Signs, Signs, and More Signs

Fast on the heels of our stool project was the making of signs. Lots of signs. I decided that we had too many bare walls in our house and I was going to fix a few of those. Thank goodness Farmer John gave me a Silhouette Cameo for Christmas! I broke it out and created a few designs in my software and got to painting!

First, I decided to tackle a sign I'd been thinking about for months for our guest bathroom. I started by having Farmer John cut the pieces of wood I needed for all my ideas and then we lightly sanded to make a smoother finish. I then painted a layer of Antique White Chalk Paint by Color Rehab on my sign and let it fully dry. I then used my Cameo Silhouette to cut out a stencil from vinyl and applied it to the wood. First, I painted Mod Podge around the edges of the design to prevent bleeding and let dry. Then, I used black chalk paint for the words and design. Once it was tacky (not all the way dry as I didn't want the design to peel up when I removed the stencil), I peeled off the stencil and let it fully dry. A final spray with poly and wire hung on the back and it was done!!

Here it is hanging in it's new home. It looks smaller here than it does in person though!

Little Farmer T and Little Farmer G were itching to get their hands on some paint, so I decided that we could create some art for their room together. I created a few quick stencils of some camping themed designs for their room and let them help make their own signs. I started by painting a coat of antique white all over their boards and letting dry. I did these signs a little differently than the sign above. Instead of using the stencil to fill in with color, I used the vinyl like a giant sticker and let them just paint over the entire thing and then peeled off the letters, animals, etc.  So, after the white dried, I applied the animals, tent and wording and then applied Mod Podge again to the edges of the design. I then let them have at it! They each chose which color to use for their design and painted! I helped with a few small areas, but they really did most of it! Once they were tacky, I peeled off the vinyl and we let them finish drying and then sprayed them with poly and applied wire to the back to hang!

Little Farmer T was excited to do the tent! 

Little Farmer G's bear!   

I had a little help, but mommy did most of this one.

And, last, but not least, mommy decided that the kitchen needed one more sign...because, of course...who doesn't need more Sweet Tea and Sunshine?!? Especially this southern girl up here in western WA? 

I created this sign with the same method as the bath sign with only a couple of changes. I painted the entire sign with antique white first and then with mustard yellow that had been mixed with white a little to brighten it up. I then placed my stencil, Mod Podged (is that a word?!?), and painted each section of words the color I wanted. We let it dry and then I lightly sanded a few spots and used a spray poly before adding the wire to hang.

Here it is on the wall...one of my favorites!!

Slowly, but surely, we are making our way though the house and adding our own touches. It still has a long way to go, but we are getting there! 

Moving On

Me with my sign at the workshop.

This summer found us in the midst of change. Our juvenile chicks have grown and been processed and have found their new home at freezer camp. We, temporarily, said goodbye to our chicken farming and have moved on to other projects. The start of several projects was fueled by a fun afternoon at a Sign Painting Workshop at a local business, The Barn Door. I have always enjoyed crafting and am often doing small projects in my craft room: sewing, making goodies with the help of my Cameo Silhouette, etc, but this started larger projects than I have traditionally tackled.

It's up! Ignore the walls that
still need a coat of paint.

I made this adorable sign for our kitchen during the workshop to take home and was instantly inspired to continue creating! During the workshop, I decided to paint the sign first with a thin coat of red, followed by turquoise. The sign was then lightly sanded to make a little more of the red and raw wood show through and then I stenciled the words and painted the coffee mug. With a little help from the awesome owner, we attached the hooks and a wire to hang it from the wall and lightly sprayed the entire piece with poly. Voila! It was complete! Super easy and fun!

Shortly after making this piece, I found myself back at The Barn Door purchasing more of her paint, Color Rehab for my next projects: signs for the boys soon-to-be camping themed room, a couple more signs for the house, and to redo the barstools we inherited with the house that needed an update.   And, with an upcoming graduation party at our house for Farmer John's sister, what better time to complete them than when you only have a week before everyone shows up?!?

After prep work

First, the barstools. Because I was using chalk paint, I knew I didn't have to spend too much time sanding everything completely. It is supposed to be no-prep...how awesome is that?!?  However, these stools had had years of use and needed a thorough clean. So, I started by cleaning them with a degreasing cleaner to get off any grime and then lightly sanding a few rough spots to make sure I ended up with the finish I wanted. To the right is what they looked like after they had been cleaned and lightly sanded in any areas that needed it. I did the sanding outside to keep the mess to a minimum.

Next, I started the fun part - the paint! My plan was to use a mix of colors on the stool legs and white on the seats. So, I broke out my 5 color choices and got to it! I had chosen a mustard yellow, teal, red, blue and green as my colors. I used two coats of color on the legs of the stools. I possibly could have gotten away with one coat, but, let's face it...I have kids. So, two coats it was.

This was the green I started with. It was waaaaay darker than I was hoping.
So, I just added little white and got...

This! So. Much. Better.

Apparently Suzie didn't want to be left out of the pictures. 

After the legs were dry (super quick, I might add), I moved on to the seats. My plan was to use white, distress the whole piece a little and then seal with clear wax and use a little antiquing wax on the seats because, well...kids. I was thinking that a little "antiquing" might hide dirty finger smudges, etc.

Again, I did two coats of white on the seats and let dry. Then, I distressed all of the stools using a combination of hand and electric sanding. I then used the clear wax followed by a little antiquing wax and buffed.

This was the first result. I quickly decided that I had gotten a little more
antiquing wax than I wanted, so I applied more clear wax over the top and buffed some more.

That turned out better and was more what I was going for. 

The finished stools in their place!

I made the boys stay off of them completely for about 2 days and then we used them very lightly for about 30 days to allow them to fully cure. We finished up the barstools and moved on to our other plans for projects before company came....we might be a little crazy for tackling them all in such a short time, but I think we work well under pressure. Somehow, we always manage to finish the big projects in time!

However, after a couple months of use, the "antiquing" started to get to me. It didn't disguise the smudges from kids for me. It actually made me feel like they were dirtier than they really were. So, back to the drawing board again it was.

I ended up putting a single coat of fresh white chalk paint over the top. No prep after the wax. Really. All I did was take a damp cloth and wipe them down first. I ended up purchasing Polyvine Wax Finish Varnish Satin Finish in Clear  for another project (more on that later) and decided it was the perfect finish for the stools. It has a harder finish than wax, but a more warm feeling than poly. Plus, on the white, it is less likely to yellow over time than the poly and was super easy to work with. There was none of the bubbling that we fought when we used poly on our dining table and the kids toy bins.  I'm a huge fan of this stuff and it goes quite a long way. It also comes in a Dead Flat Finish, which I think would be perfect for projects where you don't want any sheen. I will be using it in the future, I'm sure. Two coats of the Polyvine finish and here is a closeup of the final product.

I love that there are still some very lightly distressed parts of the stools,
but they are literally so easy to clean. All I use now is a damp cloth and things wipe right off so
much better than the wax in the high kid traffic area.

Stay tuned for our next update where I will share a little about the signs we have made this summer and our other, larger projects! We are finally updating our little farm one step at a time!

When Tragedy Strikes

A short while ago, we started noticing that Dilly (our first Splash Breda) seemed to be loosing more weight. She is the one who had a slipped tendon from early on, but she was acting less like herself and was not venturing out with the rest of the chickens as often. Before long, we also started observing that Girlie (aka Girlkin), our Blue Breda hen had a somewhat stilted walk and that she had also lost weight. She also was occasionally sneezing and short of breath.

In chickens, one of the diseases we had heard the most about and were concerned that our girls might have contracted was Mareks disease. Mareks is a highly contagious (to chickens) Herpes virus. It can be transmitted by wild birds as well. Although there are multiple types of Mareks (neurological, visceral and cutaneous), Mareks often presents with neurological symptoms. Mortality can range from a small percentage up to a 100% rate.  Avian influenza has also been more widespread recently and is highly contagious. Although the symptoms we were seeing weren't making us think AI, it was also a possibility. It was also entirely possible that they had something fairly benign or genetically wrong that wouldn't affect any of the other birds.

Because of these concerns, after much discussion, we opted to take the two of them in to our local Avian Health Lab for euthanasia and necropsy so that we knew what we were dealing with and what, if anything, we needed to do to protect the rest of our flock. We explained to the boys that they were sick and that they had to go in for testing and wouldn't be coming back. They had the chance to tell them bye and were sad, but understood that we needed to know what was wrong with them so we could take care of the rest of the flock.

The initial necropsy report the following day was inconclusive. Girlie was noted to have some enlarged peripheral nerves and Dilly showed myopathy. Because the changes were not specific, they did a culture of Dilly's heart to determine if it was a virus, but the pathologist was also concerned about the possibility of Mareks disease and wished to do additional histology to verify.

Approximately 10 days later, we received notification that Dilly, in fact, did have an infection in her heart along with bronchitis and that Girlie had severe pulmonary congestion (lung complications). The pathologist was still unsure to the reason behind these changes, so she did additional stains to attempt to find an answer.

A few days later, we received the tragic news. It was not Avian Influenza or Mareks that was causing disease in our birds. Instead, it was Avian tuberculosis (Mycobacterium sp.). Avian tuberculosis is most typically caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium avium. Unfortunately, this bacteria is considered a zoonotic disease, which means that it does have the potential to jump species. It is a very slow growing bacteria and is rarely found in birds under 1 year of age. Our hens were right at a year. This fact was shocking to us, as well as the pathologist. Avian TB is most commonly transmitted by direct contact with wild birds or ingestion of contaminated (from feces) food, water, or contact with a contaminated environment. After much discussion with the pathologist, we feel that it is most likely our birds contracted this bacteria from exposure via wild birds. Although Avian TB is rarely transmitted to humans (they are considered highly resistant), it is always a possibility and is more likely to affect those who have preexisting diseases, particularly those who have lung complications or immunosuppression (from AIDS, steroids, etc).

We emailed back and forth with the pathologist at the Avian Health Lab and had an extensive phone conversation with her. At the time of diagnosis, we had our flock of 11 (well, 9 after we had taken in Dilly and Girlie), 6 juvenile birds who had recently moved outside as well as about 30 2-week olds in the garage who had had a "field trip" or two outside, and an incubator full of an additional 30+ eggs about to hatch. Our goal for the year was to increase our layer flock, determine which breeds we wanted to focus on and supply our freezer with meat. Because of the risk to the remaining birds, as well as our family, we had to look at the safest options for our farm. Unfortunately, because the bacteria can live in the soil for up to 2 years, that meant a reality we were not at all prepared for.

We discussed with the pathologist what was feasible with each group of birds. It was recommended that our entire adult flock be depopulated (or euthanized). Because the bacteria is so slow growing, any birds raised solely for meat and butchered at an early age do not have enough time to contract the disease and are safe for consumption. Therefore, the juveniles and chicks in the garage had their fate sealed to be broilers for the year. The bacteria is not able to be transmitted via egg, so thankfully, our eggs in the hatcher were all still safe as long as the chicks never moved outside. Our goal was now to find new homes for those chicks immediately upon hatch. Thankfully, we were able to rehome all but four the day they hatched, two more the following day and the remaining two before they turned a week old.

We are devastated that our plans for the chickens and our flock were crushed. For a two year period, we will no longer maintain layers. We will raise and process our broilers for the year and, in the future, will attempt to re-establish a flock.

Chick Time!!

Our chickens are finally old enough now that we could attempt to hatch our first eggs!!! Eeeeek! We were so excited! We had a ton of research to do...what incubator is best, what do we need to do to have a successful hatch, do we need a fan or an automatic turner?

I checked out books from the library, read blogs and forums, asked questions in Facebook groups, and read tons of online reviews. Ultimately, we decided that the best incubator for our current situation would be the HovaBator 1602N with automatic turner and fan kit. If you are looking for one, you can find it here:  http://amzn.to/1W1SAKc  We chose the automatic turner because, although I could manually turn the eggs, I know with our schedule one of us wouldn't always be available to turn the eggs 3 times a day.

I am part of an amazing group on Facebook that teaches the "SimpleHatch" method, which is what we have used. The short version is that we use two old school thermometers (not digital), both calibrated to be accurate at 100 degrees. One is set up as a dry bulb for an accurate temperature reading inside the incubator. The other one is set up as a wet bulb: you slide it into a 100% cotton wick (we use an old t-shirt hem) that falls into the water well inside your incubator and gives you your "wet bulb temp", which can then be converted into a humidity percentage. You want your humidity around 65% (or approximately 90 degrees on your wet bulb) for heathy and happy chicks. We also only candle our eggs on day 17 (so hard to wait, but the more you handle, the more of a chance to injure your precious chicks). The only eggs we candle on day 10 are our blue and green eggs because they are more porous and more likely than other colors to become contaminated...and no one wants a bacteria bomb in their incubator...yuck!! If you are interested in more information, comment below or message me and I'll be happy to help and share the group info with you!

Still wet in the incubator...our first two chicks!

So, once we got our incubator all set up and our thermometers calibrated, we set our very first batch of Breda eggs on February 16. During incubation, we added water as needed to keep our humidity up and then after we candled eggs on day 17, we ended up with 13 eggs developing normally (we had one that had quit developing earlier on). We pulled the egg from the turner and put them in lockdown. No one opens the incubator for any reason during lockdown.....surprisingly, Little Farmer G and Little Farmer T did really well with this. Little Farmer G just kept peeking in the windows on the incubator and saying "Awwww, how cuuuuuttteee!!! Look! Another one hatched!" If we have to add water for humidity during lockdown, we use a straw or tubing to assist through one of the air holes in the incubator. After the 21 day incubation period, we woke up one morning to 2 fully hatched chicks and many more pips!

Two of our cuties at just a couple of days old. 

After it was all said and done, we ended up with 9 healthy chicks. 4 didn't end up hatching. One of them was turned toward the wrong end of the egg away from the air cell, the others we aren't fully sure what happened. We would have loved it if everyone had hatched, but for our very first hatch ever, it wasn't too bad! We learned a lot and will change a few things the next time around, but we ended up with these cuties! Three of them have made their way to a new home, but the remaining 6 are still part of our farm.

Here are a couple more pictures of the Bredas as they have been growing up! It's so fun to watch their little personalities coming out! They love foraging, dust bathing and practicing their flying! 

Here are some of the chicks at a week or so old!

And here they are now...almost 5 weeks old and spending their days outdoors now. They look so silly at this stage!

Spring Forward

Spring time is quickly approaching here in the Pacific Northwest! When we start seeing beautiful flowers and having lovely sunshine-filled days, we know it is quickly approaching. And, now that we have our new house and property, spring doesn't only mean warmer, longer days....it means CHICKS!!! 

The last few weeks (yes, even here in western WA), we have been having a some beautiful days that tease us of the coming months. The boys and I have been enjoying a few more ventures to local parks and soaking up the sun when it comes. This southern born and raised girl LOVES her sunshine! 

Daffodils bringing the promise of warmer days!

One of the first signs around here that the warmer days are on the way are the daffodils that begin to pop up everywhere. On the side of the road, in fields, yards, and even in the woods. My favorite flowers are still tulips, but I sure do love when these little rays of sunshine start showing themselves! 

This year, as winter is winding down, we got to enjoy a long weekend visit from my brother. Although, we didn't spend a lot of time here at Peck Place, we explored the area with him and enjoyed a few little sunbreaks. We had about 3.5 days to explore with him while he was here.

The first day, we did the "expected" thing and went to Seattle. However, we went beyond the typical Space Needle and Pike's Place outings and visited spots like the Fremont Troll, the Starbucks Reserve Roastery & Tasting Room and took him to Evo's distribution center south of the city in Auburn.

We started the day by stopping at Evo in Auburn so that Uncle A could look for some ski gloves. They have a small storefront where you can find great deals on snowboarding and skiing gear. It is also where we have picked up your online orders when we needed an item quicker. Our next stop was lunch at 8 Ounce Burger Bar in Capitol Hill. Do not miss the garlic fries when you are there!! They are right up there with the garlic fries at the Mariner's games...hot, crispy, delicious and will make you breathe garlic for a week. You can thank me later.

The kids with Uncle A at the Fremont Troll

Let me just tell you, the Starbucks Roastery is a place you should definitely visit on your next trip to Seattle. You will pay a little more for your coffee than at your normal coffee shop, but you will get to see coffee roasting in action, try special drinks that are not on their normal menu, and there are many unique roasts to choose from that you won't find in every Starbucks on the corner. Even the boys found it interesting because they could watch the entire roasting process and learn about how coffee is made (ahem, homeschool field trip for the day - check!)

Our last stop of the day was at the Fremont Troll. The kids had fun running up and hiding behind the troll and then posing for silly pictures. We then completed the day with a lovely 3 hour ride home (normally about an hour) in the rain on Friday afternoon...no idea what that was about, but lets just say it was NOT the highlight of our day.

The next day we took a the ferry from Point Defiance to Vashon Island. We had beautiful sunshine on the ride and could even (briefly) catch a glimpse of Mt. Rainier.

We explored a few spots on the island and saw a few sights, including the bicycle tree, which has seen better days. In recent years, vandals have messed with the bike so it isn't in the best condition anymore. Apparently, the story goes that a little boy left his bike in the woods and the tree grew around it....we may have used the story as a lesson for why you should pick up your toys. Anyone think that it will actually sink in?!?

Little Farmer G and Farmer T in front of the Bicycle Tree on Vashon Island

For our return ferry, we returned from the other end of the island to the Fauntleroy terminal to make a stop for dinner at Sunset Cafe - a great little Ethiopian restaurant off Rainier Ave. The food is AMAZING, the prices are great and the kids thought it was pretty awesome that they got to eat with their hands. Plus, no peanuts in the cuisine to worry about for Little Farmer G!!

Sunday of our weekend found us at White Pass Ski Area, enjoying a snow day. Thank goodness, spring coming doesn't mean the snow season is over yet! It was overcast and snowy throughout most of the day, but the clouds did lift enough a few times for Uncle A to enjoy some beautiful views....and some sunshine to squint through.

Farmer John took one for the team and stayed with the kids so that I could spend the day on the mountain with Uncle A. We had a great time, the snow was coming down lightly though the day so almost every run was perfect!

Little Farmer T advanced from the carpet to the platter and did great at his second snowboarding lesson - so proud of him! Little Farmer G even went up the carpet a few times on his snowboard!

It was also Winter Carnival weekend at White Pass, so there was an awesome snow castle for the kids to check out and sled down (for FREE!) Mom and dad even got in on the action!  

Our last morning with Uncle A in town was spent touring one of the new Amazon towers in Seattle, complements of one of our friends who works for them. It was right up his alley, since he works in programming. It was also pretty neat for us to see how some of the rest of the world works. Let's just say that I don't think hospitals would ever let us take our dogs to work or have a room just for playing video games to decompress, haha! We had a lot of fun! However, Little Farmer G was a little perplexed on the way home. "Um, where were the kindles at Amazon? Our kindles came from Amazon, but we didn't see them there." Hmmmm....how to explain the intricacies of Amazon to a 3 year old? Lol!

Saying goodbye until next time at the airport.

We had a blast spending the weekend exploring some old favorites and new adventures with Uncle A at the end of the Winter...now, it's time to Spring Forward!! Remember those chicks I mentioned at the beginning? Well, we welcomed our first batch of chicks from our own flock this past week...and, as expected, they are adorable little fluff balls! I can't wait to share the process of our first hatch with you next time!

Here are a couple of sneak peeks into our next blog post:

The first two hatchlings!!

In Little Farmer G's words "Awwww, it's so fluffy! It's so cuuuuutttteeee!"

Homeschooling at Its Best

Last Monday was Presidents Day. Most schools in the area had the day off. But, since we homeschool, not us! However, we did decide to do something even better. Ski (Snowboard) School! Why not?!? We decided to take Little Farmer T and Little Farmer G to the mountain to try out snowboarding for the first time. On the way up to the mountain, we did take the opportunity to do a few extra spelling and math drills, but the main part of our day was Physical Education and learning a new (and fun) skill.

Little Farmer T has been asking (aka begging) since last winter to try snowboarding instead of skiing this year. And, as all good little brothers do, Little Farmer G wants to do everything his big brother does, so of course, he wants to snowboard too. They decided to take some of their Christmas money and big brother is taking a series of lessons and little brother got a Burton Riglet

to play around on. It's not the exact one in the link, just a different color. It's super cool because there is a reel on the front that you can use to pull them around. We even tried it out at home and the boys loved making us race them down the hall! 

While Little Farmer T was in his lesson, Mommy & Daddy took turns pulling Little Farmer G around so he could work on his balance. He did really well!

Little Farmer G trying out his Riglet!

Oops! Snowboarding definitely has a learning curve!

Little Farmer T spent his day attempting to master the magic carpet, learn to skate and be a falling leaf on the way down the slope. He did great with the magic carpet and skating.

See that cutie on the magic carpet in the red jacket? 

Just made it to the bottom of the hill with his instructor!

Gearing up for another go on the magic carpet!

By the end of the day, he realized that he was gonna need more practice, haha! Poor boy was wiped out at the end of the lesson...but nothing that a very special (and rare) treat of french fries and hot chocolate couldn't cure! When we asked him if he wanted to go again, we got a very enthusiastic "Sure! Just not today." Can't blame him...those first couple of days on the board are rough. Pretty sure he was happy that this was how we spent our school day, though! 

Love in the Air

Valentine's Day at our house is not usually traditional. We aren't big on spending money on things like candy, big stuffed teddy bears (what would I do with it anyway?!?), or flowers (unless they are potted or can be planted...with the exception of tulips. Tulips are always welcome in our house, cut or potted. Just saying!)

So, what does a day about love look like at Peck Place? It starts with Farmer John getting up with the boys so that Mommy could sleep in (of course, thanks to two Little Farmers, I've been trained to wake up anyway so it wasn't that late, lol!) When I walked into the kitchen, this is what I found:

Little Farmer T made this card all on his own....came up with what to say and draw. I love it! 

Not to be outdone, Little Farmer G made his with a little help from Dad. When he told me about it, he said "It's so silly!"

Farmer John has been working on his own labor of love for the past few days...a new smaller coop so that we can house our two breeds separately and keep both gentlemen happy! He has dubbed it "The Love Shack"...can't get much better still a work in progress, but I think it is going to be adorable! Stay tuned for updates! 

They say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach and if that holds true, I think I was successful today! While Farmer John was working on "The Love Shack", I was menu planning, gathering tax info and cooking a tasty dinner. A friend suggested this recipe (http://goop.com/recipes/winter-minestrone/?mbid=social_facebook) from Goop this week and I made it using homemade bone broth. It was so good!

What's a good pot of soup without bread? I looked at several recipes on the web as starting points and came up with this herbed garlic loaf....it was a hit! 

Herbed Garlic Loaf

Ingredients:

3.5 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup of warm water, plus 2-4 T as needed
1/2 cup of melted butter
1-2 tbsp chopped herbs (I used 1 T of rosemary and thyme, but would definitely double that next time)
2 tsp sea salt plus more for the top
1 tsp active yeast
1/4 cup whole cloves of garlic (You could roast the cloves ahead of time if you prefer, but we did not)
Sprinkle of raw sugar

Directions:

Place warm water in a measuring cup and add yeast and the sprinkle of sugar. Let stand for 5-10 minutes to proof yeast. Meanwhile, in a stand mixer, using dough hook, combine flour and salt. Add water, butter, garlic and herbs to mixture and kneed 5-10 minutes until dough forms a ball in the bowl, adding water as needed.

Place bread in a warm area and let rise, covered, until doubled (approximately 1-2 hours). Kneed and let rise a second time (approximately 1 hour). About 45 minutes into the second rise, preheat oven to 450 degrees with dutch oven or cast iron pan inside to preheat.

Don't be jealous of my wood trimmed countertops! 

Lightly kneed dough and form into a ball.

Pull pre-heated pan out of the oven and place a sheet of parchment paper inside. Transfer bread to pan on top of parchment. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle lightly with sea salt.

Cover with lid and bake at 450 degrees for approximately 30 minutes. (*Optional: Roast 2 heads of garlic in foil while it bakes.) Remove lid and cook an additional 15-20 minutes until lightly browned on top.

Attempt to resist cutting until cool...or don't and just cut into it. Like me. No judgement here...

Remember that roasted garlic? Mix it into 4-6 T softened butter and spread on sliced bread. Mmmmmm! You're welcome.

The flu and the stomach bug have both been going around locally, so we are trying to get in lots of healthy goodness. This soup and bread with garlic, onion, bone broth and lots of veggies was the perfect way to ward it off...fingers crossed it works! If nothing else, it was a perfect way to end our Valentine's Day...a family meal and delicious food. Everyone loved the bread. And, almost everyone loved the soup...maybe it will grow on Little Farmer G!