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The Big Dig – Backyard Pond
"I dig deep thoughts and appropriately sized holes", my current Instagram tagline, makes me giggle. I didn't anticipate digging such an insanely big hole this spring, but I'd been worrying about how large the koi were growing and pointing out spots in the yard to Joe where a pond would fit.
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Coturnix Quail Newbie Cost Analysis
Honestly, after three weeks of keeping quail, I was regretting bringing them home and assuming I’d be done with quail after this flock dies off or sooner if I were able to pass them off. They weren’t laying, they were messy, and the grow-out pen I was using was impossible to clean. Then Joe built a hutch that is easy to access and clean out and gives the birds much more room. It even has a storage shelf! I’ve outfitted the hutch with some habitat enhancements and vintage windows to cut the draft, timed lights to lengthen their daylight hours, and pulled up the deck chairs so we can comfortably…
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DIY Bog Filter for Garden Pond
As we prepare for a third summer managing our 300 gallon stock tank garden pond, we have a new upgrade to share. During the last two summers, we conducted pond water changes by taking buckets of water out of the pond and pouring them out on the garden beds. This was a fairly labor-intensive process, which I didn’t mind, but I knew there was probably a smarter solution to make use of the fish waste and keep the pond water nutrient levels down. Back in the fall, I ran into a customer at Logan’s who was also shopping some water plants, and she mentioned that she had a “bog filter”…
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DIY Backyard Fish Pond
For years we tossed around the idea of a fish pond in the back yard but shrugged it off figuring it was outside the scope of our abilities and finances. We also couldn’t agree on a location. However, when the birdbath quit holding water, I really missed having a water feature in the veggie garden off the deck. I figured that out of any spot in the yard, that little bed could handle a permanent feature. There was a nice brick path on one side and the water spigot was only a few feet away. There was already power running to the broken birdbath. After browsing the selection of pond…
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Picnic Table for the Hospitality Garden
For the past few years, I’ve been eyeing the picnic tables at Lowes. Then last year I heard an interview of Kristen Shell of The Turquoise Table who has built community and started a movement around hospitality in the simple action of putting a painted picnic table in her front yard. Last week when I went to Lowes to but a fern for my son’s crabitat, I saw a stack of unassembled picnic tables for 50% off. The store had not put them together yet because the wood on the ends had weathered, and they didn’t figure discolored tables were with the effort of assembly as they would never sell…
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Guns and Grit
Aka “sander selfie”. I started a new project this week, which was spurred on by moving around furniture. I’m really hoping gray spray paint will stick to this lightly sanded white paint, because I don’t have the guns or grit to fully strip this cabinet that we picked up from the flea market several years ago. It seems the cabinet has been rehabbed at least once before. The current (dirty, chipping and smelly) white is just too punchy for the rest of the room. I took off the doors Monday, sanded Tuesday, and left it sitting in the driveway Wednesday. When it comes to house projects, I don’t have the…