Archive for the ‘out back’ Category

Not to lose the feeling of what my blog is about, and what our real world consists of, I’m going to mix some homespun goodness into the Disney posts. This is not a Disney blog after all. Hehehehe….

Today it’s hot out and I’m running a fever with no symptoms other than my body aching all over. What’s that about? You can’t have a fever when it’s 99 degrees outside.

The only way to stay cool in Central Texas during the summer is to stay in the water.

Any ideas how to keep a Golden Retriever puppy out of the kiddie pool?

After reflecting on yesterday’s post and feeling pulled outside with the kids I just have to let you know that they won! Out came the water sprinkler for the first time this year and it provided endless entertainment. Until I decided we were wasting too much water. Ah, the internal struggle of a parent. Then I let them play a little longer, vowing to take a shorter shower this morning to make up for it. That makes sense right? Ah, probably not but what the heck.

Since having children I have become more aware of our carbon footprint. You know, those marks we leave behind on the earth. Tread lightly is what I tell myself.

We have made some changes around here such as shopping with reusable bags, recycling, buying local, eating organic, buying old rather than new, etc. I do think the greatest thing we can do is to teach our children about the earth and how to nurture it. Instinctively, they enjoy playing outside and digging in the dirt. It’s the simple things with our children that make them the happiest.

I’ve been toying around with opening an ETSY shop for some time now. I’ve been kicking around the idea of what to sell. What is my craft? Earth day got me thinking about re. Those two little letters stuck in my head all day long yesterday until it hit me. I will open a chikaustin re store where all items are either recycled, repurposed or reused.

So during nap time I hurried upstairs and got to work. I’ve only got a few items listed but will be adding more today. I’m going to take custom orders for vintage pillowcase dresses. Most of what I have on there now are all vintage embroidered pillowcases. Very sweet. Just the thought that someone a very long time ago sat down and spent a good portion of her day creating this pillowcase for her family makes my heart melt.

I also made a storybook bird mobile featuring Where the Wild Things Are. I will also take custom orders for these as well. The mobiles are made using repurposed materials, recycled cardboard, an old children’s book and newspaper.

And of course, you all know my love for thrifting so I will list some items that I find while out and about. Right now there is a rockin’ 1970’s hand tooled vintage leather wallet.

The shop is small right now but I needed to start somewhere. I would love some feedback from you shoppers out there and even you ETSY shop owners. The shop will continue to evolve as needed. Thanks for checking it out and all of your comments!

It’s beginning to feel a lot like August. Summer in Central Texas can be sweltering. It’s hot, hot, hot. So this time of year we spend as much time outside as possible. Right now it seems like everything is pollinating, birds are migrating, flowers are blooming and the bugs are out with a vengeance. We have these oak trees that surround our property. We are literally engulfed in cedar and oak trees so depending upon the time of year our allergies are irritated. The oak trees are pollinating as we speak. There is a bright green presence lurking throughout the countryside and stuck onto everything.

Also, right now we have these wormy things dropping from the oak trees. In fact, it’s so icky when you walk under an oak tree you are engulfed in their webs. Now I’m sure they aren’t worms and I’m even more positive they aren’t web building worms, but it sure does feel like it. I think they are caterpillars building their cocoons. Nonetheless, I wish it weren’t where we spend most of our time. So now we are sitting under the cedar trees. Thank goodness it’s not cedar fever season.

Amidst all of nature taking its course, we still managed to get outside.

Make a few wishes.

Read Amanda’s new book. Oh, how we need a bigger blanket.

Pick flowers.

And build a fairy house. Yep, you guessed it… under the big wormy webby oak tree. The rest of the time was spent looking for decorating accents for the fairies. Of course they’d like fresh flowers to come home to. Then it was off to hunt through the yard searching for fairies. Maybe we need a vacancy sign.

Geraniums are not deer resistant.

I woke up bright and early to go look at all of my beautiful newly planted (by the moonlight mind you) geraniums.  As I was wiping the sleepy out of my eyes, it all came into focus.  Devastation.

We have somehow created a buffet for the deer and they keep coming back for more.

Needless to say I have plucked the sole survivors out of the ground and they have been transported to the decks, far away from harms nibble.

For my fourth installment participating in Emily’s Green Week I’ve got a little story to share with you. Oh, and a few green photos too.

Do you ever go into a store and come out with so much more than you planned? I do that at Ikea. I go in for tea lights and come out with a shopping cart full of God knows what. I get home and I’ve got a ladle, candle holder, picture frame, dog bowl, glasses, cutting board, napkins, wrapping paper, bamboo, etc., etc. It never fails, it happens every time.

This week I had a similar experience at Lowes, a home improvement store. I went in for a bag of potting soil and came out with $600 worth of plants. Now mind you, I did not buy any of the plants and I did not steal them either. As I was loading the kids into the car, without the potting soil because they didn’t have the organic variety I was looking for, several people began loading plants into my car. They were taking plants off of these seven foot high rolling carts. There were signs on the cart that had the actual retail value ($594). That price was marked out and $10 was circled. There were begonias, geraniums, this and that. All kinds of plants were being pulled off of the shelves. You could buy an entire cart valued at $600 for $10. I quickly made a mad dash back inside to purchase my own gigantic cart of red geraniums.

Supposedly a freeze had come through the night before and some of the plants were damaged. I guess one yellow leaf makes a plant unworthy of selling because my cart might have had five yellow leaves in the entire group. Makes you think about all of the plants that must be discarded on a regular basis.

It only took us two trips back and forth from the store to get all of the plants home. Makena and I spent the past two days attempting to dig holes in our rocky dirt to no avail. So we moved on to ‘landscape design’ and placed all of the plants around the yard to wait for Miles to come home and dig some holes for us.

It was dark by the time Miles got home. So there we were, two lovers in the moonlight planting the 10,000 geraniums and whatchamacallits in the garden. Miles was the digger, I was the planter. It really is a good thing we live in the country because if we had close neighbors, they would think we are crazy. Oh what the heck, we are crazy. And you know what? That has to be one of my favorite memories living in this house… and it was only yesterday. As taurus, the big dipper and the little dipper watched over us we talked about life, jobs, family, and everything in between. We talked about why the dirt is hard in this one spot, but one foot over it’s perfect soil. We talked about our dreams, our kids and how absolutely beautiful it was outside.

We’ve managed to plant about $250 worth of plants and have run out of room. The rest of the plants will be handed out to helpless victims. I only hope that when they plant them, they plant them under the stars at night. You should try it, it’s a life changing experience.

I’m a little late coming into the game but wanted to participate in Shining Egg’s Green Week. My name is Jade, I am not an alcoholic, but I was born to celebrate anything green. So for Monday’s green I wanted to show you this sea glass.  I picked it up at Target last week and have plans for it to go in a vase with a candle on our back deck.

For today’s green we have a couple of these sago palm trees around our house. We were fortunate that they were here when we moved in and are full size. When I was a teenager, I had dreams of living at the beach surrounded by palms. Well, we are near the lake and I have two sago palms, does that count?

For Valentines Day, I insisted that we all exchange handmade valentines or a gift that is sustainable. There is a lot of talk these days about sustainable living and its effects on our environment and quality of living. As I was perusing through my February issue of National Geographic Adventure Magazine I came across a very clear cut example of eco-responsibility. The clothing and outdoor gear brand Patagonia exudes eco-responsibility in its manufacturing and production of products. In their attempt to lessen their carbon footprint, they have begun to track the production of products and its effects.

They provided their Wool 2 Crew base layer shirt as an example. The route: wool from New Zealand - then onto the Japanese textile factory (via Malaysia) - across the Pacific to a sewing facility in Southern California - packaged in Reno, Nevada; sent on to retail stores and homes. The result: miles traveled 16,280 - pounds of carbon dioxide emitted: 47 - waste generated: 9 oz - energy consumption: 89 megajoules (equivilant to powering an average U.S. household for 20 hours). Patagonia’s verdict: Unsustainable. I bet you had no idea it took that much to make a shirt. I sure didn’t.

I’ve also been reading Living the Good Life by Linda Cockburn which is about a family who lived a complete sustainable lifestyle for six months. I sure don’t plan on going to those extremes. I can just picture it now, it would be like living on an island on Survivor. We would stink, starve and lose 50 pounds (which might not be so bad). It does make me think about what I buy, where it’s coming from and what all it had to go through to get to me. I’m actually pretty dumbfounded by the concept.

So for Valentines day, I told Miles that we had to try to make our gifts sustainable or handmade. We both had plants on the brain but neither of us knew it. I took the kids to the Natural Gardner and I let them pick out succulents to create a small succulent garden for daddy. We got home, played in the dirt and created our garden.

My gift from Miles was this holly bush - I just love the red berries! He also made a donation to the Miracle Foundation. The Miracle Foundation empowers children to reach their full potential. First, by working collaboratively to empower families living in poverty to keep, feed, and educate their children. Second, by partnering and supporting existing orphanages to upgrade them to a global model. Third, by building family-style orphanages to provide children with personalized attention. For every donation you make, two trees are donated to orphans in India. I’ll take that kind of gift any day!

All in all, I have been more thoughtful to the gifts I give, gifts I receive and things I buy on a daily basis. Things haven’t changed dramatically around here but my awareness has and that has an impact on my babes. And that is the one thing we are responsible for right?!?

The cold front came and went with a vengeance on Friday and Saturday. Like I have said, one day it’s freezing the next it’s warm and sunny. That’s Texas. Saturday we stayed indoors, spent some quality family time together snuggled up in bed and I actually did some sewing. Since my craft space is in my bedroom I can never really escape. Not that I’d want to. Where’s the fun in sewing when you can’t have one toddler pulling out the pins from the pin cushion and the other playing with the knitting needles. Yes, I have knitting needles… why do you laugh? A woman can dream can’t she?!?

Family in tow, I dusted off my trusty sewing machine and went to work stitching up four new tea towels for my kitchen. I love this fabric and fortunately have some left over.

Sunday was spent in the yard raking, trimming and planning. While Keegan was napping, Miles trimmed, I raked, and Makena wandered. That’s life out here at the lake, a lot of wandering and noticing. The flower beds are all ready for the new spring growth that should be happening right around the corner. Our brush pile is growing and growing since there has been a burn ban and no outdoor fires allowed. The lantana bushes are already making an appearance. The birds are eating about a bird feeder’s worth of seed every two days. The dog has popped yet another one of the kids balls. And Makena thinks the large rosemary bush outside of her patio is a trash bin. It was full of all sorts of random granola bar wrappers.

We then took a stroll down to the lake and let the kids run around for a bit. Miles and I sat on the dock and dreamed about the upcoming season… canoeing, fishing, swimming, picnics… Then we remembered that we had our kids with us and grabbed them before they ran off the side of the dock into the lake. We can’t wait for the upcoming seasons, but you know, right now is not so bad.

I know it’s late in the day for a Valentine post. In retrospect, I probably should have written a Valentine post last night but here you have it. While reading the morning paper I came across the weather section and have realized that a cold front is coming through tonight. Which means it will be too cold to start my vegetable garden this weekend. So much for planning. Texas weather has a way of doing this to you. You get all excited because it’s warm and spring-like outside. The birds are chirping and there are beautiful blue skies… then all of a sudden you wake up and it’s 40 degrees. That’s Texas for you, one day it’s 80, the next it’s 20. Go figure.

Realizing it was the last day of spring for a few days we took full advantage and made our way outside. But first, there was some dressing up.

Then some mama approved attire to venture outside. Now that Keegan is comfortable walking, he has a way of just leaving. I’ll turn around and he’s headed down the street or up the hill around to the front yard. Today he was walking down the street and as I was calling him back Makena was yelling to me ‘he’s going to the beach mommy.’ Well, he was headed in the direction of the lake.

After finally getting them both in the back yard, I took a little time for myself. All you need on a sunny afternoon is a blanket and a book. Voila! I think I need a bigger blanket. Another thing to put on my crafting to do list.

Nap time means mama time and today I made Chocolate-Peanut Butter Ganache Heart Cakes. I bought this silicone heart shaped mini-cake pan last year at Williams Sonoma for .99 cents. Marked down from $22 so I would say that’s a pretty good deal. It pays to shop the sale table! However, it pays to use your brain if you are going to leave the cakes out and the dog inside while you go out to eat. We got home and one cake was missing. Doh. At least she didn’t eat all of them. That would have been a costly vet visit and one unhappy mama.

Happy Friday and Happy (belated) Valentines day friends! This weekend since I’ll be indoors I PROMISE to sew something… anything.

Where did winter go? I know some of you are cuddled up inside of your house with a fire, hot cocoa and lot’s of snuggling watching the snow fall outside. Well, let me tell you that spring has sprung in Austin, Texas. The birds are chirping and seem quite pleased that I’ve decided to fill the bird feeder with sunflower seeds. I’ve been trying to get a picture of them but I seem to always venture outside with a parade of dog and toddlers so they don’t stick around. I will catch one sooner or later.

With the incredible weather and Makena’s newly gifted Pansies we ventured outside to do some planting. I let Makena pick the spot where she wanted to plant her flowers. She marched around the side of the house, plastic shovel and watering can in hand ready to plant.

We decided to make a lesson out of the first planting of the year. We pulled out the vintage flower books and learned that Pansies are a type of Violet. Who knew? Okay, so maybe you already knew that. But we looked in our books and decided (Makena decided) that we need lots of flowers, and if we water them they will grow all the way up to the sky. Maybe she just read Jack and the Beanstalk? Who knows where they come up with these things.

All of this got me thinking about spring gardening. Oh do I have big plans I’m just not sure where to start. We live on about an acre and have lots of room for gardens. My question for you, my friends, is what should I plant? I would really like to plant blackberries, blueberries, tomatoes, things for cooking, things for canning, etc. Does anyone have any good suggestions for things to plant and resources (books/websites) that might help?

The only stipulation that we have is deer and I’m sure they would love some tasty blackberry vines. We do have lots of different levels of gardens that surround our house that the deer can’t reach. Anyone have a green thumb out there?