I'm baaaaack!

Yes, I realize it's been almost a year since I posted.  I don't have any excuses.  Got busy, did a lot of subbing, and spent waaaay to much time looking at other people's blogs and on Pinterest.  I have done lots to post about and got most of it on film camera.  I'm going to do my best to post 2 or 3 times a week, maybe more, maybe less, but I AM going to work on being more productive.

Do you find that this is a time of year when you become more productive inside the home?  I love the "nesting" feeling, as well as not feeling guilty if I'm not outside working in the garden (pics of those later...)

Speaking of nesting.... I figured my first post back from the grave should be about something big in our lives!  Since we're at that 'kids have moved out but not married or grandkids yet' stage, it doesn't take much to amuse us.  Here's what we started on last May:

That's right ----- We.Got.Chickens!!!!  DH has been wanting to do this for awhile, and I finally got on board.  I've been wanting a garden shed, so he built a garden shed/chicken coop combo.  What a guy ♥.  I have lots of pictures, but I'll try not to bore you too much.  We're just the proud parents, dontcha know :)

This is the front of the coop/shed.  The shed is 10 ft X 10 ft, and the coop is 10X6.  He salvaged the front door from his dad's shed (where everything from their 56 year marriage has gone to die...) and I LOVE it!

Here's the back part (chicken coop part.)  I have gotten the extra paint off those windows since the picture has been taken.  I did all the first coats of paint, then it got to "hotter than hell" status this summer, so it didn't get its next coats until September.

The bottom picture shows the coop before we ever let the chickens in; it will never, ever be this clean again...  Yes, the whole thing was painted, thankyouverymuch!  On the left are the nesting boxes.  Many of the roosters you see in the top picture are now in our freezer.  We have 8 hens and 1 rooster now.  We had 12 hens at one time, but they flew the fence and became a small morsel for the dogs before I got them away (fortunately for you, that was not documented on YouTube!)

We don't plan on making money off these girls.  We are doing it for fun, fresh eggs (and chicken) for us, our kids and our friends.  We'll hopefully be able to sell a few eggs, but that's not our main goal.

Anyhoo, we got the babies in the mail on May 7th(ish):

And, as of the end of September, they have rewarded us with:

EGGS, BABY!!!  We're averaging about 5 a day, and they are to.die.for.  If you've never had fresh eggs, well, you haven't had eggs!

A couple more pics of the inside of the garden shed:

looking from the door - those are the other side of the nesting boxes, so I can collect eggs from the shed side and not have to go into the coop.  Brilliant!

closer up of the nesting boxes.  The un-painted part of the wall is supposed to be a greenhouse window in the future.  Frugal = paint was left-over from another project, and that stool cost me $2.00 at a garage sale :)

This is the old box on the shelf that has my egg cartons in it.  Awesome!  Another treasure from the in-law's shed :)

The potting bench dh made me several years ago that was in the garage. The nesting boxes are to my right; also, in the top left corner you can see the corner of a counter...

This is on the opposite side, and shows the matching countertop.  These two used to be put together and served as the counter in our laundry room for several years until we got built-in counters and cabinets.  Since then it has been in the garage.  Now they are split up and will hold my outdoor junk!

Well, that was an awfully long post for just coming back from the grave.  I'm going to link in with the other great bloggers who are doing 31 days of.....  and I'm going to do 31 days of getting back into blogging - I have about that many thrilling posts of things I've accomplished in the last year.  See you tomorrow (I hope!) OH!  Just one more picture:

This is our other baby, Daisy.  My dd gave her to me last Christmas.  She's all mutt (part terrier...) and makes us laugh all the time.