Easter Fun

I do not recall an Easter Weekend where the weather was this beautiful and temps climbed to 70 degrees.  We started off the weekend with an Easter Egg Hunt at the Philomath Middle School on Saturday morning.  Gabe was instructed to run right past all the first eggs and head for the back where the pickin was easy...and that's exactly what he did!  It took him no time to score his allotted 15 eggs.

Later on in the afternoon, I set up all the egg coloring stuff on the patio and he got right to work coloring eggs.  Brown eggs take longer to color so you have to be very patient.  Note to self for next year: get some chickens that lay white eggs :)

On Sunday morning, the Easter Bunny (aka Dan) showed up with an Easter basket and hinted that there might be some more eggs hidden around the house, so Gabe, now being an egg hunting expert, collected those right up.

The Loot

Going Down the List

With warm weather coming on unusually early this year, we have managed to get a pretty good head start on some of our outside projects. So far we've....

 

 gotten tired of slopping thru the wet, muddy grass to reach the pole building 



 So, now we have a nice path!

had three dump truck loads of Gravel delivered and partially spread (Dan did alot of that by hand).

 

 The dump truck driver took us for a short ride down the road.  Gabe thought that was pretty cool.  It was also a first for me :)

 

We removed all the weeds and rocks from around the pumphouse and food storage shed and laid down landscape fabric.  Gabe takes a break from riding his bike to help dump some bark mulch.



 

Added a few stone paths, and it is now much more manageable and looks better too!

Added compost to the garden boxes so they will be ready to plant.  Garlic already coming up. Onions, Kale, and Beets planted.

Chicken Coop Expansion

Last summer when we moved the new coop in we immediately begin making plans for an expansion.  The 8 hens we have didn't seem to have much room to move around in the 4 by 8 foot main floor of the original coop, although we really liked the design and overall appearance.  We have now added a 12 by 4 foot run so they can more easily stretch their legs.  Just another project we have been wanting to do for along time.

Wire fencing must be buried along the entire parameter to prevent animals from digging under.

The chickens enjoy their new addition.

 Dan also put up some birdhouses he made. Ahh...spring is in the air!

 Final day of chicken coop expansion, and Gabe was exhausted!

My New Car

OK, so I normally don't blog about myself, but I'm trying to catch people up with what's been happening.  My beloved Civic of 6 years finally left me stranded on the side of the road on the way to work one morning.  It had over 250K miles on it, and had been a great car.  Even though I always said I was going to pull the license plates and push it over a cliff some day, I reluctantly sold it to my mechanic for 200 dollars.  I just bought a used Honda Accord, and am hoping to get a few good years out of it. As most of you know, it's all about efficiency for me!  Good gas mileage, cheap used cars are the way to go for our family budget as well as the environment! Since my Civic was only a 2 door, I am happy to finally have something Gabe can get in and out of easier.

Yes...it's Purple!

Big Boy Bed!

Gabe really Loves his new Bunk Bed!  Although I do not allow him to sleep on the top bed yet, he sure likes to play up there!

 

On a side note....I know it's been a long time since I posted anything on my blog.  That is because we finally got tired of our Internet connection and cancelled our service in December.  We had been using a cell signal and it just kept getting worse and worse, until it was so slow we could barely send an email.  Since we have our smart phones, we decided to stop throwing our money away and just cancel the service.  Our rural telephone company began laying the Fiber Optic cables last May using a government grant to connect rural communities.  The service finally became available last week, and we were the first in line to get hooked up.  I will be able to blog, post pictures and videos with ease now!  We have stepped into the age of technology at our "place in the country"!