The court

The perfect compliment to a new driveway is a new basketball hoop. Sure, you have to dribble around the chicken poop, but that's just a way to build precision dibbling skills (or something like that).

The boys made a "court" with chalk – each zone worth a different amount of points. Nate turned it into a math game, because Nate can turn anything into a math game, and Walter scored 107 points! Although that number changed, and got bigger, every time he told the story. :)



And, speaking of chicken poop, these girls got a little taste of the outdoors today. 4 weeks old now and on to the awkward teenage stage. They go from cute to not-so-cute in a hurry. But those pretty adult feathers aren't too far away.

Spring chickens

These little darlings, plus three more, are the newest additions to our flock. The lighter ones in the photo are Easter Eggers and will likely look a lot like Love (the grayish one, below). The darker two, and the three not shown, are Golden Laced Wyandottes. Such pretty birds! I can't wait to see them develop those beautiful feathers. And it won't take long. The new chicks are now three weeks old, and already about three times their original size. We haven't named them yet and I'd love to hear your suggestions.


Since we're doubling our flock, Nate is making plans to expand the coop a little. I hope these ladies will kindly welcome the new birds into their home.

Backyard experiment

A few weeks ago I was eating lunch with coworkers and I mentioned the black walnut trees in our yard and how annoying they are. They are like poison to half the plants in our garden. The walnuts, leaves, and especially the roots are toxic to plants like tomatoes, peppers, asparagus, eggplant, and rhubarb. Even though we have raised beds, these plants have not done well in our space. I've heard the trees can be sold at a good price for their wood but that still would not solve the root problem.

As I'm complaining, coworker Tom (Hi, Tom!) says, "You can tap those, you know."
WHA???
So I did a little internet research, and, yes! You can tap black walnut trees and make syrup. It's not common. Maples are far more productive and therefore the best syrup-making option. But you can do it! So I got Nate and Walter on board with this plan and we did a little syrup science experiment.

We tapped 4 trees and collected sap for about 2 weeks, which gave us around 3 gallons of sap. Nate rigged up a little cooktop in our fire pit with some stones and a grill grate. We all tended the fire, using up lots of branches and sticks that had fallen over the winter.




It took about 4 hours to boil those 3 gallons of sap down to about 1 cup of syrup. I know what you're thinking. All that for one cup of syrup? Well... yeah! It was a fun experiment and a tasty one too. It's very different from the flavor of maple syrup. A little less sweet, I think, and a little nutty.


We made waffles for dinner after our sap boil. The plates were licked clean. And the black walnut trees are now just a little less annoying.

A dinner interview

Walter agreed to let us take a video of him at dinner last night. A little time capsule he can look back at when he's older. I wonder how accurate this will be...

Spring cleaning

Yawn.
Streeeeetch.
Well, that was a rather long blogging break. I'm just going to say I was hibernating. This long, cold winter brought everything to a halt. That's not to say we've been lazing our days away, but, well, most of you readers are in the same climate. I'm betting you've been hibernating a little too.

Things are finally starting to thaw and I decided it was time for a little springtime spruce-up of this space. Up top you'll see a new masthead – a change that was LONG overdue. And I changed up some colors and fonts and things, because I'm a designer and that's the sort of thing we designers like to do.

I also did some organizing. I went back and labeled many of my posts (something I should have been doing all along), and in the right sidebar you'll see a list of those categories. This was mostly so I could find things more easily, but if it helps me, it may help you too.

 

I added an Instagram feed in that sidebar as well. It's a quick and easy place for me to capture our days. So even if you don't see a new post here for a while, there may be a few new photos to browse there. 

 

It's nice to be back and it's nice to have a new, clean, organized space to work in. Let me know what you think!