Bar Stools...so many options

I'm in the market for a few kitchen bar stools, so of course I had to check out what they have over at the CSN stores. Here are a few that I am dreaming of.

These saddle stools would go really well in my house.

Look how great this bar stool is though. 

I could make a statement with these.

And maybe IF I'm ever cool enough I could have these bar stools.

But for now, I'm just dreaming. 

marisa

It Used To Blow Up Submarines

We are fans of repurposed items here at Backyard Farming. I know that this doesn't have a lot to do with farming or cooking but this furniture was too awesome to not show you. It is made by an artist in Estonia. He takes old World War II sea mines and makes them into furniture. I love the fireplaces and the desks but they are all really cool. Check them out here.

Mother of All First Aid Kits- week 7

I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Only one more week after this and you have completed "The Mother of ALL First Aid Kits!" Way to go, give yourself a round of applause, pat yourself on the back.

If you've missed out on previous weeks, don't fret, you can still make one here are the links:
week 1, week 2, week 3, week 4, week 5, week 6

Water proof tape- $2.64
Disposable gloves- $1.67 (found in the cleaning section)
Safety pins- $1.47 (found in the craft section)
Advil 10 ct. - $1.84 (found at checkout)

Total- $7.62

Happy Halloween

Hope you have a fun and safe Halloween!

Love, 

Michael & Marisa

Reece

Maya

Mason

 

and Madelyn

Do-it-yourself portrait pumpkins

By Jennifer

Something about Halloween releases the creative juices, wouldn't you say? Characters, decorations, eerie foods, ways that parents can hide the candy ... 

Usually around here Halloween is a crazy rush. Out of necessity I am an absolute pro at making last-minute costumes, and I can carve a pumpkin in no time flat. 

But one year I let those creative juices steep and stew for a while with very satisfying results. Ah yes, Halloween 2000, I remember you well. It was a presidential election that year and I saw a newspaper photo of two jack-o-lanterns someone had done of Bush and Gore.

I could do that.

Only I had two significantly cuter subjects in mind, my 4-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter. 

The dreaming, ambitious side of me actually considering drawing my children's faces onto the pumpkins (!), but then the practical side reminded me that I'm not an artist. So I decided to use a photograph as my pattern.

Here's how to create your own using Adobe Photoshop:

1. Choose your pumpkin and get an idea of the size area you want to carve.

2. Size the image to match your carving area.

3. Convert to grayscale (black and white).

4. Go to Image, then Adjustments, then Posterize. Play around with the number settings until you like what you see. This step ends up looking something like this:

Hmm, is that an orange speck of pumpkin goo on her chin, and in my scrapbook all these years?

5. Print and get ready to carve! Or in other words, set aside your entire day and thank your lucky stars that PBS can help occupy the children while you sit in the room with them.

I wanted the white areas of my pattern to be the lit, open areas of the pumpkin. I drew on the pattern before carving to better outline the parts I would cut. Then I taped the pattern to the pumpkin and used the poker from an inexpensive carving kit to punch dots through the pumpkin. With a knife I then "connected the dots" in specific sections to make the cutaways.

This is what the pattern of holes looked like in reverse:

I carved Emma's pumpkin first and actually got better as I did Kyle's. It took me about five hours to do the scooping, outlining and carving of both pumpkins.

In the decade since I've added three more children ... who vocally wonder why they don't have a jack-o-lantern portrait too. (Hey -- fold the laundry and I'll do it!) Sadly, I've never done another; my time has been needed elsewhere. Someday, maybe when the thrill of this rare creative victory for me has worn off.

Ten years later and I'm still riding it!

P.S.

If you've read all the way through this, let me reward you with a little tip. What do pumpkins and canning rings have to do with each other? Oh, I'm so glad you asked. I DARE you to find a better tool for scraping out a pumpkin's insides. So get carving!

Happy Halloween!

 

~Jennifer

Chaos and Mayhem

It's my life...chaos and mayhem.   I'm going to be very honest and open and show you what we are living in, be forewarned, it is not pretty!  But thank goodness I have the internet so I can take a short break from it all and write a quick post here. 

Quick is the key word here, the longer I procrastinate, the longer my couches will look like this, and the longer the kids will think they are a fort. 

No, I am not going to the roller derby, the knee pads are for tiling the floor. Yes, it is 12:36 pm, my son is still in his jammies and I have no clue what we are having for lunch.

Here is our progress on the living room thus far. 

Before:

The carpets may not look that bad, in person they look as if someone changed the oil of their car on them.

Today:

It's funny, but the picture with just the sub-flooring looks the best. 

 Even with all the chaos and mayhem, my heart sings each morning as I wake to this beautiful view.

Thanks for sticking with us through the journey!

I'm a dummy, are you?

We apologize for the paucity of articles here at backyard farming lately. As you have seen on some previous posts we finally purchased our homestead. We have been busy ripping out old flooring, putting in new flooring, texturing walls, painting walls, moving our belongings (too many) and making sure our children live through the whole process.The problem is, we don't have the Internet yet (we are working on it) so we can't post on our blog. I am breaking the law and posting this article at work.

Now that we have a home, Marisa and I have the hard choice of prioritizing where we want to get started. We have huge dreams but know that time and money are a constraint so we can't do everything we want at once. As far as animals go, we want to get chickens and bees next year at a minimum, and hopefully we can build a fence and get a milk goat or two.

I was talking to a neighbor about his bees. He happens to be the president of the Beekepers association in our county. He gave me the following advice. He told me to read "Beekeeping for Dummies." He said it is important to start building or order a beehive before by January or February next year. He also told me that I need to order my bees by that time as well since many bee sellers get all of there orders early in the year and stop selling them once a certain quota is met. I am glad I talked to him. Do any of you bee experts out there have any suggestions for us as we start the process of getting bees? We love to learn from all of you. Leave a comment.

In the meantime, be patient with us as we get our home caught up and we will start posting more.

Michael