Too. Much. Cute!!!!

The babies are getting so big! Amazing how time flies when you're hanging out with chickens!

They started out as adorable little fluffballs, but now they're turning into daring escape artists.

Their wings are starting to get bigger, so they've mastered the art of jumping on top of their feeder and peeking out over the top of the brooder, which is super cute. Until you realize that they can get out and run around and leave little presents all over the carpet.

So we've had to modify the brooder a little bit to make sure they aren't running amok while we're off at work!

Sorry, girls. It's for your own good!

The coop is coming along nicely; we're aiming for stylish and aesthetically pleasing (that's P's role), and super cheap (that would be my role).

And every once in a while I get the ambition to scrape off a little more 90-year-old original linoleum--the real kind, with jute backing and really impressive glue.

That's so much prettier than the checkerboard! Why would you do that to such a lovely floor?

Excavation!

The chickies continue to be absolutely adorable; P fell asleep on the sofa the other night with a chick resting on his shoulder. I got one to fall asleep in my hands; the goal is to have the tamest, most people-friendly chickens on the Northside.

We had a couple visitors to the farm too! These sweet girls had a lot of suggestions for names for the chicks. We're naming the Ameraucana Julia, but I already forgot which one was supposed to be Ruby. And Pearl. And Golden Feathers. But these chickens are going to be so well socialized!

And because the chicks aren't enough excitement, I decided to start some floor excavation in the kitchen! During my little kitchen reno three years ago, I discovered this tiny patch of maple flooring under the sink (under several layers of vinyl).

And it gave me hope that the floors might be lovely. 

I already got rid of the horrible falling-down plastic tiles. And that dreadful paint color. Now it's time to take on the floors. I suppose checkerboard peel-and-stick tile has its place. Maybe in a 1950s themed rec room. But this lovely kitchen deserves better!

 

Seriously, these cabinets need a floor that matches.

And it's my job to make that happen!

Livestock!

Time to expand the homestead!

The fish are fun enough, I guess, but they're lacking in charisma and charm. So, we've decided to add some new livestock to the tiny farm.

Baby chicks! We decided to stop being those people who always talk about how much they want to keep laying hens, and to start being those people who actually keep them!

We got them from Egg Plant in St. Paul, the only place I could find to buy a half dozen baby chicks. We got one each of 6 different breeds (Ameraucana, Barred Rock, Black Austrolorp, Buff Orpington, California White, and Gold Star, if you pay attention to those things), and I'm crossing my fingers that none of them will turn out to be a rooster because then we'll have some hard choices to make.

Right now, they're living in a bin in the living room (so it's easy to look at them)!

Besties!!

Next step: chicken coop! They'll live inside for a month or so, then they'll need to move outside to a coop. Which we haven't started yet. Except in our minds--we've definitely started thinking and dreaming about how cute it will be!

If anyone has some coop building materials lying around, I wouldn't say no! ;)

Tight spaces!

More adventures in landlording; we were in bed at a bed and breakfast when we got a call that one of our furnaces was out. Thank goodness for Home Service Plus; they came out and fixed it. Twice, because the first fix wasn't quite right.

And then we got a text that the water had stopped flowing in a half bath. Fortunately, they have more than one bathroom in that house, so it wasn't a total emergency. Turns out that half bath is over a crawl space, and one that was well insulated to keep heat from leaking into it from the basement. Seriously people; don't put plumbing on uninsulated exterior walls, especially when it passes through an uninsulated crawl space first.

P got to thaw out the pipes, since I had places to be. But I got there just in time to help out with the heat tape.

So I got to army crawl up into this tiny space, which was just big enough for a half-pint sized lady to squeeze in to. It made me grateful I had crossed "spelunker" off my list of potential careers. And after 30 minutes of scraping my knuckles and getting fiberglass insulation in my sleeves, the problem was solved!

Questionable decisions!

In the process of fixing up the Queen house, I may have made some questionable choices. Mostly when Perry wasn't there to rescue me or tell me that perhaps I should reconsider my methods.

So, I had to paint the back entryway, which has a set of stairs to the basement. I had to paint the ceiling, including the part above the bottom of the stairs, which was a pretty serious reach. The extension ladder was too tall, and the a-frame was almost tall enough.

So, I had to improvise a little bit. I stepped back and remembered that I had a step ladder. And I put 2 and 2 together....

Double ladder! Always a good idea to balance a ladder on another ladder. Never the wrong choice. But it worked. And the ceiling got painted, and it looks much better.

I learned some other things too. I already knew that you shouldn't paint yourself into a corner when doing floors, so I didn't make that exact mistake. But I may have glued myself in.... just a little bit.

I did manage to get out of the bathroom, but it involved standing on the tub and bracing myself against the opposite wall, and then jumping the last little bit. But I giggled about it at the time; maybe the glue fumes had something to do with my problem-solving process. And I felt a little like Catherine Zeta-Jones in that laser scene in Entrapment:

With way cooler kneepads.

Winter calm

We're currently on a house-buying hiatus (for another couple of months at least), and all the houses have people in them. So, other than a new faucet here and a sheetrock patch there, we're kind of done. Which is a weird feeling.

Yeah. That's the spot.

So, we have time to do other things! Like a quick winter camping trip on the shortest day of the year. We were in a little state park cabin but nearly had to spend the night in the woods because we went a little bit too far out on our trek and the light ran out.

Cool hat selfie!

And we've been expanding the rock collection. Turns out grandpa Walt has a pretty impressive pile of rocks, which he is more than willing to share with anyone silly enough to want them. Everybody's got a hobby.

And the craziest thing of all is that we cancelled the internet. Yep, no internet at home. Except on our phones, of course, so we're not going to start twitching from the lack of email access. But cell coverage is so spotty over North that it's no fun at all to scroll down Facebook anymore. The theory is that we'll get way more things done in our lives; I'll keep you all posted!

Classy!

No one ever accused an Iverson of trying to keep up appearances. We don't have time for that. And even though I've added another last name, I have even less time for trying to be cool. There are houses to fix!

My Buick has amazing hauling capacity. It has a little trap door between the trunk and the back seat, so I can haul long boards when I need to. But sometimes I accidentally buy a chop saw that takes up the whole back seat, and then I have to get creative. This girl needs a roof rack.

Not visible: my classy husband in the passenger seat

Also, I pretty much wear the exact same outfit every day that I'm working. It got so bad that the guy at North End Hardware asked if I had other clothes. I think they were about to run a clothing drive for this poor disadvantaged lady.

That time I glued myself in to the bathroom