Archive for June, 2012

Easy Bird Feeders!

June 30th, 2012

Toilet paper tubes are great for a lot of things besides holding toilet paper!  And I promise I’m not hoarding empty tp rolls.  I’m just saving them for all the great projects I have in mind…like these super easy bird feeders!

This summer has been so busy with swimming, zoo trips, afternoons at the waterpark, hikes & friends, that I’ve been waiting for weeks to makes these with my kids.  When we sat down to make our bird feeders, the doorbell rang.  It was our neighbor friend, so we invited him in and he made a bird feeder too!  The kids even acted like they thought it was kind of cool.

This is all you need for your easy bird feeders:

empty toilet paper rolls
creamy peanut butter
bird seed
rimmed cookie sheet
table knives
your favorite kids

Spread the peanut butter all over the outside of your tube.

Hopefully it will look something like this:

Pour about 5 cups of birdseed into your rimmed cookie sheet, and roll your peanut butter tube in it.  Press firmly to make sure all of the peanut butter is covered in seeds.

And then it should look like this!

Repeat with all your tubes

Hang them in your favorite tree!  Just slide them onto a branch.

And then wait for the birds to come!  We haven’t seen any yet, but I’m sure it won’t be long!

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sometimes yard work is hard to get around to…

June 23rd, 2012

I hope I’m not the only one, but sometimes it’s really hard for me to get around to all the yardwork that needs to get done.  I try to spend a few minutes whenever I can, but finding a big chunk of time is pretty challenging in the summer.

Because there are birthday parties to throw…

(I kind of like the ice cream in mid-drip)

and backyard games to play…

(the homemade sponge balls were a hit!)

and slip & slide with our neighbor friends.

(she thinks she’s pretty funny)

I did, however, spend some quality time weeding my garden yesterday, which was probably equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes in all that smokey air. But the exciting thing is, I’ve been using my swiss chard, kale, and beet greens for green smoothies!  My zucchini is looking fantastic (yay!), and everything is growing and getting big!  And I think my potatoes are almost ready to harvest!  But, one of the most exciting things of my whole planting season was…jalapenos!  They were a hot item (haha) this year, so every time I went to get some, they were sold out.  However, my amazing husband was able to find some for me, and now I have lots of happy little pepper plants that can’t wait to turn into jalapeno jelly.

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Losing a Big Tree is Hard!

June 1st, 2012

Today we had to say goodbye to the oldest, tallest, shadiest tree in our yard.  :(  It was really sad to see it go.  Really sad.  But it had to be done.  What, you might wonder, is a good enough reason to remove such a lovely sycamore?  I’ll show you.

Reason #1:

That would be the remnants of a nylon rope that someone tied around the tree at least a decade ago…and the tree grew around it and swallowed it.

Reason #2:

That would be a 2×4.  Yup, a piece of wood being consumed by our tree.  Does that make it a cannibal?  Oh, it makes me so sad to see this!  If you need a better view…

We figured that the kids who lived in the house before us tried really hard to build a tree house.  I’m guessing they gave up.

Reason #3:

Yes, friends. That would be another rope that got swallowed up by the tree.

Reason #4:

This might seem a little shallow, but every time the wind blew, a million of these little twigs would fall all over the grass.  I clean up after 4 kids all day, I don’t want to clean up after the tree all the time too!

Reason #5:

We didn’t know about this one until today, but there is METAL in the middle of the tree. METAL!!!  The poor guy cutting it up ruined his saw.  Who does this to a tree?  And it wasn’t just one spot…but it was in the trunk, AND in one of the main branches.  I’m still cringing.  Maybe nails from the failed tree house?

  I think he had just hit the metal right before I came out to take a picture.  I felt really bad, but not bad enough to offer to buy him a new saw.

This was the beginning of the end of our favorite big tree…even the kids were sad. Probably the closest thing we’ll ever have to a pet!  Well, other than the 4 monkeys running around our house.  We’ve planted nearly 20 trees in our yard since we moved in almost 8 years ago.  And I have to feel good about that.  Especially since I’ve been having all this tree removal guilt!  Goodbye sycamore!!

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Photo by: Phillip Istomin