Month: July 2020

Trimmer mower

On By CarynIn Wildlife
Meadow, pre-trim

We have a meadow on the side of the house, in front of the chicken coop. I’ve been seeding wildflowers there since we moved in, and when the blooms are done and the seeds have formed I trim down the whole meadow with a string trimmer. It usually takes over two hours and two tanks of gas before I’ve had enough! This year we invested in a trimmer mower, which has thick replaceable plastic “string” like a trimmer, but is mounted on three wheels and pushed like a mower. The trimmer mower and I are now friends. It does a much neater job on the meadow than I did swinging a trimmer back and forth, and I ran out of gas before it did. I was also able to get more done in those two hours.

Meadow post-trim

I did leave some of the Standing Cypress near the road so it will reseed, and I found an ironweed, which I mowed around because I haven’t seen one before and it had pretty purple blooms. I am hoping that it will also reseed.

Ironweed with grasshopper
Hackberry Emperor butterfly landed on my elbow

We have a lovely patch of buffalo grass happily spreading near the coop. In order to keep it from dying I took a rake to the trimmings to keep them from matting up and killing the roots. A little brownsnake kept me company.

Brownsnake escaping my raking
I can see five grasshoppers in this shrub

When any kind of yard work is going on, my flock usually hides in the coop. But one brave hen ventured out and discovered that all sorts of tasty things jumped into the runs to escape the mower. I saw her chasing a snake and at least a couple grasshoppers!

Doll House bed

On By CarynIn Craft

So I saw something on Pinterest (I think this phrase is to crafters what “Once upon a time” is for fairy tales), and my youngest asked for a bed for her doll house, and have been wanting to try weaving a cot. (Pinterest is both the boon and bane of my existence.)

Weaving a doll cot

I had extra wood from the doll house construction, so made a frame. I found some bamboo and cotton fingering weight yarn in my stash and wrapped the warp with two lashes between each warp thread, and repeated for the weft. This was much more straight forward than I feared! The wraps kept the sides straight, and I could easily hide the ends by running them through the wraps on the back side. I used more scrap to make a base for the cot, which I glued on after the weaving was done.

Finished doll cot
Doll house with cot

I knit a small blanket for the cot too, out of the same yarn, but my youngest said it was too big and she didn’t want it to match, so now it is a rug. I used scraps to make a kind of table too, but it also is even smaller and more fiddly than making the doll house. No thank you, especially when Melissa and Doug makes such pretty doll furniture.

Freedom!

On By CarynIn chickens

Well sort of free. I removed the poultry wire from between three runs since I’m done trying to sprout seeds in them (except in the salad bars). It gives the hens more room to roam and some extra outdoor perches. The whole run is still covered in hardware cloth because they still need protection from the neighboring wildlife. (Although not spiders. I watched a hen take down a wolf spider this week. Spider didn’t have a chance.)

Chicken wire removed between runs

The outside run now looks like a chicken jungle gym. The hens had no problem with the removed wire and they wandered happily under the dividers. After a couple days, they started perching on the 2x4s, I did sand the splinters down to try to prevent bumblefoot. I left the doors intact, since it is helpful to have a closed off space when we are doing health checks, but right now the doors are all open.

Happy Fourth! Celebrating our freedom like the hens: walking under dividers. Or maybe enjoying our apparent freedom. There are probably many comparisons between the chicken life and life during pandemic, but I’ll let you draw your own.

Dura-craft Ashley doll house

On By CarynIn Craft

Done! It took me a week gluing and waiting, gluing and waiting, but the doll house is complete and my youngest is happy that she can play in it now without worrying about wet glue or paint.

Dura-craft Ashley doll house front
Inside

By the way, artist’s acrylics do a pretty good job as caulk for doll houses, since the consistency is nice and thick. It is very difficult to get a crisp joint on that tiny trim. Touch up paint was definitely my friend.

Most of the house is painted with acrylics. The roof and stairs were spray painted metallic silver. The pink was mixed by hand, and I tried for a lighter shade inside than outside (note, a little red goes a LONG way). The wall paper on the ground floor room was designed in Photoshop, printed on office paper, and decoupaged to the walls. The whole thing looks much better in photographs. I’m not a huge fan of the press board construction. Time will tell for the durability.