We are having a girl!

We are having a girl!

Life has been exciting here on the homestead, if not a little overwhelming as usual! Sam and I are happy to announce that we are having a baby girl! Baby Burns will be joining MinIsland Farm in December 2018!

I'm also really behind on showing you all what's been going on around here, so I'm just going to hit the most recent highlights. 

Emily and Aaron came to visit a couple months ago, and we made beeswax candles! We scented them Lavender and Patchouli, and I was really happy with how they turned out! One thing I would change for next time is to use two wicks instead of one. The wick doesn't burn hot enough to melt all the beeswax in the jar, so it tunnels down to the bottom. Still, they are pretty cute, and cheaper to make than most non-parafin candles you can buy. 

This little guy showed up at our house the weekend of Trulee and Brett's wedding. We named him Albus.

He and Pippin are best friends. 

We knew the chicken coop was dirty (man did it stink!), but what we didn't know was that it was infested with mites (they suck the blood of the chickens) and red ants. Towards the end, the chickens completely stopped laying and refused to go into the coop at night. We investigated and found the infestations.

We scooped out all the dirty wood chips and dusted the entire coop with diatomaceous earth and a version of seven dust that's safe for chickens. A few days later, we started getting eggs again! Yay! We get about 2-3 a day right now. We only have 4 chickens able to lay eggs, the other 5 will start laying between September-November.

Other interesting things to note about the chickens:

We had to install a latch on the front door so that the wind would stop blowing it closed and keeping the chickens from getting in at night. We also had to install latched hatches to the nesting boxes to keep the chickens from sleeping in them at night. The chickens wouldn't lay in poopy nesting boxes, but they kept sleeping in them! Silly chickens.

Also, one of our chickens, Broody, went broody ~4-5 months ago. Which means that she stopped laying eggs and starting sitting on them to try and hatch them. Since we continued taking them away from her and never got her some hatching eggs, she adopted the bantams as her babies. She follows them around everywhere, protects them from the cats, and sleeps snuggled up with them at night. It's super cute!

Sam and I finally started working on the deck again. We managed to get the rest of the lumber needed to finish and started installing the posts for the handrails! We got all 13 posts installed, leveled, and secured. We just bought stain a couple days ago, and we are waiting for it to stop raining so we can stain the posts and start on the handrail part! Super exciting!

Last but not least, we were gifted a rocking chair from my grandmother, Nene. The rocking chair was given to her by her father when she found out she was pregnant with my mother. A quick trip to Joannes, and I came home with some foam and fabric to make chair cushions. I think they turned out really well! Now I can't wait to get rid of the horrible green and purple on the walls!

Other things we've done around the house that I didn't take pictures of: install new knobs on all the cabinets in the house, replace all the door handles in the house, install new ceiling fans and lights in the nursery and spare bedroom, purchase materials to put up recessed lighting in several rooms, replace (and in the process of replacing) light and fan switches in various rooms around the house, start laying landscaping fabric down around the outside of the garden and inside the garden to get rid of the weeds, replace a broken window in the kitchen, sew the garter and petticoat for Trulee's wedding, sew my bridesmaid dress for Trulee's wedding, can peppers and salsa, and I'm probably forgetting more. We are truly blessed to have such a wonderful house!