Christmas Decorating

I am working my way to being finished with the Christmas decorating.

I saw something online the other day that is my inspiration for this little idea I’m about to show you. I wish I were on my other computer and I could crop this pic below to show the real one that was my inspiration pic. But instead I’ll have to say, it’s the pic on the left that I am going to try and copy some of. Not all of it, just some. I guess a more simplified version.

I don’t have the 4 framed pix to the side of the mirror in this pic nor do I have anything close to those that would work to use. I just love the little florist thing (don’t know what it’s called) that is hanging from the top of the mirror. Grin…..

OPPS I ALMOST forgot something……I got this pic above online and I have NO CLUE where I found it to give credit. I am sorry I can’t remember. I am not trying to say it’s my own, it’s my inspirational pic. OK now that that’s done lets get down to business. wink…

Now for some details…… I have this mirror I found at the thrift store and it was only 5.00. It’s been changed because it also had 2 small mirrors on each side of it that I removed and used in another project.

I took the mirror and filled in some tiny screw holes in the sides of it last night. Once that dried I spray painted it gold today. It’s bad weather outside today so I had to do it in a rush and got my spray can too close to my mirror frame and it ran just a bit. Will have to sand it some and redo those couple areas. Excuse my pile of Christmas lights you see in the pic. I put one strand to each plastic bag so they don’t all get tangled up. So that’s what the pile of junk is there in the mirror. Trying to get er done.

I want to use my manger scene in my mantel decoration since I don’t’ have another place to sit it. I saw a pic online when I googled mantels decorated and she had used a glass picture frame and sit her manger scene up in it. So I think I am going to do something like that with me.

Details on what I did before I painted it. Once I wiped all the dust off and cleaned it up, I took the mirror out of it. Then I sanded it really good in all the cracks and crevices. The reason I sanded it is because it had stain and varnish on it and I needed my paint to adhere to the frame so you have to sand it down. Then with a couple old damp rags I wiped all the sanded dust off it a couple times to make sure it was nice and clean. Then I sprayed it with the gold metallic spray paint.

It’s sitting a little crooked because I was trying not to get gold paint on everything.

Anyway the main reason I wanted to post this is to show you that you don’t have to pay a fortune to decorate your home. It CAN be done on a shoe string budget when you shop around at the thrift stores and garage sales. In fact I had this can of paint on hand already from another project. It was only about half full of paint but it was enough if I hadn’t of messed up with letting the can be too close to my frame. It’ll be OK though. But you can decorate your home on a shoestring budget so don’t get depressed.

I’ll have to come back later and edit this when I get the mantel all fixed up so you can see what I did to it. Not going to be AS fancy as the inspirational pic but pretty all the same I think.

 

Rose

Missing in Action

Sorry you guys for not coming on and keeping you posted in what I am doing these days. Most of what I am doing involves the chickens as you would imagine.

 

Yep I am loving being a chicken owner AND getting eggs from them! Yep already getting eggs from those babies.


That was my very first egg we got out of the nest. Hubby was the one that found it and it made my whole week! As you can see I had to weigh it. It was 41g.

Now we are getting about 4 a day but not all the hens are laying yet. I have 8 Rhode Island Red hens and 2 roos and then 7 Black Australorps and I say Aussies for short.

I have been trying to learn all I can about keeping chickens and what I need to do and not to do so I can help to keep them healthy. A very precious lady on a chicken forum has helped me a whole lot to learn and has given me all kinds of ideas I have done on my coop and run and for their roost and nesting area.


Grazing frames we made for them so I can plant grass in there so they will have fresh grasses in their run and they can’t root up the roots to the grass. They eat the grass as it comes up through the hardware cloth. They have 3 of these in there.

Getting bigger.

 

Checking out her nesting boxes. This was when we first put it up. We can check it outside their pen.

Even bigger, this one was a double yolker.

 

Got eggs?

 

Homemade ice cream using our eggs.

 

One of the girls. This is an Aussie.

I call them my fuzzy butts.

Soaking up the sunshine.

Good lil shot of one of the Aussie’s.

In their favorite dusting spot when they free range.

In their pen eating.

On one of the paths of made from rocks and concrete through my flower bed.

Eating termites off this stump.

After they found them on the other stump I pulled the bark away from this one and let them have at them on this one to.

I thought this one was so cute with the one on the stump looking down and the other one on the ground.

Still feeding and we have more. 

You can click on any of the photo’s to make them larger if you’d like.

 

Hubby made us a swing frame for our old cypress swing we had. I think he did an awesome job to. You can see it toward the right side of the pic. The other chickens are still feeding on that first stump.

 

OK this should give you a small idea of what I have been up to lately.

 

Hope you all are well and busy or just being if you can do that. Stay tuned for more chicken stuff.

Rose

Chickens

Yep more about chickens. The hubby and daughter are sick of hearing about them already so I gotta tell somebody.

Here’s the crew together. You can see their vitamin/electrolytes water in the background. It’s soooo hot here now I decided to give it to them a couple days in a row just to help them.

Dust bathing below.

They made them a little hole and they all piled up in it dust bathing.

I got tired of them wasting SO MUCH food until I made them this gutter feeder. I put the gutter guard over it and just cut out little holes for their heads. I got it just a bit too high for them so I put the little things for them to stand on to reach their feed.

After this shot was when I decided they needed a lift so they could reach their food better. THEN I decided I’d have to put wire over their feeder to keep them OFF the feeder since they wanted to climb up on it. They don’t need poop in their feed. SO I came up with this idea to keep them off it. They have just enough room to get their little heads in there to eat.

See in the next photo how they wanted to climb on the feeder to eat? I was like no now this can’t work. Ya can’t be getting ON the feeder but they wasn’t listening.

This is part of their run they are in on the next pic. This part is cover by tin and then the other part on up on the pic where you can see sunshine, it’s covered in wire on the top. The pen to the left in this pic will be where their nesting boxes will go. It’s not opened up to them yet since they’re not laying yet.

They are growing like weeds! A couple evenings ago we we went to a friends house to pick some string beans. Was going to be back by dark so I let them stay in their run figuring they would all come in the roosting area by night time. They’ve been really good about doing so.

So I figure I’d just let them stay in the run and then when we got back go inside their pen and shut the back gate that opens out into their run. Their run is completely covered in wire so nothing can get inside to them.

So I get back home from picking the string beans to find most ALL of them on their roost! They haven’t been sleeping on their roost! It was so cute I fell out laughing because you couldn’t put one more up there on that top rung of their roost that night. I told them what GOOD little chicks they were to! I was totally surprised to see them on it. Anyway then last night with camera in hand I went out to take pix before it got too dark. I’m telling you I have these things spoiled already!

Every last one of them wants the same board to roost on! There are still about 10 of them that are wanting to sleep on the ground.

This evening I let them outside their pen to free range. They LOVE free ranging.

Then this next picture is about how most of the pix I take of them are. lol They almost are never still so they are blurry.

Then tonight there were more on the roost and everyone still wanted the top roost. The things on the wall back there are dryer sheets stuck in the chicken wire to help keep away mosquitoes I hope!

This is the pile left on the floor that’s not using their roost yet.

The ones on the other board are wanting up on the top board with the others. They will even jump up there on top of the others when there’s no where for them to get. They are a  hoot.

By the time I left out there this evening that top board was totally jammed packed full. lol

So far the food they love are yellow crook neck squash, cucumbers, and they dearly love chops (corn crushed), and they really like zucchini squash even better than they do yellow squash. I fed them some cornbread I’d mixed in some flaxseed meal into and they loved that to. I sit and cut up grass in their pan of water in the run and they will fish the grass out of the water and eat it. They see me coming and they run to meet me thinking I have them food every time.

OK I think that will give you an idea of how spoiled these babies are. I’m sure I will be back posting more pictures soon. So stay tuned.

Rose

Chickens and Brooder Boxes

Well we’ve had the Rhode Island Reds (16 of them) for 2 weeks as of this past Sat. Then we got the Black Australorps and Sex Links (23 of these) this past Thursday. We wound up having to build another brooder box just like this one so we can butt them together and make one brooder box. We put a piece of stainless steel expanded metal in one side of the box for a window so they could see each other and it would be like they were raised together. Can’t put them all together yet since there is such a age difference.

Figured I would show you all a few pix of them and the brooder boxes.

 

This is the first one we did. Our nephew brought us these crates. They ship things in them where he works. We just added the legs and a couple 2x4’s to screw the legs to and added the top for the lid. It has hardware cloth on top of the lid. I keep plastic over the top to keep the Rhode Island Reds warm.

This is the Rhode Island Reds (RIR) when I first brought them home.

Another one.

Buddy our dog just loves them and is soooo fascinated with them.

One eating from the lid. lol Aren’t they so stinkin’ cute?

Getting bigger.

This one was pecking on my camera lins. lol

Out for a little outing.

They enjoyed their outing.

Working on their bigger pen trying to get it ready for them.

They should really enjoy this space.

Now for the newest babies. These are the Black Austrlorps and the black sex links. Got these on Thursday of last week so they are only 4 days old. There are 23 of these.

Buddy is just as fascinated with these.

They still have some of the stuff from the egg shell on them.

Started the SECOND brooder box. Made it about the same size as the other one so we can butt them together so they can see one another and grow up together. Then when they get larger I can unscrew the expanded metal and remove it so they can visit each others pens.

Sorry this pic isn’t too grand. My camera just doesn’t take nice night pix. I was painting it this evening and it got dark on me before I got done with it. This is the side with the expanded metal in it. We will cut the same size hole out in the other brooder box and just screw the two boxes together. I’ve got to put the hardware cloth on the top of it yet. The black australorps are really fast out growing their pen.

OK that should be enough for now. Maybe I can get some better pix of the second brooder box we made when it’s day time.

Updated to add a better pic of the newest brooder box…..

I’ve got to put the hardware cloth on it yet and take the tape off the expanded metal.

He (hubby) added the little tabs on the sides to attach the two brooders together with.

 

Rose