Squirrel...!

There's a big fat Grey Squirrel that's been poaching out of our compost bin lately.  She has to run right across our front lawn to get her rotten veggie bounty.  So the dogs get a fantastic view of her bouncing fluffiness from our living room windows.   My dog, Martha, wants this squirrel so badly.  I don't think I can explain to you how truly psychotic she becomes when she sees this thing out the window.  She barks incessantly, shakes like a tweaker coming off a high, blows snot all over my windows, and blasts around the room, slamming into furniture, bouncing off the windows, trying to get a better vantage point every 3-5 seconds.  And since Martha sneaks like an elephant, the squirrel hears all the commotion and just safely bounds away, knowing that the big scary dog is not so scary when she's stuck behind the big glass walls.  The squirrel happily makes off with her coffee-ground-covered apple core to feed her family (and probably goes home to tell them that the stupid buffoon dog hit its face of the glass... again).     

Squirrel!

Squirrel!!!

Look, Big Sister, a squirrel!

Mom, my squirrel went away again...

Thanks for stopping by,

-Lindsey

Manic Monday: Venturing out...

I'm in great fear of my future hermitage status.  The more I venture out in public, the less I want to be there.  Things I found ridiculous during today's outing:

~I went to Lumber Liquidators to purchase a piece of threshold needed to finish the transition between our new bamboo flooring and our tiled kitchen floor.  The cashier printed out 4 full 8.5"x11" sheets of bright yellow, dye-saturated paper as my "receipt" for my transaction for my eco-friendly bamboo.  In my most pleasant tone, I pointed at all the papers and said to him, "While we're on the subject of wasting paper, could you please take us off your mailing list?  We just purchased an entire house worth of flooring.  So all the coupons we keep getting in the mail are just a tease that we could get it cheaper next time we decide it's a good idea to tear up all our hard work and start over, and it seems to be just another waste of paper."

~While feeling pretty smug about my new purchase of a bathroom vanity and linen closet door for $55.00 (total) at the recycled building supply center, I dropped a tampon out of my coat pocket onto the floor on my way out.  I didn't realize it until the scruffy looking guy who works there felt the need to call out to me that I'd "dropped something."  Dude, it's not like it was used.  Save a girl some humiliation, pick it up, toss it in the trash, and pretend it never happened.  Just sayin'...

~I've been on a search for local raw honey.  I eat a spoon full of it daily during allergy season to help with outdoor allergies.  Tis the season, and I'm currently out of my stash.  I had one more healthy-people-food store to check, and came up empty again.  Their "local" honey was distributed locally from a place that collected it from all over the place, including Canada.  I despise tricky labeling.

~While at the hardware store (not my local one, but one of the same company), I tried to use our discount (usually looked up by our name at the local store) and was told that it only applied for the local area where I got the card, unless I had the card on me.  It was in my husband's wallet (at home), and the cashier wouldn't honor the discount.  It twisted my panties right up to know that I could have gotten hinges for the chicken coop doors at 10% off if I'd remembered to buy them when I got my paint at the local spot, and if that cashier had known ANYthing at all about customer service.


But then I came home, and my husband let my son help prep for dinner.  They made breaded pork nuggets, and my son was all excited.  He came up to me and whispered in my ear, "they're kind of like fish sticks, except they're not made out of chicken, they're made from pork!"

Remind me again why I'd ever want to leave...


Thanks for stopping by,
-Lindsey

Farm-fresh Friday: Coop progress...

Can I just tell you that I have actually shed tears over this chicken coop?  No joke, if you happened to be in the area in the early afternoon on Wednesday, you would have seen a 30-year-old woman out in her front yard, beating the shit out of an old door with a hammer, and sobbing like a toddler.  The good news is I'm totally over it now, and things are starting to proceed smoothly again.  I just had a tiny little melt down over the fact that my easy, little, cheap coop project had turned into a complicated monstrosity of materials that we couldn't afford.  but no turning back now...it is what it is.  So here's the progress report since last Friday...

"Foundation"
the railroad ties were poached from my mom's house, and the pressure-treated decking was salvaged from what was left of our root cellar.  Yes I would like to have another one someday, but that one had to go.

Walls
the plywood used to be on the floor of our living room (under the sexy carpeting that the previous owner had put in sometime, I'm guessing, around the late 70's).  We tore the sheets of plywood out when we installed our new flooring, and saved it.  3/4 inch plywood is like solid gold...it costs about the same, and you don't part with it once you have it.  The 2x4's for the framing were the first part of the coop that we had to purchase new.  I spent about $65 on enough to do the walls, and the roof.

Roof
From this post (where we left off on Monday evening).
the roof was supposed to be free, but it didn't work out that way at all.  We had a bunch of scrap roofing from an old shed we'd torn down years ago, and I was all excited to reuse it...until we discovered that it was almost completely rusted through, and where it wasn't, it had about a billion screw holes in it.  So that was another $60 spent.  thankfully the roofing panels didn't need to be fancy, and we were able to score the cheap ones at $15 a panel (with the contractor discount that i now get at the lumber yard, I think out of pity).   

Ladder
(because apparently I'm expecting Godzilla-chickens,  and needed to build an extra tall coop)?

Doors...wait, no...walls...Um...
So, interesting story about these doors... About a year before I met my husband, I was planning on building my own house.  Right around the same time that I was starting to collect "good finds" (you know, a cool light fixture, or a sink still in like-new condition?) I came across an awesome find.  The local fire department was scheduled to burn down an old farmhouse.  Sounds counter-productive, I know.  Usually they try to stop things from burning, not start them.  But the house was no longer in reparable condition, and had been donated to them to use for training.  So I contacted one of the members of the department, and asked about the doors.  Turns out they were going to have to take them all off before the burn anyway.  So he went with me, and we spent a morning salvaging the doors.  I never built that house, and those stupid old doors have had to move with me twice, all the while my husband asking me what the hell we were going to do with 9 old doors.  Use them for siding on our chicken coop, of course!  

Where I left off on Wednesday.  2 sides done, 2 sides to go. 

Still to do:

~finish other 2 sides

~make nesting boxes

~put flooring in (I saw a genius idea on another blog about adding easy-to-clean material to the coop floor to make mucking a whole lot easier).  I'm all about making cleaning easy, so I'm NOT skipping the flooring step.

~fill gaps (lots of them) with caulking and spray-foam.  Vermont Winter wind is not very forgiving, and I'll be damned if I'm going to put in all this work just to have 6 frozen chick-cicles next January. 

~prime

~paint

~build fence

The chicks will be here in 2 weeks.  Oh, and we have to finish our master bathroom before our appraisal for our refinancing...also in 2 weeks.  Sweet!

Thanks for stopping by,

-Lindsey

  

Thrifty Thursday: Have some restraint...

The magazines and online media do a fantastic job of making you believe that you need to have new sandals this Summer, or that last year's bathing suit just won't do at the beach this season.  it's so easy to get sucked in too.  I'll tell you, there are 3 pairs of shoes, a pair of boots, 2 sweaters, and one t-shirt nestled in my wardrobe that I spent mad money on, can't imagine not keeping forever and ever, and I'm not even a tiny bit sorry about it.  BUT, that was when I still had my big-girl paycheck.  Just because it's going to last forever, fit you perfectly, and you'll feel amazing in it, doesn't mean you can afford to buy it today...   

Alexlo 
by Stuart Weitzman

I can't even begin to describe how much I love these shoes.  They're this season's version, with a slightly more manageable heel height, than last season's (seen below on my favorite celeb).  They're also as much as my monthly car payment...and a week of groceries...

Jennifer Aniston via ELLE.com

I can honestly say that the first few months of not having my own petty cash anymore were rough.  I had gotten very used to being able to have what I wanted as soon as I clicked buy, and it arrived a few days later, handed to me by the UPS man like a mid-year un-birthday present... sigh.  I can also now honestly say that since some time has passed, and I've settled into my new thrifty-er lifestyle, I don't miss the old open-wallet me one bit.  So, yes, I absolutely love those shoes, but, no, I'm not sorry I don't have them.  Not having them allows me to have something a wicked lot more valuable to me... the ability to be home with The Kid.

Warning:  if you spend a long enough period of time away from frivolous purchases, you may develop a wildly snobbish attitude toward those still making said cash-burning choices (except towards Jen.  She can still do no wrong in my book).  Once you see the light peeking through from the simple life, it's hard to go back...just sayin.'   

Thanks for stopping by,

-Lindsey

Make-it-work Wednesday: back-to-basics of bartering...

Since giving up my big-girl job and becoming a stay-at-home Mom, I've had to find some pretty creative ways to stretch a dollar.  The most fascinating thing I've discovered about this whole transition period, is that it's a little like getting in Doc's Delorian and going back in time.  If you don't have money anymore, you have to find a different way to acquire things.  Since stealing and hooking are still morally out of the question for our family's list of resources, we've gone back-to-basics on a lot of our "purchases."

There is no more, "I want that.  So I'll just buy it."  It's more like, "I want that.  So I either need to sell something to earn the money for it, trade something for it, or decide if I really want it bad enough to part with one of my things, or some of my time to get it."  Think Hunger Games...  You want bread?  Kill a squirrel for the baker.  Luckily my husband makes pretty awesome bread, because squirrels are fast and small, and don't make easy targets.  And if you want to get super technical, Back to the Future and The Hunger Games are both set in the future, not the past, but just hear me out and go with it...

Just to give you an idea of what I mean by all this, here are a few things that we've bought, sold, traded, or otherwise creatively acquired without spending my husband's paycheck since downsizing to one income:    

~ 4 sessions of babysitting = 1 dining room table...  We needed a new table, my friend had one that was too big for the dining room in her new house, she needed a sitter, I had some free time, everyone wins.

~1 afternoon of helping a friend move = 1 giant jar of maple syrup.  Same friend that the table came from.  Folks you need to go get a friend like this... just not this one.  She's mine.  

~1 big box of old clothes = a few articles of "new" clothing... Each season I go through my closet and pull out any clothing and accessories that haven't been worn since the last clean-out.  I box it all up, bring it to the 2nd hand shop, take whatever money they'll give me for it, and use the money to buy some new clothes.  *Bonus:  To help rid my house of unnecessary clutter, I swing by Goodwill afterwards and drop off anything that the 2nd hand shop wasn't interested in buying.  If I was willing to part with it in the first place, than it doesn't need to come back home with me.

Source: bleubirdvintage.typepad.com via K on Pinterest

~100 gallons of unused heating oil + 1 fuel tank = 1 new sports bra, a faucet for the new master bathroom shower, and a week's worth of groceries...  We recently upgraded our ancient old oil heating system to a new propane one, and the fuel company was going to charge us to pump the left-over oil out of the tank.  Not to mention having no idea what to do with the giant oil tank taking up valuable storage space in our basement.  My husband found a guy on craigslist that was interested in buying the oil, and the guy also happened to know of a church that needed the tank.  We took a loss on what we originally paid for the fuel, but instead of us paying even more for the fuel company to get it gone and having to figure out what to do with the tank, the guy paid us to take it all.  

~A few yards of fabric = 1 haircut...  I've recently started going through my monstrous fabric stash and selling some of it on Etsy.  This frees up storage space in our home, and gives me a few extra buck to get my shaggy 'do spiffed up.  

~A few bottles of my homemade cleaning products = fence posts for the chicken yard...  I make the stuff for use in our home anyway, so when I make a batch, I make extra, bottle it, and sell it on Etsy.  It doesn't sell like hotcakes, but it sells enough to put a a few extra dollars in my bank.  Over the course of a couple months, it became enough to purchase a bunch of fence posts with.


Thanks for stopping by,
-Lindsey

     

Manic, Talking Tuesday: a mash-up of a skipped Manic Monday post with today's regular Talk-it-out Tuesday post...

This is where we left off with the coop construction last night.  Looks pretty darned sweet if I do say so myself...that is until I finish it up by using old doors as siding.  Sorry, but there's no way in hell that I'm going to spend as much on my chicken coop as we have on our master bathroom.  Whatever's left in our yard for scrap material is what's being used to finish this thing.  

For the last several days things have been a little crazy at our house.  We're now down to crunch time on getting our master bathroom finished, because we're in the process of re-financing our house (at almost a full 3 points less of an interest rate than when we bought it, thank-you-very-much), and need it finished before the appraiser comes over.  In the midst of all the bathroom-building chaos, we're I'm also way behind on getting our my chicken coop finished.  My chicks are going to arrive in 2 weeks, and right now their poor little unhatched souls are slated for a future life of homelessness.

I came to the realization this morning that we're pretty much adding a master bathroom in our house to make up for the colossal de-valuing that's taking place by putting a chicken coop right outside our front door.  I have taken into consideration everyone's comments suggesting that I should have built it in my back yard.  I agree whole-heartedly with them, but all I can say is....Whoops.

Thanks for stopping by,
-Lindsey

Farm-fresh Friday: Manual labor brings a family together...whether they like it or not...

   Having a kid means having an extra set of hands for chores that isn't allowed to quit, and can be paid in LEGOs.  Now before you report me to social services, hear me out...

Doing manual labor forces families to spend time together.  It might not be as fun as a family trip to an amusement park, but it teaches the whole family a lesson that can't be learned anywhere else but at home.   It allows kids to see the work that goes into maintaining a house, or a garden plot, or a chicken coop, and the rewards that come from the hard work.  Want a warm house?  Help me bring in firewood (as pictured above).  And you know what?  It turned out to be a wicked lot of fun for The Kid to get to push the wheel barrow around.  Who knew, right?  

Now, I can tell you flat out that a 7-year-old doesn't make for the most efficient firewood stacker.  I could probably stack it all faster on my own, but I've had some of the coolest conversations with my kid while doing chores, and I wouldn't trade that for any of the time I could have saved by doing the work myself.  

I'm also going to let you in on a scandalous secret that 7-year-olds around the country will probably all hate me for telling their parents...

Kids will actually start enjoying chores if you let them.  If you make it a "chore" to do chores, then they'll hate you for it forever.  But if you make it into a lesson of cause-and-effect, they'll thank you for it... someday.  My kid is certainly not the poster child for motivation, or for self-starting chores, but once started, the satisfaction on his face for accomplishing a grown-up task on his own is pretty awesome.

Thanks for stopping by,

-Lindsey