I haven't updated my blog is so very long! As always, life goes on and things don't get done as I planned. We have had so many changes and things happen with our family and our lives.


We lost our beloved Dudley on October 28, 2014. We miss him so very much! He now sits on our shelf in our living room with his blanket, leash and collar. Some people will say, "he was just a dog" or "he was only a pet". If you have never had a pet, then you don't know what you are missing! He was like one of our children. Here are pictures of him. Charlie (cat) was hiding in the flowers and Dudley found her. He had such a great personality!












We now have another Beagle. Her name is Chloe.

 

She has made herself right at home. Do you think she is comfortable? She has cuddled up right next   to my grandson, Cayden. She has warmed right up to our other animals and they to her as well. She is a wonderful dog but has a whole different personality than Dudley had. Each animal is different and special in their own way. We love her and she is now a part of our family. :)

Have you lost a special animal and how did you deal with the loss? Did you get another animal?
I cried lots of tears with the loss of  Dudley. Every time I turned around, I expected him to be there as he was always right under my feet.
We did get another dog as you see above, Chloe. Suzie our basset hound just seemed so lost without Dudley, so we decided to get another dog so she wouldn't be so lonely. We loved  our beagle very much, so decided to get another one. Chloe and Suzie have become friends/sisters and we have a new family member. She and Charlie have become used to each other as well. I am home all the time and our animals keep me company as well as letting me know when someone comes near our home. Sometimes our neighbors chickens visit our yard and I hear about it as the dogs bark up a storm.

Here are some of them visiting our other neighbors yard and our dogs let us know about that as well. I don't mind them visiting, but I do worry about them getting hit by a car as they have to cross the street to come to visit. There are usually about 7 to 9 of them that come over. So far, all has been fine and hope it stays that way.



Thanks for visiting! Make it a great day! :) Mrs. T

My Garden Cart

Today I am going to share with you my cart that was given to me by the same people we received the chicken coop/playhouse materials from.

I love this cart! There is just something about it that I can’t put into words (because I am not a wordy kind of person :)), that made me want to fix it up and use it for serving outside meals or whatever else there is a need for.

These were the before pictures of it. The paint was peeling and had areas that needed to be filled in with wood putty. The top was also broken.

I sanded it down, filled in areas with wood putty and sanded some more. I had to replace a couple of boards on the top and put in new screws. I painted it white and with my cricut machine, I cut out designs from different colors of vinyl and put them on the cart. I added a couple of coats of clear sealer to it, then painted the tires a copper color.




This is just another thing that I was able to recycle/upcycle and I am pretty happy with my cart!
If you had this cart, would you have done something different? I would love to hear others ideas!

Make it a great day!
Mrs T 

The Play House!

You know the playhouse that I have mentioned several times in my posts??? Well here it is!!

The first 3 pictures were taken after it was finished. The last picture shows how it looks now. The front benches have been removed  and replaced with a couple of little chairs and a footstool. We also extended the porch so there is more room for chairs.

It has a loft in the front and back so if the kids want to sleep out in  the summer time they are able to.   There is room below for them to play. We received a few things from Craigslist that we are planning on turning into a fridge, stove, etc. play set. Haven’t gotten that far!   There is a bench on the back wall and the wall has a port hole that the kids can open and look out. The wall was taken from an old houseboat that was being demolished. In fact a lot of this came from the houseboat or wood from the chicken coop/greenhouse projects.

The picture below shows how it looked this fall. We added a walkway made of logs cut to walk on.  We also added a ground cover around the wood that hopefully will come up this year.  We put two bushes  in the front of the walkway and flower boxes on the front porch wall.  Flowers were also planted  around the playhouse along with more grass. Hopefully we will be able to get the play set done this summer as well  as put some chalkboard paint  on a couple of the walls so the kids can draw on them.

Almost everything we made the playhouse with was recycled.  Do you have a project you want to do but don’t have the materials to do it? We have found many things on Freecycle or Craigslist and sometimes just in someone's yard with a free sign on it.  It pays to recycle/upcycle as it keeps things out of the landfill as well as gives you something you can use.

Have a great day!

Mrs. T