Easter Weekend

 The chicks will be three weeks old tomorrow and are getting big. They will stay in the house until they are at least four weeks old and it will depend a lot on the weather if they stay longer. I just remember the dust becoming a problem after four weeks. The kids seem to enjoy them, always talking to them. I even found Sean talking to them the other evening. They were all lined up at the window intently listening. He's the chick whisperer. 

 We had new Hardie Board siding put on the house last spring and we decided to paint it ourselves (after nearly falling over from the $10K house painting quote). Well the spring rains arrived, then the crazy heat rolled in and then we were off to Tuscon for Sean's kidney donation and now here we are a year later and still an unpainted house. So our goal this spring before the rain and heat is to get the house painted.....one giant side at a time. We got the front painted last weekend and we put up the scaffolding on the west side yesterday so it's ready next weekend. Whew, we are already tired.

 We got the fire pit going over this beautiful Easter weekend. We found this nifty pre-drilled log for sale and thought we'd give it a try as our fire building skills seem to last for about 15 minutes before the fire goes out. The log has one large hole drilled down the length and then three smaller holes drilled in one side. The fire comes out the three smaller holes. It worked great and we think we'll get a few more burns out of it, not bad for $8.

 I've been trying to find ways to relax and de stress and I find painting helps. No not house painting or painting sculptures but rather painting on a canvas. I found a giant painting for sale on marketplace last fall for not much money and I knew the canvas alone would be worth it so I bought it and planned to paint over it. It's like three foot square so I needed a huge easel. Sean was nice enough to build me a seven foot tall easel that works great! This is my work in progress of the Oregon coast.