Some projects, a birthday and making soap

 I didn't get a chance to blog about what we worked on yesterday. Our project of the day was to get started with insulating the chicken coop. With the cold winters we get we thought it very wise to have as well insulated of coop as possible

Our original plan was to simply use layers of political signs to do the trick. It would have helped but probably not been all that great. However one day when we were visiting with Ken's secretary at work (a really sweet lady who has basically "adopted" Mara as a granddaughter - Mara goes in to clean the office) we were talking about chickens and the coop and she wondered about insulation. We explained our plan but then she said "My husband (who works for a garage door company) can get a lot of squares of Styrofoam insulation that are scraps and he could get some for us if we wanted. We said "Sure!"

 They worked great. We simply cut them to size and stuck them in between the studs.

 Then we nailed up the political signs over top.

 I think it will work lovely! We did have enough insulation yet to do the whole shed but we have a wall done. It will keep it pretty air tight and also easy to clean.

 The boys were in the building mood so they branched off into making very cute little ranches with sticks. I am afraid I didn't get a picture of the finished product - they turned out adorable.

 While they were quietly playing at that, Megan was nearby setting up a cute little "store" with all sorts of natural treasures and Mara was making cute little people out of wild cucumbers, hollyhock buds and other natural things. I just loved watching them all at their creative play. While meanwhile I loudly took apart some pallets.

 I did also move the stuff back on deck and I think it does look better that way. Not perfect but I think fine. I am not sure if Ken quite agrees. He may end up buying a pint or so more of the proper stain. That will be fine if he does - we will put it on.

 Today I didn't end up working on any home improvements. Instead we were busy with:

Celebrating a sweet twelve year old boy's birthday. Above he is "blowing out the candles" on a mud cake that Megan made for him. We will have the real cake tomorrow when it worked to have family over.

 Mara and I harvested a bunch of herbs to hang up to dry.

I made bread and cake.

We made soap. This was our first time (I did help a friend a couple of times but this was on my own using a different recipe) and it did work out and it was very exciting! I will hopefully post full details after 3 weeks when I am able to try it out.

We had homeschool baseball this evening.

It was a good day. How was yours?