Friday, August 8, 2008

Lawnmower Man

First off, a confession - I have never mowed a lawn in my life. Despite this I can certainly see the need for a lawnmower when one moves into a new neighborhood and doesn't want their home being viewed as blight by the neighbors. We actually have only a tiny, tiny patch of grass since we ripped out most of the yard to put in a vegetable garden. However this patch of grass was sadly overgrown and strewn with weeds until we found this:


I should actually clarify that DH's sister Carrie found this. (thanks Carrie!) It was sitting out by their parent's house with a free sign on it. We all walked over and talked with the owner who was weeding her yard. She said her husband bought it only a year and a half ago and simply wanted a nicer model. It works great and had gas in it already. Since its arrival our little patch of grass looks much better (well, at least much shorter). Additionally we've been able to loan this beauty to our next door neighbors, so I think it fair to say we have moved from an eyesore to an asset to the community all thanks to the lawnmower.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Jam Plan

Its canning season, a time of year I always look forward to. There is something very nostalgic about canning for me. Its one of the few kitchen activities I actually wear an apron for. Not really because its messier than others, but because it seems like you should when you are canning. You should also probably have a very old fan blowing fly paper around as well. Anyway, we spent a weekend at a friend of our's parent's house and managed to leave with a flat of their beautifully ripe and tasty strawberries for free. We were with some other people who took a bag full each and I was only slightly embarrassed that we picked so many. I couldn't stand the thought of these berries rotting on the bush because no one picked them. These were cut, cooked and made into freezer jam quickly, which we have been enjoying since. We are now on the look out for blackberries and hopefully some apples soon.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Home Improvement for the Birds

With our new home has come many new opportunities for home improvements (which is why we could afford the house in the first place). Each of these projects seems to necessitate a new tool for DH (Dear husband). I am all kinds of supportive about this, but as far as I am concerned if a project can be done without spending hundreds on tools all the better. Recently DH saw the below saw in a pile of free stuff while out and about:
He said it is a miter saw and was just what he needed to build our chicken coop. It works perfectly. Its definitely a lower end model and a little dirty, but what do you expect when its free, right? Anyway, since he found the saw he did in fact finish our chicken coop and now we can look forward to a thrifty source of eggs.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Order Up

I have very fond memories of playing with my pretend food and play kitchen as a child. Since my primary objective when it comes to toys for my daughter, is to recreate my childhood I have been on the look out for a play kitchen for some time. I wanted a wooden one that wouldn't look bad being in the living space of our house. Behold what I found at the Goodwill for $9.99 recently:
Very cute compact play kitchen. The left side should have doors on it and its missing the handles for the cabinets under the sink area, but truly I have no complaints about this thing. Its exactly what I have been hoping to find. Luckily when I found this I was shopping with my sister-in-law with her parents minivan, not on my bike.
So far DD (dear daughter) loves it, although she primarily seems to think that cooking in the kitchen means making coffee. I am not sure where she got that idea...