How the garden grows
January 31st, 2011 § Leave a Comment
I can’t say much about the garden because it really is Heath’s thing. He has taken it upon himself to be the designated green thumb of the doodle house and it’s beyond impressive. Our coffee table and bookshelves have become overrun with books on square foot gardening, sustainable living and a load of other similar titles. He’s taken gardening to heart and it’s really beginning to show in our back yard. It’s only January, but already we are seeing sprouts in the garden and bright green accents popping up in a sea of brown leaves. I can’t wait to see how things will start to look in the spring.
Hopefully, eventually, we can get our pots to resemble some of my mother’s creations. Not just her thumb, but entire hand, is green. We’ve been inspired by some of her babies below.
Marion’s Secret
January 30th, 2011 § 1 Comment
Since egg number one arrived two weeks ago, Heath and I have been checking the chicken coop routinely for new eggs, finding roughly one every 4 days or so. While we were THRILLED with the recent egg production, we were a little bummed she wasn’t yielding more. We had heard that a healthy chicken can produce one egg every day, so we got to work making sure our chicken was as happy as possible:
- We covered their sleeping shelter with a blanket to keep them warm at night
- We let them roam the yard throughout the day to scratch for bugs
- We check on their food and water supply every day, changing it out more frequently.
Still, we weren’t seeing the results we wanted until today, when realized an incredible truth…Marion has been laying decoy eggs in the chicken house to protect the real batch she has been tending to in a sheltered corner of the yard.
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All along she has been secretly nesting! Heath and I were so excited; we may have a whole batch of baby chicks soon! There is much research to be done to figure out how best to care for these little babies (we assume them to be hatchable since Ruby is a rooster), but we are optimistic that we will have at least a few little chicks in the coming weeks.
Doodles + Chickens = Love
January 24th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Doodles + Chickens = Love
When the coop first came to being, the dogs did their fair share of circling the new habitat, intently trying to get a taste of baby birds. And we’d been pretty religious about keeping the dogs separate from the chickens at all times, especially since the great squirrel catastrophe of 2010 where I came home to find a dead squirrel on the couch like a prized hunting trophy. It still brings back nightmares.
So this weekend when the dogs some how got outside while we were letting the chickens roam, Heath and I were a bit panicked to say the least.
“NO!” I heard Heath yell from the back yard. The screen door slammed against the house a second after, so I knew that meant the doodles had hurled themselves clumsily into the backyard, likely in pursuit of fresh chicken. Visions of feathers flying through the air like a middle school pillow fight consumed my brain as I ran outside to try and and pull vicious labradoodles from penetrating the flesh of our beloved Ruby and Marion.
You can imagine our surprise when we saw dogs and chickens cohabitating in peace.
All this time we had assumed a meeting between beast and bird would conclude in a squirrel-like tragedy, but here they were, blissfully ignoring one another. There was some sniffing by both parties, but for the most part, the chicks and the children live in peace.
Pulsifurry
January 23rd, 2011 § 1 Comment
Pulsifurry is the combined celebrity nick name of Eric Pulsifer and Lisa Murray, one of my all time favorite couples in the history of the universe. They are getting married in September and graciously allowed me to snap a few pictures of them this weekend. Here are some of my favorites.
And…end it on a chest bump!
Heath, the handiest of men
January 23rd, 2011 § 2 Comments
On closer inspection, the green kitchen rug was past due for a wash, especially after the previous evening’s invigorating festivities of scrabble words and wine. So into the trustworthy Kenmore it went.
One minute after the rug went in, water came out. A river of water poured from every crevice of the machine and onto the floor, over the tiles and even into my socks. I grabbed every towel withing 15 feet, crammed them under the machine and over any leaking pores, but within about 7 seconds they were soaked to the point of no return.
“MOOSH! HELP!”
In rushed Heath: cape flowing behind him, hair blowing in the wind, muscles bursting forth from his Mean Green T-shirt. He moved his index finger over the machine’s power button and put a temporary halt to the high tide sweeping into our kitchen.
He got right to work. Prodding, poking, grunting, drilling, he examined every tube and mechanism within the sleeping giant.
Then, the culprit revealed itself. Like a knight slaying a dragon or a young king pulling a sword from a stone, Heath removed the dirty, damp and disgusting filter from the machine. The device was littered with the corpses of items that had once attempted to slay the great beast but fell during battle: pens, pencils, quarters, paper and a bevy of other unrecognizable materials. Oh washing machine, what a mysterious, powerful creature you have proven yourself to be.
Once the filter was cleaned, the pipes unclogged and the kitchen restored to it’s original splendor, residents of the doodle house were able to continue on, secure in the knowledge that they would forever onward be able to do laundry in peace—all thanks to the fearless Handyman Heath.
Game On
January 22nd, 2011 § Leave a Comment
The Problem: It’s Friday and we want to celebrate the fact that we survived another week of teenaged melodrama, but there is not a lot of money in the bank.
The Solution: game night.
I love games and I really love winning them. So this Friday, why not invite our closest friends over to be dominated by my mad gaming skills? We placed Girl Scout cookies on the table, made some chicken tamale casserole and put on our game faces.
After a rousing game of Apples to Apples (sadly not won by myself but by the wonderfully witty Brendan Payne) we ripped open Scrabble. Thanks to too much Words with Friends on my iPhone and Heath’s genius idea of playing “famine” in the last round to earn us 60-some-odd points, team Helsey proved victorious, edging out Lisa and Eric 128 to 129.
Sure there were no exotic new restaurants, bacon infused vodka or bands with names like Pitchfork Puppy, but sometimes a game night can be a refreshingly traditional way to spend an evening with friends in Austin.
Eggcelent
January 18th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
It’s a Martin Luther King Junior Day MIRACLE! Today Marion became the proud parent of a healthy 2-ounce egg. After seven months of pampering we finally have an egg out of our chicken.
It was delicious. Here’s hoping there are many more to come.
How to be an old, married couple in your 20s
January 9th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
1. Set your alarm for 8 a.m. on Saturday to attend a gardening class at The Natural Gardener.
As mentioned in an earlier post, one of our New Year’s resolutions is to start a garden. And not just any garden, mind you. But a fruitful one. We’re not talking tiny sprouts and sad tomatoes, but our own produce section that can sustain the entire household. So for that, we hit up South Austin’s organic gardening headquarters for tips on when to plant, what to plant and how to plant it.
We got some solid advice like how to keep your plants warm in the winter and cool in the summer, what combination of soil, fertilizer and compost creates the best environment for plants, and how to handle disease. The only downside to the event? Our fellow classmates.
The event was packed with well over 100 people in attendance (though bear in mind that Heath and I were by far the youngest in the crowd). But as is typical of the 50 plus-year-old person in a classroom setting, there was a hefty amount of one-upping. Audience members attempted to talk over one another in order to make their completely mediocre and uninspiring gardening tip heard to the instructor.
“I use clear plastic to cover my garden in the winter, is that Ok?”
“Well I use black plastic and it is just tops.”
“You say we can use cinder blocks to be the garden border, but what about Cedar?”
Sheesh. What could have been a half-hour class was easily stretched to more than an hour. But as mentioned, we did take home some good info and were inspired by some of the nursery’s gardens.
[This is a square-foot garden similar to what Heath is hoping to create.]
2. Finish your tour of the garden early to make it to lunch around 11 a.m., just as your restaurant of choice is opening.
Another of our resolutions was to eat at new restaurants. So we picked Home Slice Pizza on South Congress. I have been a fan of New York-style pizza since I worked at Slices and Ices in college. Everyone knows what goes into pizza, so I’ll refrain from blogging much about the deliciousness of grease combined with cheese combined with bread. Suffice it to say that this place is weirdly Austin, and wonderfully tasty.
3. Pinch your pennies by attending the City Wide Garage Sale.
Roughly one weekend each month, Austin hosts a collection of knick-knack vendors under one roof in an event known as the City Wide Garage Sale. Not one to turn down a bargain vintage find, Heath and I decided to hit it up.
There was plenty to see and appreciate, but the problems with the sale are 3-fold.
1) It’s $5 to get in and $7 to park, so we spent $17 before we walked in the door.
2) There were tons of great items, but none that seemed to be remarkably affordable. Can I find things I can’t find most other places? Yes, is it cheaper than if I hit up Craigslist? No.
3) You have to haggle for prices and I hate haggling. Sure it’s normal at these sorts of things, but I’m still no fan.
But I still walked out with a $12 chenille bedspread and some vintage scarves (notice how my old lady-like purchases are in keeping with this week’s blog theme), so I suppose it may have been worth it in the end.
4. Realize you’re not an old couple and start acting like a kid again.
Feeling the urge to live up to our actual ages, we upped the ante for the remainder of the day. We met up with friends at Frank for dinner, which features gourmet hot dogs and bacon that comes on everything, including desserts and bloody Marys.
The food was more bizarre than it was tasty, but living in Austin is all about experiences, so why not? From there we went to Mohawk to hear Mother Falcon, a local instrument-heavy band who puts on a great show. Even when rain drenched the outdoor venue, the massive crowd stayed to hear their hypnotically dramatic indie pop sounds.
So the day was long, but filled with adventure, which is what living in Austin is all about. That—and being weird. Where else can you start the morning learning about organic gardening and end it with a Lone Star in the rain at a bar named after a Native American with a crazy haircut?
An Office Makeover
January 3rd, 2011 § 1 Comment
Our extra bedroom was the catch-all room for a while. The original wood floors were in bad shape, Heath uses the closet as his own and it was quickly becoming the room where we stored items not fit for other areas of the house. You can imagine after a year of walking by that corner of the house and shuddering, it was time for a makeover. Behold the before and after.
You can see in the photo on the left that the floors had seen better days. We plan to fix them up at some point, but until then it’s an Ikea rug that will remedy that situation. The room had two separate desks (even though we share one computer), a bulky dresser and no sleeping options for the occasional overnighter. After the wedding Heath and I sold most of our bulky furniture in exchange for some smaller, lighter pieces. That helped the space a lot, but it was still so dark and dreary. We lightened things up with a bright pink day bed from Urban Outfitters, which doubles as a sleeping space. Heath actually built the bench himself.
Still, getting rid of the dresser and book shelf left us with a tricky storage problem. The solution? Stackable wooden cubes. Heath put these together one afternoon over the holiday. I arranged them against the wall for a look that mimics built-ins. The great thing is that we can rearrange them or add to them as we need to. Super easy and cheap.
We also hung prints from a botanical book we picked up at Recycled Books in Denton. They add much needed interest to the room and help balance everything out. As most things are, it is still a work-in-progress, but it is starting to feel more and more like the inspiration room below as far as the style and color pallet.
And if nothing else, I know Wyatt likes it.
Resolutions
January 1st, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Resolutions
Here they are. The New Years Resolutions for the dwellers of the Doodle House. I feel like posting them online will provide more incentive for me to stick to them.
1. Experiment more in the kitchen. I enjoy cooking, but I’ve gotten into a bit of a rut. Lately when it comes to cooking I don’t stray from Asian-oriented foods: Thai food, stir fry, Indian curries, etc. They are mighty delicious, but I feel like I’m limiting myself. This year is going to be all about trying out new techniques in the kitchen—hopefully lots of vegetarian dishes as well to limit our meat intake. So if anyone has good recipes, send them our way.
2. Out with the old and in with the new, restaurants that is. When we do leave the kitchen and eat out on the town, we’ve made a vow that it must be at never-been-to-before restaurants. We have two bad habits when it comes to eating out. First, we don’t like to leave about a 5 mile radius of our house. Blame it on laziness or an eagerness to get food in our bellies, but we generally eat within our zip code. The second is that we have 4 or 5 restaurants that we frequent again and again. Sure, they are delicious, but there is more out there. So from now on, we’ve got to be bold when making dining decisions. Austin is rich in local restaurants so we really ought to be taking advantage of it.
3. Grow a garden. This one is high on Heath’s list. Over Christmas he was blessed with an abundance of books about growing vegetable gardens (Square Foot Gardening, Plants for Texas, Texas Organic Vegetable Gardening). So plans to grow cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries, celery, broccoli and more are in the works. We will be sure to keep the blog updated with the literal fruits of our labors.
4. Save money. Since we teachers have two glorious months off work to spend together, we plan to do a healthy amount of traveling (road trips to Cape Cod, Yellowstone and California have already been discussed). But for travel we need cash. So this year we will probably have fewer trips to Central Market, and more visits to HEB. Those days we do eat out will be fewer and far between, and evenings at the movie theater will be traded for evenings with Netflix. It won’t be easy, but with visions of beaches and buffalo in our future, I’m optimistic we can make it happen.
So it’s official. The resolutions are out in the cyber world for all to see. Hold me to it, internet.
Happy New Year!
