Tidy Brown Wren, bringing order to your nest

Good heavens, I haven't blogged in months!  But that doesn't mean I haven't been working on projects and blogging about them in my head!  This is going to be a major blog brain dump post - everything you didn't want to know about our family life and activities at Brown Wren Acres. Let's see. . . August: It was Charlotte's first birthday and I made her a Charlotte doll with hazel/brown eyes and pig tails just like the real Charlotte. Pure sweetness, I tell ya. Our veggie garden was pretty good this year.  I planted 4 different kinds of tomatoes (40 plants in all) and they all did very well.  Also planted were cucumbers, 3 kinds of peppers, 2 kinds of green beans, cantaloupe, and squash.  I grew everything from seed too!   I can't forget about the herbs that rounded out the menu.  Basil, parsley, mint, tarragon, thyme, rosemary, oregano, lemon balm, pineapple sage, and sage.   I was able to can tomat...

 Hubs and I have been talking a lot about a cute little red head that we saw on the side of the road.  Cute as a button, I tell ya.  We couldn't stop talking about her.  We pondered whether we should bring her home and make her part of our family.   We finally made the decision to adopt her.  It wasn't really in the budget, but we knew we had to move quickly.   I mean, how many times does something this adorable become available?   And, she came with a mower attachment too.   We love everything about her - even her rust and dirt.  If the battery doesn't decide to start her up, we just pull out the hand crank and give it a go!   She got even dirtier driving her back to her new home - the barn. We haven't decided what to name her yet.  We'll let her make friends with the extra wood and hay we have stored in the barn.  She's going to need some work and probably a visit fro...

Our little playhouse is finally finished.   It's been a real labor of love and a challenge to keep the budget low and use what we already had on hand. Click on A Playhouse Story if you want to read about our little house.   This was how it started out (minus all of the junk we hauled out of it). And now I'm proud to show off our little playhouse all gussied up and ready for some visitors.   After all of the demo and painting, we only had a few more projects to finish up.  One of the projects was adding a new (old) window to brighten the interior a bit more.   Then the fabulous duo known as Son & Hubs put in a remnant of carpet that our oldest daughter was getting rid of.  She donated it to the cause. A coat of paint on the outside made the two non-matching windows look like they were meant to be together.  By the way, all of the old windows we use in our projects have either been found on the cu...

  One of the things I love about living at Brown Wren Acres is opportunity to teach my grandlittles about nature.    Our first little grandgal is fascinated by the newest group of chickens we raised from peeps.  She's not quite sure if she likes them, but she can't take her eyes off of them.  They are in our portable chicken coop that we move around the yard.  These Buff Orpingtons are almost ready to go into the big pen with the older hens.  They should be laying eggs in a week or two.   

Once upon a time a family bought a house that came with a wonderful little playhouse attached to the deck.  The youngest daughter in the family was married in the backyard of the home and used the playhouse as a backdrop for some of her wedding photos.  Read all about the wedding here . Alas, the family's children were already grown,  so the playhouse was used as a storage shed for all of the grown children's old toys.  You should also know that the mother of the family (aka "Honey")  had a tendency to hoard sentimental things.  She could not help herself but she is much improved now. It also housed folding chairs and Papa's  hammock - anything that didn't have a home somewhere else. It was dark, crowded, and spidery. So one day Honey had a great plan - have all of the grown children come over (dinner was promised) and insist they go through all of their old toys and get rid of any they didn't want to ...