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| I just came back from my second time in Southern California in a month for work and both times I was able to tack some days on to visit my friend. This trip I got to spend more time hearing about her plans for developing a sustainable urban garden and learn more about her chickens. No this picture is not her coop, it is from Southern Living Magazine. I brought her a copy of the magazine to inspire her to not only make a urban garden with good yield, but also to make the garden area beautiful. There are many things you can do to make it cute! |
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| The weather was unusually warm for the first of March, the locals complained, but I thought it was great! Here are 4 of the 8 Chickens: Rosa, Roseanne, Kathryn, Peep, Stinger, Goldie, Midnight and Bobbi. |
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| Most days we had fresh eggs, but the majority of out time was spent planning out the garden, chicken coop area. |
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| We also spent all day on Saturday at a 4H event - memories of my childhood! |
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| Bennett acted like a guard a the entrance to the coop. |
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| It is wonderful how the kids love to take care of their animals. |
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| The idea that they could be transplanting just 2 days ago, while I watch the snow come down in Chicago today! Both dogs like to be a part of the action - Edmond is the one that needs to be part of the action. |
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| Since my last visit, the compost bin has been upgraded to the 3 stall variety made out of recycles palettes. |
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| The rabbits are enjoying the spoils of a recent dumpster diving escapade behind a local market. Check out my other blog, http://pickergirlsgardenjunk.blogspot.com/, to read the full dumpster diving story. |
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| To prepare for the garden make over, I convinced the kids to start clearing some of the weeds from the ground. They have been leaving them for the chickens to nibble on when they let them out of the pen. Clearing the weeds helps to make Sailor's grave (a bunny) a focal point. |
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| With the Southern Living photos as inspiration, we thought about how I could help her with the make over, when I only had 3 days in California. Since garbage picking for furniture is more up my alley and she knew nothing about the process, we decided to start there. Here is the first of 3 chairs we focused on. |
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| The first step was to wash the canvas from the 2 chairs. Soaking in bleach and washing. |
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| The metal bench was in good shape but not pretty. |
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| The girls did much of the work, starting with washing down the furniture. |
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| When it is 80 degrees, washing the furniture is a fun job. |
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| Priming was next - although they enjoyed this, we probably could have skipped this step, as the primer was old and clogged up the holes and they may have white primer on their arms and legs for days! |
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| We moved the metal bench into the garage and spay painted it green at night, since we did not want the kids to breath all the fumes. An artist friend came over to assist the girls in designing the details. |
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| The bench turned out so cute! |
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| One of the wooden chairs was compete before I had to leave, however the other one was still too wet to put the canvas back on. |
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| We decided to do the chicken coop boot bin as well. |
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| This one had polka dots and the other swirls. We also found a cool cage to use as an end table and brought out some accessories, including a pottery piece made by her friend to finish the look. |
