Haven't had time to post on here in quite awhile. We're still working on the refinishing job on the house, taking alot longer than planned. I'm anxious to finish painting the AfterBlast on the front porch so I can start staining but it's been so cold here the last few days work has had to stop until it warms up a little. It's supposed to rain on Thursday so hopefully will be able to get some done.

One of the Black Silkie hens has decided to set on some eggs, 5 at last count. There are 4 roosters in that area and 3 hens. The roosters seem to get along ok so I haven't done anything about getting rid of any of them. It will be hard to do, I've gotten attached to all of them, even the one rooster who loves to peck me and always has since he was a baby. I think he's the same one who we call the Guard since he seems to decide who is allowed to come into their house. We've seen him sit in the doorway until long after dark while 1 or 2 of the hens are sitting outside. Anyway it will be nice to see the baby chicks and let the mama raise them instead of us bringing them in. That got old last Spring when we had big bins with the chicks in the living room. Their chirping wasn't too bad but as they got bigger the smell got bad unless we cleaned their bin out everyday.

Tim is loving his Tuesday school. Next Tuesday the new class list for the new trimester comes out. He's anxious to see what classes they will offer. On November 17th there's a big field trip to the Science Center in Seattle. We're looking forward to that but not to having to be there by 7:15am. We'll have to leave our house by 6:30 and we're not morning people here!

Here's the back side of the house with the After-Blast painted on. It makes the house look a little darker. Once we get the After-Blast on the whole house then we get to start staining! That will be my favorite part, it'll be like coloring. We're going to put a cedar stain on and then energy seal between the logs that will also be cedar color. We decided against doing the chinking. Can't wait to get the energy seal on, it's been freezing cold in here every night lately. We also got a 5 gallon bucket of EZ Strip last week ($220), Pat left it in the driveway, Stephen was asked by Pat to move one of the cars and he backed over the bucket of EZ Strip! This project has been way more expensive than we ever dreamed. Hopefully running over the bucket taught Stephen to drive more carefully and always check behind him before he backs up. I want to get out there and paint more tomorrow but I have to go to Tacoma for an appt for Tim at the pediatric neurologist. We'll get the results of the MRI Tim had last week. I'm finding an egg about every day in the Silkies area now. Today I walked by and saw an egg in their yard so I got it and put it in my coat pocket and went back to painting. Tonight I was on the computer and remembered the egg and checked my pocket and it was broke! That'll teach me. **This is added on October 15th. You would have thought I would have learned, I did the same thing a few days ago, stuck an egg in my pocket when I was working outside and it broke while I was working on the house!

After waiting since Spring for one of these chickens to lay an egg we found 2 in the yard of the Black Silkies area today! This is a saucer in the picture so it shows how small these are, they're from Bantam chickens which are fairly small. I've got to get that greenhouse ready to put the chickens in! We've been so busy with this huge project of blasting the finish off the house that I haven't had time to work on anything else. The blasting is done and it looks like it won't rain for at least a few days so we'll go ahead and spray the house with the Shell-Guard this weekend.

We're still working on this huge project of blasting the old finish off the house and then we have to spray it with the Shell Guard and then the After-Blast, then we can stain it. I think that will be the fun part although you can sure see the progress while you're blasting so I guess that's been fun too. We were supposed to only need 40 bags of corn media for the blasting but so far have used 78 bags and we're not done. We're supposed to be re-renting the blaster tomorrow for the weekend, if it doesn't rain. I've been using the shop vac to vacuum up all the corn media I can and then I've been sifting it into the empty bags so we can reuse it.

Today is my birthday and Melissa, my son Shane's wife, posted this picture on our myfamily.com site. It's me and Shane when he was about 2, probably 1978 or so. I miss when Shane was that little and I sure wish I was as young now as I was in that picture!

Joey and Aaron on their first day of school in Georgia... such sweet adorable boys!

Here's some of the Silkies. Most look like roosters, at least half anyway.

It's official, these 2 on the left are roosters. I've got at least 3 of the 7 crowing now. They crow back and forth at the Sicilian Buttercup. I really like listening to them crow but I know it would be too hard on the 2 or 3 hens in there. I guess I need to find them a home.

Wow! It took 1 minute to upload this picture onto here. I love this fast internet! I'm so tired, should be sleeping right now but I want to play on the computer. It's after 10 and I need to be out of here in the morning between 7 and 8 at the latest to be in Tacoma by 11 for a drs appt at a pediatric neurologist for Tim. I've waited all summer for this appt so we need to go. After that I have to drive back up to Permachink to get another 30-35 big bags of corn media. On Thursday and Friday I'll do some of the blasting but also need to take Stephen to the dentist Thursday.

We are in the midst of a big project, blasting the old finish off the outside of our log house. Much bigger job than I thought. I know it will be worth it in the end but for now it's a huge pain. I have pictures of the job as it's going along but this slow connection isn't being very cooperative. On Tuesday this guy is coming here to install satellite internet. Cannot wait!!!! It's been 4 long years of the connection problems.

I also have pictures to put on here of the chickens. I have a feeling that soon we will have fewer. At least 2 of the Black Silkies now crow along with the Sicilian Buttercup who's in a different area. I actually only am pretty sure that 2 of the 7 Black Silkies are hens. I really hate to get rid of any of them and I know I couldn't eat them so I'll place an ad at the feed store. There was alot of fighting going on in there today but even the 2 Buttercups were fighting with each other. I think their nerves were all on edge from listening to that huge air compressor going and the corn blaster was going too. I couldn't even go near there without my ear plugs. We picked up 35 bags of the corn media and because we didn't read the manual fully we ended up using way more the first day than we should have so now we have 1 or 2 bags left. Didn't even get started till 5pm on Friday, about the time that Permachink closed until Tuesday morning. Ticked me off because I had asked them if we had problems would we be able to get ahold of someone and they said yes. We haven't been able to contact anyone from there and they are apparently the only place in Washington State where you can get the corn media. I went around to the feed stores yesterday with a sample and finally bought 200lbs of chick scratch but it was much coarser than what we had. I may be grinding a bunch of that in the food processor.

I got Tim in school and on Tuesday there's a picnic to meet the other kids and parents. On Wednesday he has an appt. at a pediatric neurologist in Tacoma and then we'll probably be driving up to Redmond to get more corn media. Much of the house is done but still alot to do and then we spray it with Shell-Guard to protect from insects, etc, spray it with After-Blast, then stain it, etc, then chink it and we will have a much warmer house this winter. There was so much of that corn stuff that came into the house that I realized just how bad it's been needing to be chinked.

This is my greenhouse that I'm turning into a chicken house. There was so much stuff that kept getting put in there that I couldn't even get in there to get chicken feed, let alone use it as a greenhouse. I'm going to cover the front windows on the left with plywood so it doesn't get so warm in there. There's the windows on both ends for ventilation but I still need to put chicken wire over those to keep our little escapees in and the other critters out. I'll cut 2 little doors, one of each side of the big windows, for the chickens to get outside into their fenced area which I need to attach to the greenhouse and expand. Lots of work but it's the best way.

This is my Sicilian Buttercup rooster. He was kind of funny looking when I got him a few months ago but he's getting to be very nice looking. They loved all the long grass in the area I moved them to over the weekend. I need to get to the store and buy supplies to get the big chicken house built! I'm thinking seriously of getting the 5 Rhode Island Red hens, guess they're actually called pullets since they're less than a year old, and I really don't have anywhere to put them. Stephen and I may have to raid Pat's wood pile and put together another temporary chicken coop.

Here's a better picture of the 5 Barred Rock chickens. After they got moved to the shade and long grass yesterday they were so happy! I called on 5 Rhode Island Red hens today. Do I dare buy them? I'd have to get another temporary chicken house ready to use until I get the big chicken house done. I'm thinking I'm going to need a pretty big chicken house!

I moved the chicken yard yesterday over where there's almost always long grass and weeds. The chickens had been in an area that I had cleared last year so there wasn't much in the way of grass or weeds there. None of them wanted to even go in their houses last night, they were enjoying the cool green grass and the shade. I've got to start building the chicken house soon and I'm thinking of building it somewhere in this area except it's a little too close to the clothesline for my liking. I don't want our sheets and towels smelling like chicken poop!

I love this picture of Tim. It was taken last summer when we went to Ruby Beach on the coast of Washington. It's so beautiful there! It took us longer than we thought to get there since Missy, one of our boxers, gets car sick and we had to stop a few times but we got there in time for the sunset.

Here's a picture of Stephen at Hurricane Ridge just outside of Port Angeles. I don't have very many pictures of him, just whatever I can take when he doesn't see what I'm up to. On this day last Fall we went up to Hurricane Ridge visitor center and then Stephen and I hiked quite aways up from there while Pat and Tim hung out around the visitor center.

This picture is from the snow we got this past December on the 1st and 2nd. It stuck around till the 18th and then left. That was probably the least snow we've had in the 4 winters we lived here, certainly less than the 3ft we had the previous winter! Stephen is still complaining about that. It wasn't so bad but it sure stuck with us a long time! It was actually quite beautiful but was getting a little scary on about the 3rd day in a row of it not stopping. I started having visions of it getting so deep it would cover the windows and I was getting very worried about how much was on the roof, especially on the skylights over my bed and over the living room! It makes me feel cold now to look at a picture of the snow but it's not very warm here anyway. We had a few days recently when it was very hot but ever since then it's in the 60's and 70's, not even warm enough to bother opening many windows, makes me feel guilty when I think of all the people suffering in the extreme heat in other parts of the country right now.

Something about this picture that I just love. This is looking from my living room towards my dining room. I wiped out the hard drive on my computer last week and am still reinstalling things on it. I was just going through some pictures that were backed up on the external hard drive and found 2 that are among my favorites, this is one.

Here's Tim on his birthday with Missy watching him open one of his presents, probably hoping it will be a squeaky ball.

I still haven't finished my latest apron! I hurt my back last week and when I went to Seattle for the weekend I ended up not being able to do much but lay around reading and then when I got back I've had so much to do around here that I couldn't find time to sew. Stephen and I are cleaning the chickens houses tonight, taking a break now.

Here's Joey and Aaron at a park in Savannah, Georgia. Aaron had some dental work done that day and his mouth was hurting so Joey was being extra nice to him.

Here's a picture of Aaron at a park in Savannah, Georgia. He's such a sweet boy! I miss him and his brother so much!!

Haven't had time to post on here or sew lately. I wish things weren't so busy. Here's a picture of Joey and Aaron at a park in Savannah, Georgia.

These doggies just adore each other! I don't know what they would do without each other.

This picture is of Shane with Joey and Aaron during one of Shane's leaves.

Here's a picture of our 5 Black Silkie chickens. You can't see them very well at all but even when I get close ups they look like a ball of black fur! They're really fun, a bit mischievous, one of them in particular likes to grab the S hook and run with it when I take the hanging food or water feeders down to fill.

Tim and I went strawberry picking with Pennie and her little boy Carson yesterday. Pennie started a Farmgirl Chapter, just her and I are members so far. Our chapter is called "The Farm Chicks". Tim and I first went to her house and she gave us a tour, what a beautiful place and I love the pond with the ducks and all the other animals. Here's a picture of Pennie, Carson and Tim after we got done picking. I don't know why this one came out so small, I'll have to try to upload it again but for now here it is.

We dug 2 deep holes to put my new clothesline poles in and the kids (Joey and Aaron, my 2 grandkids-- I can't be old enough to be a grandma!!) wanted to stand in one and get their picture taken. Thunder and Missy, our 2 boxers, wanted in the picture too.

Here's the front view of the apron I finished last night. I just strung the cable on my new clothesline poles so decided to hang the apron on it for the picture. As you can probably see it's pretty breezy today, nice change from the last couple days when it was hot here. On the upper part of the apron and across the area where the pockets are is a dark line but it's just shadow from the other lines. Look how blue the sky is! What a gorgeous day!

***Posting to this 2/27/07 Will it ever be warm enough again to hang clothes on the clothesline? I can barely get myself to go outside and clean the chicken houses. Most of the time I don't feel as old as I am but I sure can't stand the cold weather the older I get.

I love this picture too. This one is after a busy day of visiting with Shane. Joey was pretty wiped out. I didn't know how he would do with the night flights and connections and general lack of sleep during our whole trip but he was an absolute angel! I miss those boys already! They flew from Seattle to Savannah, Georgia last night with their Mom to live with Shane.

I just love this picture. This is my son Shane (who I just found out yesterday is in the hospital with malaria). I had gone to see his graduation from basic training and while he knew that I was flying there with his dad and stepmom he didn't know that we were bringing his then 6 year old son Joey. We had to not even tell Joey we were bringing him until the night before we left so he wouldn't tell his Dad when he called. There's an arcade in the picture and Joey was hiding in there and was supposed to wait till I called him to come out but I got so swept away with emotions at seeing how much Shane had changed in the short time he had been in basic training I forgot and then we heard Joey call out "Daddy!" and ran into his Dad's arms. I think we all shed some tears. In this picture Joey is showing his Daddy where he had lost his first tooth.

Here's a picture of my first apron. I really love this pattern, might make the pockets a little bigger on my next one. I used the 1940's pattern. I'm almost done with my next apron and when I take a picture of it I'll take a picture of the back too. You can kind of see the strip that goes across the upper back and the apron ties in the back. It's very roomy and easy to put on and I love that chicken material! I've got to learn to get alot when I find fabric that I love! I got the pattern for this from a store but it's from http://www.thecalicocat.com. I'll try and finish the next apron later today and post a picture of it. It's hot here today and I badly want to start making MaryJane's Apron! I bought fabric for it that is perfect for summer.