Three Losses

13 baby chicks are now 11 baby chicks.

One died during the night on Sunday, and one died sometime during the day today.

The one I found Monday morning was a complete surprise. She was generally the same size as the rest, and her wing and tail feathers were starting to grow in. There was no sign of any physical trauma, and she was warm from the heat lamp when I found her. I did move the flock of them into the milk shed on Sunday afternoon, so I guess I'm just going to chalk it up to stress.

The one that died today...I sort of knew it was coming, although I was hopeful that she was perking up over the past few days. She hadn't grown much at all since they arrived last week, and was always falling asleep on her feet. Though she did eat and drink, it wasn't nearly as much as the others. She also had a case of "pasty butt" which is a pretty clear sign that something's not right inside.

Poor little chickens.

The rest of them seem like they're going to be fine. They definitely don't look like they did a week ago! They are easily double the size and they're no longer just balls of fuzz. They're starting to practice their flying moves, and whenever I have the door to the crate open for any length of time, one or two of them are pretty sure they can make a break for it. The picture below is from Saturday - they're way different even from then!


Now, the third loss?

Our old house! We officially no longer own it. I hope the new family is happy there!

Moving Forward.

Our old house is officially on the market, and has been for just over a week now. We've had two showings, but no offers have come in. We'll probably do an open house in a little while, but for now we're in a "wait and see" holding pattern. We've had several people call it a "unique" property (I guess because it isn't your typical subdivision house? and it still needs some work?), so I suppose the right person just needs to come along.

I have so many ideas for the new house and for my life, and I want to jump head first into everything and do it all at once, but the reality is I need to pace myself and choose maybe one or two decent sized projects to tackle in a year or so. But I am a millenial and having to choose frustrates me. I WANT IT ALL. AND I WANT IT NOW.

Because I want to do so much, and I don't know which few projects to choose for this year, I'm probably going to end up doing very little. I tend to plan, plan, plan, plan something, and then...never do anything with that plan.

That being said, I feel completely different this year than I have in the past few years. Without major renovations looming over us, or having too much stuff in a too small house, I feel like I can breath, and my mood and outlook are vastly improved. So in completely cliche fashion, maybe this year will be different?

And just in case it is, here's a look at a few of the things gnawing at the back of my mind.

CHICKENS.

I've been talking about getting chickens since we moved into the old house. Enough talking about it, it's time to get some feathered friends. This spring. Mike and I were throwing the idea around again a few weekends ago, and there's still a lot of figuring out to do (where exactly do we house them? will they freeze to death in the winter? how many do we get? dual purpose or straight up egg layers? day old chicks, started birds, or ready to lay?). I'm good at research and planning, so this part of the process doesn't freak me out. When it comes time to order actual birds is when I'll start procrastinating...

VEGETABLE GARDENS.

We have seeds. We have cedar to build raised beds. But, we probably won't take this on this summer. There has been discussion about moving the fence that's by the horse barn, because the way it's situated right now results in a lot of 90 degree angles in a short distance and it's a pain in the arse for my father-in-law and brother-in-law when they're running tractors and other machines in that field. Currently there's a great open space behind the horse barn that would be perfect for gardening, but if the fence is moved this space goes away. Which is obviously fine because the farm is the priority. So even though we have most of the supplies needed to get this project going, it's on hold for now until we determime exactly where the garden beds will go.

THE BATHROOM.

Mike and I both really dislike this bathroom - both it's functionality and it's appearance. A renovation of the room isn't in the cards, but I would like to spruce it up in the looks department. It'll take a bit more than just paint and swapping hardware to get it to be more tolerable, and I'm sort of dreading the idea of turning our only bathroom into a work zone. But, I've been gathering ideas and sources over the past few weeks, so it's actually something I might tackle relatively soon. Fingers crossed?

FRONT & BACK PORCH.

Both the front and back porch need a little bit of attention. At the very least they need to be pressure washed and restained/painted, but the stairs on both could use some work too - they're a little bouncy.

THE BASEMENT.

I wrote a post awhile back about there being water in our basement. Putting in a proper sump pit and running an outlet pipe from the basement is a must. There is a ton of room for storage down there, but we aren't using it right now because of there being such a high chance of things getting ruined. So hopefully we'll get to this when things start to warm up. Which probably won't be for a million years based on how flipping cold this winter has been so far.

In addition to all of that, there are a few small things here and there that need done. Like fixing up the oval window that I started in the fall. And re-attaching some metal flashing around one of the posts on the front porch. And recaulking all of the windows on the exterior, because oh my goodness when the wind gets blowing, does the bay window ever howl.

One thing at a time, right?

Four Months In

We've been in the new house for four months now, and my mental well being has skyrocketed. Living in a small construction zone of a house was incredibly draining - I dreaded going home. But things are so much better now, although we still have the old house hanging over our heads (it's almost finished!). There's not much point to this post, I just wanted to jot down some observations.

1. Quiet country living is a thing of the past.

The new house sits on a fairly busy road - a two lane rural highway, which just happens to be part of the route between Toronto and Wasaga Beach & Collingwood (major tourist destinations for those not familiar with Ontario). Our setting and the surrounding property is beautiful, but it's loud here. Louder than when I lived in town back in BC, and so much louder than the bumpy dirt side road that our old house was plopped down on.

2. Wildlife diversity has plummeted.

At our old house, we were located pretty close to a well renowned wetland and swamp. We heard and saw coyotes often, and the number of different species of birds was awesome...and we were lucky to see some pretty rare ones. At the new house, we have crows, starlings, mourning doves, and barn swallows. All of these species of birds have adapted very well to living in places well populated with people, and they aren't very interesting. Except for the barn swallows. They're kind of funny when defending their hatchlings. They may or may not have dive bombed the dog some days when she did her business out in the yard.

3. Having more space feels amazing.

I don't even care that it's more upkeep and it takes longer to do anything - having a bigger house is liberating. And because this house isn't a constant project in progress, it's so much easier to keep reasonably clean and organized. And closets - we have five. Compared to the two we had in the last house, it's like winning the lottery. And with two living rooms, THERE'S SO MUCH ROOM FOR ACTIVITIES!

4.The animals are so much happier here.

Meowzer hasn't had a single incidence of her idiopathic cystitis since we moved. I was really worried about moving into a fully carpeted place with her...but so far, so good. Tassy rolls around on the carpet like a lunatic, which makes more frequent vaccuuming necessary, but oh well. She also likes that I can throw her ball from my chair in the evenings and it doesn't hit a wall after 5 feet.

5. There is so. much. opportunity.

This is a place we can grow into, not grow out of. I'm not sure what all of this opportunity looks like yet, but I like the possibilities.

Things I've Got My Eye On

Just a quickie post for today...a few things that I found over on Pinterest that made me go hubba hubba.

THIS ROOM.


via House and Home
Tommy Smythe is a brilliant man.

So this next things doesn't make my heart flutter, but I'd like to give it a shot and see what happens.


via DIY Natural
I made some of these two weeks ago and they've been working great, so I'm definitely interested in seeing what else I can do.

Next up, this stone.


via Home Depot
I'd like to use something like this to pretty up the two small walkways we have outside, and possibly also for a little patio to put our picnic table on so that we don't have to deal with grass growing up underneath it. We thought about putting the picnic table on the back porch, but it's so big that it's not a good use of space.

Finally, this shower curtain.


via PB Teen
You can see it in action over on Making it Lovely. I love her entire bathroom and kind of want to copy her colour scheme.


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Appearances

I think I owe you guys a bit of an explanation.


We don't own this whole property.

Of the 100 ish acres, Mike and I own only maybe 2. The rest is owned by his parents, who we co-purchased the entire property with. On paper it's a two-thirds, one-third split, with them owning the fields and us owning the house. What Mike and I got the house for is way under market value (thanks to my in-laws), and for that I am so unbelievably thankful.

As for the outbuildings, that's still sort of up in the air. The drive shed (which I haven't shared a picture of) is entirely Mike's Dad's for his equipment. Though we did sneak our snowblower in there...

As for the bank barn, it's basically empty. We have some stuff being stored in it from when we started renovating the upstairs in our old house, but that's about all that's in there. There's the potential for a corner of it to be used for chickens, but that conversation will happen when I'm ready to actually get some nuggets.

The horse barn will never house horses again - as long as we live here, anyway. Mike wants to build a bar out there, and it's also where the majority of his tools are going to live. The haymow has a huge amount of potential in it, too. But what that ends up being, who knows.

As for the old house, we're still working on it. We're incredibly lucky to be able to move into the new house so that we can finish what needs to be done in the old house without having to live in the construction. Again, big thanks to my in-laws! This honest-to-goodness would not be happening without them.

I just wanted to share all of that so you didn't have conspiracy theories running in your head about how we could go from a shack to a really nice house with a huge amount of property. Drug lords, we are not.


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Redesign

New house, new blog!

Sort of.

It's nothing fancy, and I definitely still have some tweaking to do...so just bear with me while I get the kinks sorted out!

In the mean time, here's a picture taken from my new backyard.




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Coming soon...

I need to start packing!!


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This past weekend. Late again.

Just outside of Sebright, this lovely little abandoned farm sits. On my way up to Ottawa last Wednesday, I stopped on the side of the road and clicked away with my phone. The pictures aren't the greatest, but I wanted to share one anyway.


Once my friend's wedding was over, Mike and I were free to be tourists. Unfortunately the weather wasn't the greatest so we didn't do too much before we made the trek home...but here's a few obligatory Ottawa shots.








I'm hoping to have good news to announce on the blog soon! Hold tight.


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Weekend Recap - A Day Late

This past weekend I actually did something worth talking about!

On Saturday morning I drove five and a half hours to get to Ottawa for my oldest friend's bridal shower and bachelorette. I stayed at a hotel downtown so that it'd be easy to get home after a night of indulging in wobbly pops. Thanks to Hotwire, I got the room for half price!

We went for dinner at the Cornerstone Grill in the Byward Market and the food was great! If you ever find yourself downtown Ottawa and you're hungry I'd definitely recommend it. My friend and I were drinking Long Island iced teas by the pitcher. Where I come from, beer comes in pitchers. That's it. The novelty of this will not wear off for quite some time.

We then went to a comedy show at Yuk Yuk's and the MC was actually the funniest guy of the night. No one gave my friend too hard of a time despite being dressed up in your typical bachelorette accessories.

We ended the night at some bar that I can't remember the name of. It was 21+ which was kind of a relief...I pretty much hate the bar and being around drunken teenagers is not my idea of a good time.

The next morning I checked out of my hotel, ate breakfast, and drove the five and a half hours back home. The drive home was much less fun since I was so tired. Not hungover, I swear.

I made the decision to drive back roads all the way, and the extra bit of time it took was seriously worth it. If I didn't have this thing called a job or people in my life called friends and family, I would move to Bonnechere Valley Township. I drove past the most beautiful farm and I'm kicking myself now for not stopping to take a picture. There was an old abandoned farm in a wee little town called Sebright which was amazing, too. When I Google Sebright this comes up, though.


And now I really want one of those chickens.

I'm also pretty sure I saw a moose, but it could have been a moose shaped log and/or shrub. Either way it made me really want moose pepperoni.

So that was my weekend. What'd you get up to?


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The post in which I dump the entire contents of my brain.

How's that for a wordy title? I hope you're not expecting a brilliant post, because I promise you, this is not one. In no specific order...this is what's on my mind right now.

1. Last night was a little dreary and rainy, so we had homemade chicken noodle soup and bread for dinner. The soup was decent (except I way overcooked the noodles into mush), the bread was a glorified pancake. It went into the compost this morning.

2. I get overwhelmed easily, so I used Manageflitter last night to unfollow anyone on Twitter who hasn't been active in the last 30 days. It's free, which is nice. Thanks to Tasha from Life of a Canadian Angel for mentioning it in one of her tweets.

3. I bought six prints from Society 6 a few weeks back for a gallery wall that I'm planning for the new house. One of the prints is by Ontario artist Amy Hamilton, and her stuff is eligible for free shipping right now! Go here to check it out.

4. The drywall upstairs is allllllmost done. There's still some sanding to do, but I'm guessing that I'll be able to start priming the walls this weekend. I am so ready to move out of the living room.

5. Does anyone out there coupon successfully? I ordered a bunch and they came yesterday, but I have a feeling I'm going to forget about them and they'll just expire. I do use Checkout 51 almost every time I shop though.

6. I'm still working on the re-design for the blog. If you follow me on Twitter you've seen some sneak peaks. I have a dummy template set up and I want to make sure it's really ready to go before I make it go live.

Now...please tell me what your favourite food is? Because I'm hungry.

Forgive me for complaining.

When we first ripped into the bedrooms upstairs, I mentioned here that sleeping in the living room felt a little bit like camping, and that it doesn't anymore.

Well now it really doesn't feel like camping, and it's really just making me cranky.


I know it's not forever - in fact the end might only be a couple of weeks away. It was just really hard coming back to a construction zone after staying in clean houses and rooms during our wedding and honeymoon. And what's the point of having a personal blog if I can't whine and complain every once in awhile?

With the chaos currently happening in the house, there's no room to do anything besides sit and watch tv (almost all of the reno is getting done while I'm at work). It's getting old really quick. I want to create something. Make something. Do something. Once the weather warms up I can get started on sanding and repainting all of the baseboards from upstairs, but right now it's decided to be winter again despite fooling me earlier this week into thinking that spring might have arrived.

Believe me, I know all of this is temporary, but I'm frustrated none the less. Not at anybody, of course. And not necessarily at the situation either because it's getting us to something really, really good. Does that even make any sense at all?

Blerg.

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I'm baaaaaaaack!! And with some wedding pictures.

After 3 weeks of fun (and exhaustion), I'm back to reality and finally able to relax. The whole extravaganza was a whirlwind, but honestly amazing.

The wedding went off without a hitch, and despite a slow spot early on in the reception, we were up and dancing until 1 am. My feet killed! And then they killed some more when Mike dragged me all over Los Angeles on our honeymoon.

We don't have our pictures back from the photographers yet, but here are some that our guests posted to Facebook. Some people on Twitter have been demanding to see some pictures, so hopefully this will satisfy them!












And my favourite picture so far...


Ta ta for now!

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Later Alligators

This is my last post as a "single" person!

I head out early tomorrow morning on my flight to BC. The blog will be dark until I'm back (March 6th), but you'll likely be able to catch me on Twitter and Instagram in the mean time.

Take care!!

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A wee update

Things are chugging right along at our house. We're currently sleeping in the living room while the four bedrooms upstairs are being dealt with. At first it felt like camping or something and it was exciting. Now...not so much. The electricians were in yesterday and are coming back tomorrow, and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they're finished by then. They did an unreal amount of work yesterday - I am so glad we decided to hire this job out rather than tackle it ourselves. What they did in one day would likely have taken us at least a week.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to share. The power is cut off upstairs, and the furnace is blowing dust around like you wouldn't believe. I tried to take a couple of pictures yesterday with my phone when I got home from work but all you could see were dust particles.

Once the electricians are done, some foam insulation is going up over the barn board (you can see what I mean by barn board in pictures from this post), and then we'll be ready for drywall. There is no way things could be moving along so fast if it weren't for Mike's dad and brother. They've been working their butts off to help us get this house fixed up while Mike and I are at work and I will be forever grateful. We're crossing our fingers that everything will be ready for mud by the time we leave to BC for the wedding. We'll be out of the house and the pets will be out of the house so it'll be easy for the guys to come in and mud and sand and mud and sand and mud and sand. I'm glad we're hiring that job out, too.

As for the new house, if all goes according to plan we close on February 12th. We have some paper work to figure out before then, since we aren't going to be the only owners of the property, but I'm not expecting that to be a problem. It kills me that I can't show pictures of the new place yet. I drive past it every single day on my way to work and IT'S SO PRETTY.

Ta ta for now...hopefully sometime soon I'll be writing a post that includes pictures.

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My First Love

I think I confused some people on Twitter when I started shouting gibberish about "free shaping" and getting the dog to get in a basket. So I'm going to explain myself a bit better here.

As some of you know, my first blog was actually a dog blog and I started writing it soon after I had stopped fostering. Back when I was fostering dogs, I fell head over heels for training and behaviour. More specifically, "force free" training and behaviour. Finding a way to get a dog to do what you want it to do by making it use it's brain? Challenging, but in my world...fun.

Take a look at this video. THIS is what I've been trying to get Tass to do, and what I finally managed. I use a clicker instead of my voice, though, but the concept is the same regardless.



Over the last little while my mind has been occupied by other things, but I think I want to try and make it a priority to work with Tass more often. It's something I really, really enjoy, and it tuckers out both of our brains!

Have a good weekend!

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From here to there.

I confessed last week that we're leaving our first house, which was supposed to become our forever home. I bet there's a bunch of you scoffing about how naive I was to think that this would be it. I know that's how I feel, at least amongst the sadness and the excitement and the stress.

There's no point in dwelling on those feelings of inferiority, though. We've got a lot of work to do.

Well this is awkward.

Has anyone ever noticed that the word awkward is awkward itself? Like the spelling, it just looks....awkward.

Anyway, that's not the point of this post. I'm just delaying talking about it. The point is...we're moving.

Here`s to New Beginnings...

...and not losing my mind.

2013 is gearing up to be one of the craziest years ever. Mike and I are getting married in February, my friend that I've known since I was six is getting married in May, and my cousin is getting married in July...and all three events are in BC. To top it off, I'm a bridesmaid in both my friend's and my cousin's wedding. Yowza.

Making New Traditions

This Christmas will be the first Christmas that Mike and I have spent together since we started seeing each other five years ago. This is also the first Christmas that I won't be going home to Vancouver Island and the first Christmas that I won't be seeing my parents and my brother when I get up on Christmas morning.

That was a lot of Christmases.

Not seeing my family is going to be hard, and I've been warning people for awhile now that I could be cranky because of it. But despite my sadness, I'm also excited to build new traditions with that lanky guy that will soon be my husband. Although I guess they mostly won't be new - more than likely they'll be adapted from what each of us did growing up with our own families, and we'll squish them and mold them them into something that works for us.

Source: etsy.com via Maureen on Pinterest

The most important (to me) tradition that I'm bringing to the table is about the tree. It must be real, and we must go and cut it down ourselves. We're hitting up Drysdale's Tree Farm next weekend to go pick ours out. Tass gets to come too! It's a whole family affair.

Drysdale's Christmas Tree Farm in Essa, Ontario via J-K Wong on Flickr.
So far from Mike's side of things we've got the nativity scene. His grandma who just recently passed away always gave each couple a different nativity scene, and we got ours just a few days before she passed away. My family doesn't do nativity scenes, so this is new for me! The set we were given is beautiful stained glass; watch for pictures coming soon.

Source: makeit-loveit.com via Breanne on Pinterest

If/when we add to our family, I'm sure the traditions that we start this year will evolve even more. We'll watch a favourite movie, read a favourite book, eat a favourite breakfast, develop our "go to" stocking stuffers.

Source: etsy.com via Kim on Pinterest

Change is good - I can't wait.

Pssssst! Who can tell me what movie that last quote is from?! What Christmas traditions do you have in your house?

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Sweet Home Van Island

I'm out of here first thing tomorrow morning! If you're on Instagram, you can find me @ashleylynnfhd to see some obligatory west coast scenery and hopefully some architecture, too.


Ta ta for now!

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