Last slice of May

Today is the last day of May and I just heard the weather outlook for June is lower than normal temperatures and rain.  So I'm not holding my breath in anticipation of gathering in buckets of tomatoes.  Though, the varieties I chose this year are Russian heirlooms (Black Krim and my long standing favorite Black Trifle) so perhaps there is a little hope.

But the bumblebees are everywhere gorging themselves on nectar.  Here's one I sat down and waited for near a Comphrey plant.

Then I wondered what it looked like in there when he stuck his little head in there.

The Dogwood tree is wearing a blanket of pristine white flowers.  I don't blame her, it's chilly.

Reason #123 why you can never leave Cooper unattended.  He saw the neighbor's cat lying in the street, so he went and laid down next to him.

TA DA! 

May

May has been a fun month.  I found an excellent, informative grilling cookbook and we spent a couple weeks cooking nearly everything we ate on the grill.  This chicken was amazing and so was the stock it made.

The  kids have been anxious to get the bikes out since the weather has been warming up.  Sammy had her helmet on waiting for me to get the bikes down.

We had a late spring hail storm that shredded a lot of tender new growth like these seedlings.  Then it poured rain in sheets and buckets filling up our french drain out front by the driveway, where Cooper loves to run.

The bathroom is almost done!!!  The shelves and the mirror are in and the cabinet it almost finished.  We had a hard time get the frame square.  Apparently making furniture requires a little more skill than building a chicken coop.  When we broke the other cabinet trying to remove it from the bathroom, I looked at what it would cost to replace it.  Cheap, particle board cabinets from big-box home improvement stores started around $200.  Nicer wooden cabinets in the style I wanted started around $300.  The cabinet we built cost us $250 in  materials and tools we had to buy.  $175 for the all the wood (including the shelves) in red oak and local hemlock and $50 for a clamp, a jig and stain. 

All we have left to do is stain it, install it, plumb it and we're finally done!!  The next project will be building a better laying box from the hens.  I plan on using cedar fence slats we saved when we replaced the south section of fence.  We have a huge pile.

Attack!!

We went out to get the eggs this morning and a broody hen was sitting on the nest. Usually this is a simple case of picking her up and moving her, the hen quickly forgets about it and moves on with her routine. "Broody" here means the maternal instinct to hatch eggs. Today she wanted to put up a fight! I have never heard such sounds come out of a chicken before.

The Ides of April

So here is another pic of the bathroom's progress. Putting up the bead board. I don't think I ever want to do bead board again. It looks really nice, but it's a lot of work. Way more work than tile if you can believe that.

Then the water main in the house started to leak, so we took a break from the bathroom and worked on that. The solder looks awful, we're not winning any plumbing technique awards, but it's not leaking.

Back to the bathroom!! After much filling, painting, caulking and OCD, the bead board is done. All we need now are the shelves, the cabinet and the mirror.
We decided to move the girls into the larger room together and while all the furniture was being moved, we decided to paint. I added a couple of light fixtures above their beds. I'm so proud, I wired them all by myself!

Cooper's 4th Birthday!


April is Autism Awareness month and Sammy has a new t-shirt to show her support.


We took the kids to La Conner for the Tulip Festival.

Then we drive out to Vantage to see the Ginkgo Petrified State Park. They had some petroglyphs displayed

An amazing poster I need.

We did the 3 mile hike to see the petrified chunks of wood. They're safely kept in stone and iron vaults in the ground. It's very cool to see they were so many different kinds of trees preserved, it's hard to imagine the desert looking like a vast forest filled with pre-historic creatures.

Stopping for a snack at the top of the bluff. SUN!! Glorious, baking sunshine. You can see a little sliver of the blue Columbia river in the distance.

Gift Shop.

Take a nap on the way home.

Yellow Soap

Well darn. The soap turned yellow. Fragrance was called Egyptian Amber and it just turned bright yellow the moment it hit the raw soap.

February

I think about this blog way more often than I post to it. Here are some pics from February!

Here we are all sitting down for Valentine's day dinner.

YAY!! Leela was student of the month for February!

We're redoing the bathroom in the hall. The vinyl flooring was peeling up and the subfloor had water damage. After the bad experience with had with water damage in the kitchen wall we decided it was best to redo it all. So out came the toilet, the cabinet and all the ruined flooring. We decided to lay down tile which is something we've never tried before.

Tile before we finished the grout. I like this brown in the kitchen, but I've decided I don't like it in a windowless bathroom.

I LOOOOVE this green. It's called Rice Paddy, but I can only think about pistachio pudding.

Cooper loves to hang out with Daddy while he works.

We replaced the light fixture and we discovered more ways our house violates building code. That board behind the light is standing in for a fixture box because none can be installed because the sewer vent pipe is in the same location the wiring comes out of the wall. Weird.

Everything was going really well and then we punctured a pipe with a nail. Dave's dad drove up here to show us how to solder copper pipe. Awesome! See that outlet cover? In about two days I will have no idea where it is.

Putting up the bead board Wainscoting.


The wainscoting is finished! Now we'll put the toilet back in, build the cabinet (the other one was made of particle board and didn't stand up to being removed), hang up the mirror and the towel hooks. I'm thinking of using metal straps and a latches to make the stink cabinet look like a trunk.

It's almost done!!

Since October . . .

Here are some pics of things we've seen and done since October.





We found a couple of wet kittens under a bush in the front yard. They lived with us for a month before we found a no-kill shelter who would take them and find a home. Muta hissed, spit and hid the whole time they were here. Poor Muta.


Fashionable Leela.

Scarey Sammy!

Canned kitten haz expired.


Computer time is a family affair.


For Christmas, Sammy's cousin Ellie gave her a costume from "How to Train Your Dragon." It's so cute! She even sent a stuffed Toothless with it. Aunt Sarah must have spent a lot of time helping her make it. Sammy loves it. She added a pair of fairy wings and apparently that's a smile.


Christmas morning at Grandma's house.


Cousins playing on Christmas.