Painting on the Walls
27 September 2018 • Crafts, Home
When we first bought our house the entire thing was painted this dark salmon colour (ugh!). We ended up painting all the walls in the entire house white. Not even "cloud white" but straight-outta-the-can eggshell white and I loved it! We have a very...hmmm....eclectic (?) style so having white walls means there is no colour scheme and everything we put on the walls just magically works. It's great!
You know what else is great about white walls? It's very easy to paint on them. I don't know why it took me so long to get to the idea of painting directly on the walls. When I first learned about Maud Lewis, oh man, was that ever an eye opener for me. "This woman just paints on every surface of her tiny house?" I was so inspired! I remember watching Maudie and mentioning to Dave "Wow, I really want to paint on our walls now" and he (surprisingly) said "yeah, go for it!"
So when I had the house to myself for a few hours I just did it. I stared at the wall with my paints on a plate, totally second guessing the idea (what if it looked bad?!) and I just started painting. I painted some flowers by the coat rack and loved it so much I did some above the light switch as well. I kept telling myself, "well if it's weird or Dave hates it I'll just paint it white again".
This planter I saw on Pinterest
Ooko I copied from a library book
I don't have any tattoos but people who have them are always saying you get one and you immediately want another. I feel this way about painting on my walls. I'm itching to do something in kitchen now...
The Current Brood
21 September 2018 • Chickens
I've realized that so much has changed since the last time I wrote about the chickens! Here's a little update if you're curious :)
Sadly, we lost one of hens this summer. Good ole Frida. By far our favourite hen! The only one that would stand still when the kids came near and let them pick her up. She got something called an impacted crop which I guess is pretty common for chickens. We knew that it would eventually kill her so when we got a text from our house sitter while on vacation we weren't too surprised. Iris was very sad though. When she's overtired she'll still sob "oh I miss Frida! She was my best chicken!". Poor girl!
To be honest I'm quite surprised that we haven't lost any of the other hens to predators! I've jinxed it now but we live pretty close to a conservation area so we've kind of prepared ourselves for something to snatch a hen. So far so good!
In happy hen news, this past spring we got two baby chicks! Iris saved up her allowance for months and was so excited to buy her own "babies". We let her name them and she went with Dolly (Parton; Jolene is one of her favourite songs) and Betty (if Harvey was a girl he was going to be named Betty so she heard the name a lot. Guess that name's out for our next kid!). And oh man, I will forever get baby chicks instead of pullets now! The temperament of Betty and Dolly is so different than the others which we got as full grown hens. Betty and Dolly will follow us around out back, aren't nervous around Gus, and let the kids pick them up so easily. Dream chickens! Plus their colours! So beautiful!
In terms of eggs, we only get about 3 eggs a day from the 5 hens. Which I mean, if you were doing it for the eggs isn't the best lol. Factory egg layers are typically killed after a year since their production goes down so much but our chickens are more pet chickens now I suppose. I remember before we got them Dave and I thought "well we'll just get them butchered when they stop laying and use them as soup chickens" but then you name them, the kids (and let's be honest, Dave and I) begin to adore them and you can't possibly imagine having them killed regardless of how little eggs they are producing. Pretty soon we'll be running an eggless chicken nursing home ;)
This time last year we we're getting nervous about the coming winter and if the hens would survive the cold. This year we have another whole year of experience under our belts and are confident that everything will be just fine.
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We buy all our hens from this amazing farm called Happy Hens Heritage Farm. It's a bit of a drive but the owner, Marina, is so kind and helpful. She gave us a little how-to booklet when we picked up our chicks and has (happily!) answered many of our questions for us as we venture into this chicken adventure. Highly recommend her farm if you're looking into chickens, especially interesting breeds.
Hello Again!
14 September 2018 • Family
Hello again! I've really been feeling the urge to write and blog again lately so I thought I'd pop in here and spruce things up a bit :)
The past few weeks have been very full around here. Dave went back to work, our wood stove got installed (!!), we did a tiny reno (read: put up shelves) in our kitchen, were handed down Dave's moms piano that had to get moved in (!!) and the kids and I are settling into a different routine with just the three of us during the day now.
We've been spending lots of time at home lately. I've been trying really hard to let the kids be and what a difference this has made in our days! Being the one staying at home with them, I've always felt this pressure to be doing something with them all the time and really planning out our whole day. Which, surprise, left me feeling like I had no time to do my own thing and the kids were constantly nagging me to entertain them.
I hesitate to use the word ignore, but essentially for most of the day now I just get on with my own things and let them be. If they're safe, and not destroying the house (the bar is low here people lol) then I just let them be. Even if that means they've pulled out all the crayons and dumped them on the carpet to find the perfect shade of pink, I just let them be. To be honest, sometimes I just have to leave the room because I find it so hard not to interrupt them and shout "Gah! Don't do that!".
What a change! I've noticed the kids will play with each other so much more, and they've become so much more engaged in their own little worlds and activities. It's so lovely to see! Plus I've been able to read SO MUCH more and work away on my own projects. Instead of waiting for the kids to go to bed to have some "me time" I just do it during the day.
What a revelation!
This makes feel so optimistic about the coming winter and spending more time together inside :)
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This book was really inspiring to back off and let the kids be : The Idle Parent by Tom Hodgkinson
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