Tidy Brown Wren, bringing order to your nest

I remember the days. . . my young children would carry large amounts of paper home in their backpacks for me to deal with.  Worksheets, coloring pages, reports, artwork, and notebooks would threaten to overtake my home and left me wondering how many trees were used up in the making of all of that paper.  I came up with a system to deal with the problem and it worked pretty well for the 20 years or so that I used it.  I wrote a post about it last year and thought it was time to bring it out again for this year.  __________________________________________________________________________________ Originally posted on Saturday, June 6, 2009 What do I do with all of the schoolwork my children bring home? As we come to the end of the school year, we're faced with a dilemma. What do we do with all of the schoolwork our children have brought home from school. If you're like me, my sentimental side wants to keep everything my child has touched. However, the practical...

I've had a few readers ask me about updates on various things around "The Wren".  So here are some updates you asked for and some you didn't ask for . Baby Jay is all grown up now and his Mama has stopped chasing us around the yard. Suzie has gotten out of her broody funk but is still not back to laying eggs.  I'm very pleased with my new aluminum foil dryer balls .  Repeated use has shrunk them into tightly packed, smaller balls but they work really well.  I'm sold! My sweet potato that has been rooting in a jar on my kitchen window sill has finally sent up shoots. I had to buy sweet potato plants this year because this experiment was a month late and a few dollars short.  Next year I'll know to start much earlier.

I've had an area in my family/dining room that needed a little sumpin-sumpin. It's an awkward space where the dining area merges with the living area.  The floor transitions from brick to wood and there is an exposed outlet for all of the world to see. I found a tall basket at the thrift store for 2 dollars and I really liked the shape of it. I decided to add it to the space. It wasn't really tall enough to cover the outlet so I thought I'd add some flowers.  My hydrangeas aren't ready to pick yet so I added some fake (gasp) ferns that I usually put in my fireplace during the summer. I liked the look but thought it still needed some height.  I found a little stool at a different thrift store (for 3 dollars) and  added it to lift up the basket.  Just right. I can rearrange all of these items and use them, individually, elsewhere in my home.  This type of addition and subtraction is really the only type of math I enjoy. 

I've been waiting for this moment for 4 years.  Every year I've waited for this and had my hopes dashed. We planted cherry trees 4 years ago.  We were very excited.   We could almost taste their deliciousness.  But disappointment was always around the corner.  Two year ago we had our first cherries.  We were giddy with excitement.  We draped a net over the small trees, but the squirrels climbed up from underneath the net and ate all 12 cherries. Last year we were too late getting the net on and the blue jays ate the cherries before they were even ripe.  This year we were prepared.  My hubs designed this contraption to foil the critters. . . He put metal fence posts in the ground and used electrical conduit, fitted together, to make the hoops.  Then he secured netting to the structure.  We only had one problem this year:  a raccoon squeezed under the netting and climbed up in the tree, breaking one of the branches...

I've been looking for a little table to put in my back screened porch to hold my indoor plants during the summer.  Indoor plants need a little vacation outdoors during the summer to rejuvenate them.  My plants are rather small and tend to look cluttered when just sitting around on the porch.  I figured a table to corral them was in order. I After last Christmas, I showed you how I painted a hutch in my kitchen .  It was the top part of a little china hutch/desk I had purchased second hand.  When I bought it, it was white and because it was during the 1990's I stripped it and painted it Hunter green (remember Hunter green?).  After painting it black, I put it back in the kitchen.  Here it is holding my snowflake plates and snow globes.  Here is the area I usually put my plants when they are on vacation.  A lonely corner of the porch.  Boring! I had forgotten about the bottom of the china hutch I had stored in my garage.  I ...

If you don't drink a morning cup of coffee feel free to skip this Monday Motivation and pick something else to do.  If you do make coffee in the morning, you might want to pay attention because something yucky could be "brewing" (ha ha) in your coffee maker.  Over time minerals and impurities from the water you use can leave deposits in the machine.  If you have hard water, like I do, those deposits accumulate quicker than dust bunnies under the bed.  A regular routine of cleaning your coffee pot will keep it working better and prevent your coffee from tasting funny. For a drip coffee maker: 1.  Fill the water reservoir with even amounts of water/vinegar or a product like CLR (use the directions on the bottle) 2.  Place a clean and empty filter in the basket. 3.  Turn the machine on like you are making a pot of coffee.  Turn it off when it is half way done. 4.  Let it sit for 20 minutes and turn it back on to finish the cycle. 5....

With the warm weather arriving, I've been doing a lot of dirty work around Brown Wren Acres. I frequently work without gloves.  Why? you ask.  Well, I have very small hands and a lot of gloves are too large for me.  Also, I sometimes go outside to look around the yard and the next thing you know - I'm pulling weeds and rearranging plants.  I just can't help myself.  When that happens I go to my three trusty friends. . . Sugar, olive oil, and liquid soap. If it's just dirt I'm dealing with, I squirt soap in my hand followed by a sprinkling of sugar.  The sugar acts as a scrub.  It's very effective in getting the dirt out of the wrinkles of my aging skin. If I get something sticky on my hands, such as sap, I use the olive oil with sugar.  After the oil dissolves the stickiness, then I wash with the soap. A few days ago, when I was weeding, I accidentally grabbed a frog instead of a weed.  Those who know me know that I HATE frogs....

On my way home from Home Depot (my home away from home) I stopped by a yard sale.  Lots of baby clothes, housewares, and knit fabric.  It seemed there was a mix of several generations of belongings. As I was leaving, I glanced into a beat up cardboard box at the end of the driveway.  My heart stopped.  Inside the box was about 50 Ziploc bags with handmade patterns.  Patterns made the way my grandmother used to make them.  The owner told me that her mother, now suffering with Alzheimer's, was a wonderful seamstress but could no longer sew. She brought out some of the items she had carefully preserved as a testimony to her mother's skills.  The items were well done and beautiful. In handwriting similar to my own grandmother's,  she had written detailed notes with each pattern. The patterns were made with various materials; brown paper bags, interfacing, freezer paper, and tissue paper.  Each with handwritten notes. She even made a sm...

Life is never dull at Brown Wren Acres. This past week we've have a chicken go "broody" on us. Broody? Yup, she wants to sit on eggs and hatch them. She wants to nest more than eating and drinking. Problem:  we have no rooster.  In order to have baby chicks you've got to have a rooster.  Poor Suzie She only wants to sit in her nesting box with her tail feathers sticking out. We tried every solution we could read about, on the web, from other crazy chicken people.  We put ice cubes in the nesting box, separated her from the nesting box, and left the nesting box open to a cool breeze.  All things that were supposed to keep her from brooding.  She only wanted to nest. The last solution was . . . chicken water boarding. Hubs had to gently grab her, keeping her feathers held in tightly. We filled the wheelbarrow up with water and he slowly dunked her in and rotated her so all feathers (except from the neck up) got wet.  See how dirty the water i...

This is what I'm trying out today.   I usually experiment with something before I tell you about it, but this was just too interesting to keep to myself.  You know that I am always trying to find ways to save money around the house.  I told you here and here how I dry my clothes.  Well, now I've read about how to make a dryer ball out of aluminum foil .  Interesting, no? My purchased dryer balls have served me for the past 9 months, but they are starting to look worse for the wear. Anyone want to give it a try with me?  I just waded up some aluminum foil (recycled is great).  I'm going to try a load fresh from the washer and also my usual line dried load that I like to fluff and tumble in the dryer for a few minutes.  I'll let you know how mine turned out and you can do the same.

The weather is getting warmer and pretty soon we'll need to turn on the fans around the house.  My house is a passive-solar house and our ceiling fans play a big role in cooling our home in the Summer months.  So big, in fact, that we have no less that 13 ceiling fans.  We have them in every room (sometimes 2 per room), in our bathrooms, and on our screen porch.  We likey our fans!                           (This one is in our downstairs guest bathroom.  It has a pull cord with a seashell/starfish design) Some of you know that one of my pet peeves is a dirty ceiling fan.  I was once traumatized by flying debris flung off of the blades of a dirty ceiling fan.  I'm just joking. . . kind of. Here's what I do.  1.  Turn off the fan.  I know this seems logical, but I have to say it. 2.  Use a sturdy ladder ...

I just got an email from one of my readers, Phaedra.  Remember Phaedra's closet ?  Well she's been to the thrift store and whipped up a cheese dome/display for her home.  I love how she displays her hub's baby cup, rattle, and brush.  She also attached a lovely little tag which says:  Life's moments I wish I could have gotten this pic to be larger but, if you know me well, you'll know that just typing up this blog is really stretching my computer ability.   I was just saying to my daughter that I thought the cheese dome/display I made earlier would look really sweet in a baby's room with baby shoes and hospital bracelet displayed.  Thanks for sharing, Phaedra.  Keep up the good work.

Several of you have been asking for a post about making compost.  Well, I aim to please. We were fortunate to have a compost pile already started when we bought our home, but we were already experienced composters, having built an area at our previous home. Compost is great because it is:  free, easy, and incredibly beneficial to your garden.  Once you see how it's done, you'll want to be a composter too. Here is a pic of my compost area.  I can get by with a big pile because I have a lot of land and our home and yard are very rustic.  We simply toss things into the pile and stir it occasionally. To save our cooking scraps to add to the pile, I keep them in a couple of zipper freezer bags under my kitchen sink.  I would love to have a cute bucket that seals, but I don't have very much room under my sink.  Bags work for me right now.  I save things like:  veggie and fruit peelings and cores, egg shells, coffee grounds, and tea b...

Look who welcomed me when I went outside to hang up my laundry. Welcome to Brown Wren Acres, Baby Blue Jay. His mama wasn't too happy about me photographing him.  She told me so, loudly. She flew overhead, into the trees, chirping with all her might. She flew from tree to tree, leading Baby Jay away from danger.  Jay obediently followed her chirps until he was out of sight. Later in the day I heard baby chirps coming from under the fig bush. I hung upside down from the deck railing, trying to get the picture.  I hope our new baby stays around for a while.

We've had a week of celebrations around here. My youngest daughter had her 25th birthday  and  graduated with her Masters degree. She had been talking about getting a sewing machine for a long time.   We thought a sewing machine would be a perfect gift for her. But, how do you gift wrap a sewing machine?  With wallpaper and tissue paper, of course.  I wrapped the box with the sturdy wallpaper, sealing it with double-sided tape. Then, I made a flower topper with circles of tissue paper, stuck on with the double-sided tape.   The inside of the flower is waded up tissue paper scraps, stuck onto the tape.  Simple! With any wrapping, though, the purpose is for it to be ripped apart. . . I think she likes it.  The next morning she asked, "Did I keep you awake last night with the sound of my sewing machine running?  I couldn't stop sewing." Since Mother's day was right around the corner, I got to...