Repurposing treat jars

On February 25, 2020February 22, 2020 By CarynIn Craft

Feeling a little silly. My spoiled pup has been itchy for awhile. I’ve tried skin sprays, ordered some probiotics, took all the artificially dyed treats away… what? I didn’t? Turns out our go to treat has red 40 in it. How did that miss the purge? We were buying it by the jar full. I must have assumed I read the ingredients label long ago. Nope. Sugar and red 40. All righty then, out they go. But the jars are so useful… I’ll make new labels with vinyl! (Told you this stuff is addicting.)

Filling the indents in the jars to make a smoother surface

I washed out the jars and soaked off as much of the old label as I could. There were still sticky bits, so I decided to recover the whole middle in white vinyl. The indents in the sides of the jar made the vinyl pucker, so I filled them in with silicone caulk, smoothed it, and let it set. The vinyl went on better, but not as perfectly as it does on hard surfaces (the plastic jars have some flex).

I designed some new labels in Adobe Illustrator and cut them with my Cricut. The first design (above) was not an easy weed, and the tiny toe nail marks were too small to deal with! The second design (below) was very easy to weed, but larger than the white. Oops. I didn’t measure twice, cut once. But it does look like a little tiny dog ink stepped all over the jar, so I am going with it.

It was an interesting experiment, and I have useable, non-sticky treat jars for the new, natural dog treats. The dog is spoilt.

Outside!

On April 23, 2019 By CarynIn chickens

What a big day! We decided the best way to give the chicks a bigger enclosure was to line the old dog cage with chicken wire. We put pine shavings down inside and moved them in during the morning. They seem to appreciate the larger space. We rigged some scrap 2×4 together and hung it from the rafters and added metal eyes to hang the water and food jars in the new space. We had to adjust the height a bit, but it seems to work without too much swinging.

The chicks also had their first outside time. They seemed to enjoy running on the dirt and picking at leaves. We did another step for training our dog and had him lay down by the cage while the chicks moved around.

He could see them this time, but he did well not freaking out. And we protected the chicks from our outside cat, who thought she was going to get a snack!

Shake those tail feathers!

On April 12, 2019 By CarynIn chickens

During the morning health check it took me a minute to figure out what was going on; the chicks had something new on their derrière: tail feathers! And their wings are longer! I guess I know where all that feed is going. Some must be going into the chicks even though it seems like it is all on the floor.

I am also working with our dog on understanding that these chicks are family, not toys. So he has been coming out to the coop with me and staying in down position while I do the health checks. Mostly the down position, he does have to be reminded.

I am also giving each chick a bit of a cuddle during health checks to make them more comfortable. It seemed to work, each one settled down when I held them today. However Izzy, our inside cat, was not happy. She was not in the coop, but she can see the coop from her catio and apparently hear me cooing to the chicks, and was highly offended. She meowed, loudly, until we came out.

So you can see them shake their tail feathers, and ring the bell, here is a video.

Redeemed

On March 23, 2019March 22, 2019 By CarynIn Wildlife

I thought perhaps we would get through another walk with Oblivious, but he redeemed himself today. Or rather, the deer gave themselves away. And I had my good camera.