Category: castle frostbite.

aminals. castle frostbite. new hampshah.

it’s a northern frost toad. they eat granite.

007Tiny toad.

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Miss Lyra with Tiny Toad.

That girl is absolutely fearless and non-squeamish when it comes to getting dirty and handling critters. Her brother is a bit more cautious in that respect. He would have looked at the toad, but he wouldn’t have touched it. And he wouldn’t have come running, toad between thumb and forefinger, and said, “Look what I found outside, Daddy!”

My little girl…the headstrong princess who takes a sword to the dragon to defend her play castle, and who comes inside after a day of play with scuffed knees and dirty fingernails.

aminals. castle frostbite.

them chickens is organized.

I’m a little surprised at how much I enjoy having chickens around. Our ten chicks have turned into ten pullets that are almost fully grown adult hens now. We still have all ten of them—no accidents, predators, or other attrition, although one of them had a run-in with a dachshund that luckily only ended in some missing feathers.

They’re entertaining to watch. We have a routine in place where they get let out of their coop first thing in the morning, and they’ll wander around the property in a flock all day and eat bugs. When it starts to get dark, they’ll all come back to the coop and head upstairs to roost for the night, and all I have to do is to lock them up. I never realized how smart chickens actually are, or that they’re social birds with a flock hierarchy. I’m also amused by the way they all come running when I set foot outside—I know they have learned to associate me with food, but it still makes me feel a bit like the Chicken Whisperer.

We bought a large garden shed, eight by ten feet, to use as a chicken house. Right now they’re still in their coop, but this weekend I’ll place the coop inside the new chicken house to get them used to the new digs. They’ll weather the winter better in the shed, and they’ll be safer from predators at night.

Of course, they’ll have to lay about three thousand eggs for us to save enough in grocery store egg purchases to make up for all the chicken swag we’ve bought to get the little cluckers situated.

Owning ten laying hens is definitely something that we couldn’t have done at the old place in suburban Knoxville. Ten acres out in the country leave one some room for agricultural experiments.

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The ameraucanas have distinct plumage patterns, so they’re easy to tell apart. We’ve named all of them. The barred rocks all look the same, so they’re just about impossible to tell apart. Those are Clucky One through Clucky Five.

castle frostbite.

the new summertime desk.

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At my request, our very handy handyman used some of the old floorboards from the renovation project to make this neat little bar-type shelf on the covered porch area. It’s just the right height for use as a standing desk, and the windows overlook the backyard where the kids and dogs are frolicking. That means I now have an alternate work desk out on the porch from where I can supervise playtime.

(As an added bonus, that shelf will serve very handily as a dachshund-proof staging table for the propane grill that is out of frame on the right side.)

As you can see, that wall now sits on a concrete ledge that’s about a foot thick. This was the trouble corner of the project—the logs of the outside wall had rotted away to the point that the floor had a lean of several degrees. Now there’s concrete holding up the logs on the outside, and that ledge is not very likely to rot away like the wood did. I’d sure love a word with the people who put this place together, though. The phrase “drunken monkeys with delusions of competence” has been used more than once around here when discussing the construction skills of the builders.

castle frostbite.

many paychecks died to bring you these images.

Here are some before & after shots of Castle Frostbite’s entryway.

Before:

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After:

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The walls still need to be stained, and there’s some minor trim work to be done, but overall it’s pretty much done. Between those two pictures are three weeks, a bunch of poured concrete, and several very large checks written out to our handyman. But now you can walk through the new front door and stand on level floor that’s not likely to do a trapdoor impression.