Walkin' in High Cotton

I knew that Penny was growing fast, but I didn’t realize she was turning white and growing retractable claws!

Scratchy tends to take up residence wherever the mood strikes him at the moment. I guess that’s the nature of cats.

I guess he thought he was safe because she was out excavating our backyard some more.

Penny tends to chew on anything that will stand still long enough for her to get her teeth on it (when she’s not too busy digging to China, that is). I guess that’s the nature of dogs.

It’s like having two more kids sometimes.

Very hairy kids.

Kids that drink out of the toilet, snack out of the litter box, and dig up moles in the backyard for fun.

Ok, nevermind. My kids aren’t that bad!

Do your pets have their own beds?

Scratchy had a bed, once long ago, but he never used it. He prefers places that we prefer him not to be, like on piles of clean laundry, on the dining room table, and on the pile of Christmas decorations going to my sister.

Cat “training” is an endless, pointless battle. All you do is teach them what they’re not suppose to do, so that when they do it anyway it’s even more insultingly defiant.

Tags: Penny, pets, Scratchy

There a lot of things that don’t have a “place” in our house–mostly because we have too many “things.” It’s one reason why we’re tackling this big upstairs sort toss project. But there’s one room in our house that works hard at having a place for everything and everything in it’s place.

Our mudroom. Especially our two-tier, wall hung coat rack. It was a DIY project that Mr. Fix-It and I did a few years ago and our life just wouldn’t be the same without it. Having it there is part of our homecoming routine in the evenings, part of our chore routine, part of our hospitality offerings…

This baby earns it's keep every. single. day.

To read about how we made it, and how we use it, hop over to Homemaker Challenge with me…

Tags: diy, homemakers challenge, homemaking, organization

Ok, so I’ve been promising a post about our cool chalkboard project for a couple days now. First I had to show you that we were actually making progress on the Playroom, so that there’s actually room for a chalkboard…then I had to interrupt everything to let you know that lambing season is underway here at The Lowe Farm and every time we turn around fuzzy new faces are showing up!\

But on to the chalkboard!

This is the super cool antique box we found to be the basis of our new chalkboard.

When we all agreed to give our play kitchen to the church preschool program, part of the deal was that the Ladybug would like to have a reading circle with a chalkboard on the wall so that she could continue teaching her brothers to read. We were all for that–conceptually anyway. I sort of expect that the school and Mr. Fix-It and I are going to teach them to read, but if she wants to participate I reckon it can’t hurt.

These are our supplies.

So while we were out and about last weekend, I was hunting for something that we could paint with chalkboard paint and hang on the wall. Pinterest is just full of idea and apparently you can paint just about anything with this new-fangled stuff. I had some different ideas, but our space is a bit limited too, so I had to be careful. We found this awesome old box. It’s 22 x 23, so just about square.

Then we went to Lowes and got some chalkboard paint (sorry the pictures aren’t better, we got Valspar), a mini roller, and a small piece of smooth particle board. The box was $23, the roller was $1.85, the particle board was $3.50 and the chalkboard paint was $15(!!).  It was a small can, but we only used like 1/4 of it for this project.

We bought a small, pre-cut peice of particleboard, but it still needed to be trimmed like 2-3 inches. He did it by hand--but see how helpful my sewing supplies are?!

The inside board idea was parting to be able to paint smooth, partly to overcome those strange holes in our box, and partly so that we would be able to use the box again in the future for something other than a chalkboard. We wanted something smooth for our writing surface. We cut down our plywood and it fits very snug in the box. We thought we might need to glue it, but it’s not necessary at all.

Then we painted both sides and the edges with the chalkboard paint and the roller. That stuff is super thick! We did two coats on every surface of the board. It says “quick drying.”

It’s not.

We used a hair dryer and it still took several minutes.

But the stuff is really thick, so maybe that’s why.

Did you see Speedracer's black eyes? He came out second best in a fight with a wooden desk at school. Go figure. He didn't cry though--he told me that.

{By the way, when I keep referring to “we” here, please just know that I mean Mr. Fix-It and I…with a little extra emphasis on Mr. Fix it…ok, a lot of extra emphasis on Mr. Fix-It…ok, ok, fine, so I came up with the idea and picked out the box and the rest was Mr. Fix-It. But that’s just because I was making dinner. I supervised the whole thing and was ready to set in and take over at a moments notice!}

Anyway, we painted the edges and both sides of the plywood with two coats of the chalkboard paint, dried it, and then fit it into our box.

It dried beautifully. Smooth and shiny and ready for chalk!

Another little detail? We made a point to plan to hang it with the handle sides on the sides so that the non-handle sides can be a chalk tray. How cool is that?!

When we were at Lowes, they did a demonstration project where they painted a piece of drywall and it turned out good too. He said that they’ve been erasing it and writing new messages on it for several months and it looked practically new. He said every couple of days they will run a damp rag over it and it’s as good as new again.

I think the size is going to work perfectly for our small area!

Conclusion? It was really easy and it wasn’t that expensive. You could probable paint any number of surfaces which would cost less than our box did. And that $15 can seemed steep for only this project–but we’ve got enough left to do a ton more projects with. I’m already eyeballing all sorts of stuff around the house…

We haven’t hung it up yet because we’ve got some other details to finish with the walls first (like maybe painting them, too?) But the kids seem pleased so far.

Although the Ladybug is still focused on those fish…

Tags: chalkboard paint, creative, decorating, organizing, playroom

Well, I’ve been promising a chalkboard painting post, and I swear, it’s coming. But I’ve got bigger news that I just had to share–it’s lambing time!

Twins! We love twins! (Both rams, too!)

Now isn’t that more fun than how to make a chalkboard?

Well, we think it is anyway.

Things can get a little mixed up at feeding time.

It started with twins on Valentine’s Day morning, and now we’re up to five. It was a few weeks earlier than we were really expecting, but March is just around the corner, so we were already prepped and ready.

The three this morning were all ram lambs. (We like rams because our customers like rams.)

Who's who's, and who are you?

We’re keeping our eyes open for a really good ram and a good ewe or two for our own breeding program, but we’re not pressed about it right now. Our flock of Cluns are all young and right now it’s easier for us to keep one, single breeding flock than to try and track two separate genetic pools.

Do you belong to me?

I’ve posted before about how important careful breeding programs are to maintaining heritage breeds. We have a lot of other bustle in our lives too and keeping it simple right now is the best way for us to keep doing a good job. I’m already behind on my paperwork. (Actually, I have the paperwork, it’s the entering it in the database and turning it in to the breed association where I fall off the wagon.)

These two grays ARE her's.

We’ll be moving these guys (and their momma’s, of course) over to the nursery field this evening. We give the ewes some higher quality, partial alfalfa hay and a protein lick in the early weeks of nursing to make sure everyone’s getting what they need. These Cluns’ are excellent mothers and they give everything they’ve got to their lambs. Twins can drain a ewe pretty quickly if you’re not careful and we don’t have any good, green grass right now.

These guys are only a couple hours old. They'll go to anyone at this age. It's up to momma to keep track of them.

Remember #7 last year that got so sick? We’re trying really hard to avoid that again and hope the protein lick this year might help. And we’re keeping an especially keen eye on her too. She recovered fine and her lambs grew up just fine, but we were never able to determine the final root cause so we don’t know if it might happen again.

Anyway–everyone is doing just fine so far. We’ve got two healthy little calves out back and 5 woolies bawling in the side fields. We’ve got 10 ewes left to deliver.

And we’ve got a chalkboard project up tomorrow.

I promise!

Tags: Clun Forest, lambing, sheep

Well, we’ve gotten the major dusting, scrubbing, purging and shuffling done in our playroom revamp (You can read about our chaos-to-carpet-again phase here).

This is where we sort of left off last time. Well, the air mattress and the dog crate weren't there last time, but at least you can see the carpet again.

The heavy-lifting for this project gets done on the weekends and it’s not an instant effort. It’s moving along in stages based on when we have time and what the weather is doing. And there was a break when the Ladybug was so sick. We’ve also being working on both of the kids rooms at the same time so our efforts have been spread a bit thin.

Everyone helped. Even Speedracer pitched in with a good attitude.

But after sorting and purging, we took everything down, and moved everything out, and scrubbed everything. The walls, the baseboards, the windows. I’m telling you, that room is clean.

And I have to admit, I wasn’t horrified by anything up there. There was some dust and some bits of this or that, but nothing that made me cringe when I came across it. I mean, it’s been a looong time since we moved those bookcases and vacuumed behind them. But we don’t allow any food or drinks up there and the animals don’t go up there, so I think that cuts down on the mess.

We even sorted out another two grocery bags of books that we were ready to get rid off while we were emptying the shelves. (We still kept a LOT though!)

The kids were very motivated by getting to set up the “new” table and chairs.

Then Mr. Fix-It popped up briefly to completely re-work my layout and disappeared back out to the garage.

Originally I had planned to leave the bookcases flanking the window, like the first picture. This is much more roomy!

And now that the room’s staying neat (for the most part, I mean, it is a playroom after all) we’ve agreed to try fish again. (And have also discussed letting the boys set up a terrarium for frogs–but don’t tell them that!) Cleaning and setting up the tank is actually on our list for this weekend. We have dogs, cats, sheep, cows, chickens, and even a horse, but the Ladybug is almost ready to burst with excitement over getting a couple goldfish. Go figure.

But I’m most amazed by how much easier it is for them to clean up now that we’ve cut the clutter and labeled their toy bins for them!

This was our shelves before the final sort and move. Notice the chaos of books and bins? (And the mandatory glass of sweet tea?)

These are the shelves after. We labeled the bins and moved most of the books to the other side

Chapter books are in double rows to make them fit neatly. Kid books are single rows at the bottom.

We are going to get one more green bin for the cubie above the blocks (second row from bottom, middle) to replace the little one there. It will fit all the stuff that’s currently loose on that shelf. And we moved some of their “favorite-est” toys to their bedrooms too, but many. Their bedrooms are just too small.

Now we’re moving into details. Paint, curtains, and the reading circle the Ladybug specifically requested–with a chalkboard so she can teach the boys how to read, no less. I’ll be posting about their chalkboard (and our first adventures with chalkboard paint!) tomorrow.

We’ve also got a new plan for simplifying our laundry chaos that I’ll be sharing about shortly when I start talking about some more decorating projects in the boys’ room. (Once I’m sure it’s going to work and my whole house won’t go up in flames over it!)

Do you limit the total amount of clothes or toys your kids are allowed to have, or does it just seem to grow and grow sometimes?

Tags: family time, homemaking, organizing, playroom

This past weekend was not what I was expecting or planning for, but we did manage to get several errands run. And since we saved money on our aborted trip out of town, my upstairs project budget of “practically nothing” got expanded to “a little bit of something.” Not Better Home and Garden “something”, but a little bit more than the couch change I had before.

I’ll be sharing our adventures with chalkboard paint tomorrow! But today I wanted to share a project that Mr. Fix-It did a while ago that is not going anywhere in this decor update.

Our Playhouse/Barn.

We call it "the barn" because we used left over barn paint for it.

Mr. Fix-It made it for the crew a couple years ago, I guess. (Wow, time flies!) It’s just two walls, cut to fit snug under that slope of the roof, and then a separate roof piece that fits over top and holds it all together. It has a double door on one side, and a window on the other side.

It’s completely sturdy. They’ve never knocked it over or down, and the roof is actually flat with a ladder because he made it sturdy enough for them to climb up there. The rule is one person at a time, but it can hold all 3 of them without endangering anyone.

The Cowboy in the doorway.

It’s tall enough that the kids can stand up inside of it and there’s room for 3 sleeping bags, if they squish. The biggest drawback has been that it puts the thermostat right in fingers reach when they’re up there. I can honestly say I don’t think they’ve messed with it on purpose. We laid down that rule pretty firmly when we set it up. But it’s been bumped more than once all the way up and all the way down. They’ve gotten better about it as they’ve gotten older–and had to sleep up there when it got bumped down to 60 and up to 90.

The window side. It has a window box, but we've never put anything in there.

I was wondering if they were starting to out grow it, but I’ve watched carefully the last month or two and they’re not. It’s like a fixture of their space. They don’t even seem to realize that they’re incorporating it in their pretend games or play time. They’re just in and out constantly. Sometimes they shut the door and window and use their flashlights. Sometimes they play hide and seek and you hear the door slamming endlessly. Sometimes it’s their winter den, or their dog house, or their cabin and they’re shooting the bad guys out the window.

I thought at first he was missing a foot, but it turns out he's just wearing mis-matched socks.

We did have a unfortunate series of events involving the roof and the air mattress. It turns out that an air mattress has a lot more bounce than one would expect–which we discovered after someone catapulted the little guy into a bookcase. By accident. So I was told.

But hey, these are the things childhood is made of, right?

We sacrificed quite a bit of space in our upstairs bedrooms and bathroom to fit the playroom in. We didn’t design it solely as a playroom, but these little years have certainly validated our decision. That playroom is the hardest used room in our house other than the kitchen.

My sister and I shared a room and had a playroom when we were that age too. Do you have room for a playroom?

Tags: creatiive, family, organizing, playroom

Well, this past weekend will not be one for the scrapbooks. And it certainly won’t go down on our list of romantic alone time. As a matter of fact, after this blog post, I might try to forget it even ever happened…

Marriage isn’t all it’s cracked up to be in the Disney movies. I even hesitate to call marriage a “relationship” because it’s so much more beyond how people use that term these days. Someone the other day was tell me that their 12 yr old daughter was in her first “relationship” and that they weren’t worried about it because all two of them did was text each other back and forth. That’s just pure nonsense and marriage is not nonsense.

A relationship is about two being interacting. Our dog and our cat have a relationship. Marriage is about two people slowly dying to self, and being consumed into oneness. And sometimes the dying and consuming is painful.

But you can’t get to Heaven without dying on Earth.

And sometimes that dying to self involves a lot of thrashing around, floundering and bleeding. And pain.

I was looking over the handful of pictures I got from this weekend, this cold, gloomy, slushy weekend, trying to glean some nugget of value to wash away the bitterness of disappointment. Something to bring a smile, rather than choke my throat with tears of anger and frustration.

Know what I found? The only pictures that turned out?

A 200 year old brick house, still standing among the road construction cones and detour signs…

And a note from God…

Yes, it made me smile.

Tags: faith, family, marriage

Cows are herd animals. And ours are a family herd as well, so they are tight. Very tight.

So you know something’s up when you see one off laying all by her lonesome.

She almost blends in like a lion in the grass!

We had just shuffled everyone around and the cows were off in our big back field when we saw Molly off by herself in the far corner while everyone else was up front eating hay. So we headed out there.

Of course she was back in the weeds, and she had a big surprise for us.

I spy something brown...

It was a big calf. This little guy is quite sturdy. He’s almost as big as our 8 month Zebu heifer calf. He’s a Zebu/Jersey cross.

She already had him dried off and up nursing before we even got out there.

She delivered and is mothering just find all by herself. Didn’t need us at all. (And that’s quite a blessing!) You may remember her last calf–or maybe not. He looked just like this one, but he’s all grown up now.

He's 14 months old now. We haven't named him because he'll be "going up the road" later this Spring.

I think the new little guy is bigger than her red calf was. We didn’t weigh him because she’ll only tolerate so much fussing around with her baby before she starts snorting at you and I didn’t think to bring the scale, since we didn’t know what was wrong at first.

He's even got a good, furry coat for being born in February!

I thought she was getting close to her time, but she normally has a larger udder than our other cows anyway so it can be hard to judge. But we knew it would be soon because the baby had dropped and she had the hollow back at her hip joint. We’ll be moving them back up to the house field this weekend where I can keep a better eye on both little ones and their mommas. They just disappear in that tall grass!

Settling back down for a nap.

We’ll be off adventuring this weekend at a farm equipment event out of town. But the kiddos are staying home this time. I can’t believe we’ll be off for an adults only weekend…I’m sure I’ll have more to share next week!

Do you have big plans for the weekend?

Tags: calves, cows, farming adventure

This past weekend while I was wandering around the farm checking on a few new happenings (some cute, fuzzy, news coming up tomorrow!) I started using the viewfinder on our camera instead of the LCD screen. Just trying it out. I’ve got my eye on a new Nikon D5100, but my coffee can savings bank still has a lot more rattle than rustle in in. And I haven’t maxed out the abilities of our current camera anyway.

The view finder gives you a much different perspective on things.

And I thought about Ann Voskamp’s 1,000 Gifts (which I highly recommend!) where she said (I’m paraphrasing here) the only way to truly slow time down, is to practice gratitude. When you’re grateful for every moment, then you’re truly, fully present in every moment and can get the most out of it.

I actually didn't even know I captured the female in this picture until I went to edit it!

If you turn that around, I think it means that if you’re constantly rushing from lessons to sports to clubs, eating out because you’re too busy to cook, watching TV because you’re too tired to read, or buying new clothes because you’re too busy mend or iron what you have…then you’re letting what little time you have slip through your fingers.

A full life and a busy life are not the same thing.

The definition of "encroachment."

And I thought of Psalms 46. This is where “be still and know that I am God” (vs. 10) comes from. But the rest of that Psalm is full of hard action. Waters roar, mountains shake, heathens rage…We are to be still, not everything around us. The Word doesn’t say run away to a place that is still. God’s Word is talking about our spirits being still, not our lives. Everything around us can bustle and hum and thrive and race and strive…we’re suppose to stillness inside.

As much as I may strive to create a peace-on-earth within my home, within my fences, within my property lines…it’s all in vain unless it starts within my heart.

Time marches onward.

And I thought of how we have to train our children to cultivate stillness.

Stillness is not just about being quiet (oh, how the Cowboy struggles with this one!) it’s about emotional maturity and self-control.  It’s about spiritual consistency and faith. It’s about patience and humility.

It’s steadfast. It’s resilient. It’s firm in the face of external challenges.

It’s something I’m still learning to cultivate for myself.

Blue lynch pin--sounds like a media company name.

I never understood the fullness of grace until I was a parent. Only through unfailing grace and mercy can someone as flawed as me ever hope to raise up something wonderful for the Kingdom.

HE has what I need, when I don’t have what they need.

See how philosophical you can get when your walking alone down a farm path on a dreary day? {grin}

Tags: faith, farming adventure

About a month ago I signed up with my friend Aurie to join a Bible in 90 Days reading group, starting February 1st. So far I’m hanging tight, but whew, this is an eye-opener already for me!

My beautiful, faithful Bible.

I have to admit, I’ve never read the Bible completely, cover to cover. I have read the entire New Testament and a good portion of the Old by now, but never the whole thing. I didn’t even know there was a Book of Obadiah and a Book of Nahum in there until the last year or so. (And I still haven’t read Nahum!)

Here's the reading plan. It's a trifold page that you can use as a bookmark.

The Bible in 90 Days program is not an in-depth study program. It’s simply a daily reading plan (about an hour a day) that will get you through the whole thing in 3 months. The idea is to give you a broad understanding of everything that happens and how it all fits together across the entire book. You’re not really supposed to stop to look up words, cross-reference verses, or compare versions. You’re just suppose to read it. (And take notes of where you need to go back later and look up words, cross-reference verses, and compare versions.)

I have tabs in my Bible, and I LOVE them. Before putting them in, I would just give up on following along during sermons.

I’m very excited–and a little shocked already.

Did you know that Abraham remarried after Sarah died? I had no idea! I don’t remember ever hearing anyone mention Keturah and the 6 sons they had together. (Genesis 25:1-2)

Did you know that Noah took more than just one set of each kind of animal? Some of them he took seven pairs. (Genesis 7:2-3)

And don’t even get me started on Lot’s daughters! (Genesis 30-38)

To read the actual stories, word for word, while the children’s books and movies and Sunday School coloring pages all float through my head has really been a wonder for me.

And I'm a Bible note taker. I write, underline, star, and scribble message notes all over my pages.

One thing that stuck out the first few days (besides wondering how in the world the Lord could stand those ungrateful Israelites! And aren’t we like that too?!) was the story of Issac and Rebekah. They had their problems (doesn’t everyone?) but in Genesis 24:67 it says “…and she became his wife; and he loved her…” That’s the first time in the Bible that the world love is used between a husband and wife. I underlined it. Even Adam never said anything about loving Eve. Of all things, it brought tears to my eyes.

Look what else I found! God even talks about carrying capacity and rotational grazing in the Bible!

I decided to stick with the King James Version this time, although they recommend that you use the NIV. It’s tougher, no doubt about it. But to keep from getting bogged down, I started jotting down verse numbers on the back of my reading plan that I want to go back and look up later. I’ve also made some notes in my prayer journal about overall questions I want to explore later. Like why are there pages and pages of genealogies? What is it God wants us to get out of having those in there?

I think I might follow this 90 days up with a one year Bible reading and study plan to dive in to some of these. We’ll have to see. But I’m definitely already being rewarded with this project.

If you want to try it too, you’re welcome to catch up with our group, or visit Moms Toolbox and find another group kicking off soon. I think there’s at least one other group that started after us.

Tags: bible, bible in 90 days, faith