stop that.

We now have a nice straight edge along the pool fence. This line actual runs at a funny angle so each of those bricks had to be cut to fit inside the brick "frame".

 

The corner was filled in as well. It is a little bit lower than the rest of the patio but it looks like it was always that way.

They had to cut a lot of bricks around the little piece of pool decking here as well. Jerry and I might have been able to lay the bricks but we would never have been able to cut them like this! Which is why this was not a DIY project we wanted to take on.

Here is the view from the back patio now. You'd never know it wasn't always like this!

One more thing of our checklist!

New Boy Band

At the last 4-H Community Club meeting, the Cloverbuds got up with the teen leaders did a little dance demo. They asked the kids to wear jeans, white t-shirts, hats, and sunglasses.

Jerry said they looked like some kind of new boy band. As you can see Hayden was really getting into it.

Of course, Annabeth didn't want to miss out on the fun so she got out her sunglasses.

Now it's not just a boy band! Thumbs up!

Make that two thumbs up!

If I was trying to be funny I would say something about coming to see this new boy band in concert or buy their CD. But if you know us, you know we can't carry a tune in a bucket! Bummer.