Redneck Chic -Extreme Porch Makeover

Over the winter our porch got a little, how should I say this, redneck chic. It was out of control to the point I couldn't even look at it. The dogs and kids had completely claimed it as their own. It was beyond time to do something about it.

So we completely cleared everything off.
We gave away or sold the all the furniture on Craigslist.

I found some awesome metal chairs on Craigslist that rock (literally). When we got there to get the chairs, the lady mentioned that they had a matching glider. I fainted. I've wanted a glider for so long, and to find one that matched these chairs, I was giddy with excitement! Of course we had to run to a cash machine, but I wasn't leaving without that glider!

These are the springs that make the chairs bounce. I found another 1950-1960's style glider on Craigslist too that needs to be restored. Jason says it needs to be sandblasted so who knows when it will be ready for the porch.

I found some pillows at a thrift store to add some color.

And I found this at a thrift store too. I thought it went well with the furniture.

Then we added our ferns, which I hopefully will be able to keep alive until the fall thanks to the automatic watering system my dad installed a few years ago. Last year I decided to buy hanging petunias for some color. Even with the watering system I think they lasted only a month or 2. Ferns are much easier and hardier.

The landscaping left much to be desired as well.

I'll cover that in my next post.

May Hole in the Wall

I thought I should post pics of my May hole in the wall before the month is completely over. I haven't had too much time to blog this month since it's strawberry season and I've already had numerous "Jam" sessions. I made strawberry jelly, strawberry jalapeno jelly (yum!), strawberry lime jelly and strawberry lime jam.

Which brings me to my hole in the wall theme for May: Strawberries!

Several members of my family and I hit the thrift stores looking for anything strawberry related. It was harder than I thought it would be to find strawberry items, but we managed to find a few. My mom had a few things I borrowed and I filled the rest of the space up with strawberry jam and jelly.

I got this coffee mug for my mom when I took a behind the scenes tour of Wimbledon. Did you know that Strawberries and Cream is the traditional food to eat during Wimbledon?

I got these dessert cups at a thrift store and filled them with red and green marbles. They are up high so only the colors show through. We also added some walnuts painted red.

June hole in the wall coming soon!

Ghetto Chickens

It's official. We have ghetto chickens. We build them the Taj Mahal of chicken houses which you can read about here and and they prefer to slum it. The kids thought the chickens would like an old tire in their pen, little did we know they'd go and move into it. All 8 almost full grown chickens pile into the tire every night. I'm not sure how they even fit in there, the tire is not very big. I finally got some shots of the process tonight.

7 chickens in a tire, and the little one said move over, move over.

So they all moved over, one jumped in and one jumped out...

7 chickens in a tire, and the little one said move over, move over.

So they all moved over and one jumped in....

8 chickens in a tire and the red one said, move over, move over.

So on and so forth. I think you get the idea.

Believe it or not there are 8 chickens in there! They snuggle down completely in the tire and you wouldn't even know they were in there, until one, I guess the designated lookout, pops his head up.

Jason says if they don't use the chicken house when they start laying eggs they are going to be in BIG TROUBLE.

Crazy ghetto chickens!

Chick Check

I thought it was about time for a Chick Check. Our Silkie chicks are growing up and have real feathers, where has the time gone. We have 5 chicks left. Two have gone to a new home. We think but are not sure that we have 3 roosters and 2 hens. We were planning to keep only the hens, but out of 7 we only got 2 hens. Lucky us!

They are not quite sure they know all they need to know about the crazy 2 leggers that keep looking at them.

Any quick moves, they huddle up.

Then they climb all over each other....

... and make a Silkie Pyramid.