Some Spring Organizing

It's been a big week here at Hunter's Grove.  I have been cleaning and organizing like a mad woman.  In anticipation of purchasing a new sofa, we moved our antique sofa to the "master" bedroom and created a little reading nook.  It is lovely!

Reading nook in our bedroom.

Our 220 year old home has no closets, so, this week Brandon created a closet for me!  It is at the top of
the stairs right outside our bedroom.  I have 2 rows of closet rods, lots of rubbermaid bins and drawers a shoe rack and my label maker got a major workout!!  All of my hanging clothes had been in a wardrobe that was in the living room.  This new closet will go along way in reducing the "streak factor" in our house. ;)

Okay, so the shoes could be neater, but believe me, this is a HUGE improvement!

Another benefit of the new closet is that I will be able to get rid of the wardrobe!  There is really not a good place for it and it had just been taking up space as I moved it all over the living room.  I will be trading the wardrobe for a small desk my mom has.  The desk will be a perfect addition to our new little homeschool area!

My start to organizing our homeschool area.

Have I told you I will be homeschooling Eden for kindergarten this year?  We made the final decision a couple of weeks ago.  For those of you who do not know my firstborn, she is a super-precocious 4 year old with a November birthday.  She misses the school cutoff, but she *needs* to be doing school!  She is reading and doing simple math completely on her own and it would really be a disservice to her to not keep her challenged.  If we were to wait to send her to kindergarten until next year, she would be bored out of her mind and I fear that would cause my chatterbox to get into a lot of trouble!  Anyway, homeschool it is! The Hunter's Grove Academy officially opens the day after Labor Day.

We are still really enjoying the chicks.  They have tail feathers already!  We had a chick fall prey to Amos our hound.  Still not sure what happened other than he snatched a chick and killed it.  She had no breaks in her skin or anything.  It was very sad and I felt so guilty for letting him get her.  The kids took it okay.  Anyway, we are down to 7 chicks.

Yesterday I finally got a chance to get out in the garden for the whole day!  With Mema's help, I got the potatoes in (I think we will have around 40 plants).  I got another bed dug and planted cabbage, dill and radishes.  My Mama planted flower bulbs and a bleeding heart in my shade-loving perennial bed.  Brandon got the 3+ acres of grass cut and it looks fantastic.  I had forgotten how beautiful our yard is in the "green" season!

It is raining today, so we are going to keep it pretty low-key.  I may even try to catch a nap later!

The chicks are home!

Our 8 little peeping balls of fluff are here!  We set up the brooder Monday and the post office called around noon Tuesday to let us know they had come in.  Brandon took off early and brought them home to us.  What an exciting day!

Brooder

Peeping box!

Opening our box of chicks.

Theo and Isabella (Blue Andalusian)

Checking out the chicks!

Eden holding Amelia Bedelia (Plymouth Barred Rock)

Pippi (Welsummer)

Well, that's it for now.  I am sure we'll have more to share soon!

The Chicks are at the Post Office!!

I can't wait to get some photos of the little peeps!  Brandon is coming home early from work and picking them up on his way.  I didn't tell the kids.  They will get the double surprise of Daddy coming home in the middle of the day and our chicks arriving!

SO EXCITED!!

Kids and Quilts and Coops and Plants and Life

There is so much going on here that I don't know where to begin.  I always hate those "I'm sorry I haven't posted in so long so let me tell you everything I did in the past month" posts.  I'll try not to write one of those...

Progress has been steady on the coop.  The chicks will be here next week and will be in the house for the first couple of weeks, so we still have a little time.  We stopped by the feed store last week and looked at their chicks.  Eden called Brandon and told him that the chicks were "so amazing I had a tear in my eye!"  Needless to say, we are really excited!

Framing is done on the run.

Some other big news in the Rollogas house.  We have decided to homeschool Eden for Kindergarten this fall.  She has one of those cursed November birthdays.  The state of Virginia won't allow her to go to kindergarten this fall.  Anyone who has met Eden, though, will know that that isn't going to stop her from being precocious and learning everything she can anyway.  So, we are jumping in with both feet and officially starting the Hunter's Grove Academy. 

We are leaving future grades (and children) open to all the options.  We will see how things go this fall.  I have begun collecting items for our little homeschool corner of the living room, studying "methods", looking at curriculum, reading blogs and asking questions to anyone I meet who teaches their children at home.

Bargain Easel: retails for $100, purchased on Craigslist for $20!

Eden's Purple school desk!

The garden is growing like a champ, but I have no recent photos.  I will do a garden post soon.

The other project I am working on is Theo's big boy room.  I am making him a quilt and the room will have a classic car theme.  I found some old galvanized gas cans that  I plan to make lamps out of.  The quilt will have car appliques.  

Here are some photos of the finished appliques.  We need some more rainy days so I can work on the quilt some more!

72 Buick GS

Model A Ford

1940 Ford Pickup 

Old Gas Pump

1960 Corvette

VW Thing

VW Microbus