1)

First off: we have chickens. Buff Orpingtons. They all look exactly the same, which will probably be a comfort when they start dying.

2)
Jacob built me a cadillac of a coop that cost approximately three times more than we'd planned to spend. By the end we were both shaking our head at the ridiculousness of it, but I took comfort in the old economic wisdom: You can only have two out of the three: fast, quality, inexpensive.

So fast and quality it was, and now we have a coop. We just have to paint it. We're not sure if we should go really playful with the paint color or not. I'm inclined to paint it white, but we've painted a lot of things white in the last three years and maybe we should paint this...pink? Or barn red? Do a mural?

3)
We got the chickens from a breeder out near Luckenbach.

She had on thick rubber boots and the grisly edge of someone who lives alone in the hills with two donkeys and a bunch of poultry. She gave us the up down in our t-shirts and sandals and nordic offspring, but we were eager and we had cash, so she took us over to the chickens. In my memory she had a limp. But this is probably just a romantic exaggeration.

She had the jankiest of coop/pen operations - and made us feel like even bigger yuppies with our board and batten beauty smelling of sawdust back home.

She hadn't wanted to box the chickens up for us in the morning since we couldn't come and get them till the afternoon, so we got to put the "fun" in "free range" as Jacob Sr and Jake Jr chased down a dozen hens in 100+ degrees.

The breeder complimented Jacob on his chicken wrangling and we left with a dozen chickens which turned into a baker's dozen by the time we got home because it is very hard to count identical chickens.

4)
I've been wanting to homestead for so long, I cannot tell you how happy this all makes me. We have a bumper crop of okra, three hopeful watermelons, thirteen hens, and a rooster sired by "El Guapo" that the children quickly dubbed Mr. Guapito.

Dreams do come true.

5)
The kids are still acclimating to farm life. They visit the chickens in the morning. Then they ask to watch TV.


- 6 -
My book count is going up with the temperature, so here are some of the notables in case you need some recs. Sleeping Giants - futuristic science fiction - a fun, quick read. It was written as a series of interviews which I ended up liking more than I expected. I finally read A Man Called Ove which fell pretty flat for me even though I quite like curmudgeons and aspire to be one someday. I did enjoy Morton's The Secret Keeper - which was very engaging even if some of the plot points felt farfetched. Ann Patchett's State of Wonder was delightful. I thought it ended too abruptly, but I found it mesmerizing in a very Bel Canto way.

- 7 -
I bought some new clothes recently. This is blogworthy because even though I don't blog much, I shop even less. 90% of my wardrobe is a rotation of three tank tops and one pair of shorts (these),
because I'm lazy and stingy and indecisive. So consider this a cry for help.

I bought something called a "ruffle top" from Madewell. (It has since sold out, but it was like this one, just a little less...ruffly.) It was so cute online, but when I got it, my long torso struck again and my belly button waved the white flag.

I'm not anti-trend (hello homesteading!) but I also crashed when I tried the cold shoulder. I bought this top after Anna inspired me with her capsule wardrobe.

And...no matter how I tugged or shifted, I couldn't get it to sit right, so back it went.

In the end, this swing top from LOFT made the cut. It's about as bold as vanilla, but I love it. Also these huaraches which were the closest I could find to a pair I had when I was six and have thought about every summer since.

I still have some gift cards to get through, so maybe you'll get to hear even MORE about my shopping failures soon.

Have a super chill weekend!

We Almost Cut Down the Mulberry Tree

When we bought this house two years ago, the bushes and trees had all but consumed it. No one had touched them for years and they'd freely developed their green kingdoms for feral cats and precocious rats. One bush had been about the size of a dump truck and sprawled across half the front lawn.

My dad came to town and bought my husband a chainsaw. We began clearing. We would cut down one sapling and quickly expose another leggy monstrosity. Years without sufficient light and competing for resources had left the bushes and trees ugly and misshapen.

We didn't want to cut down everything, but for every tree we cut down it was like we were taking the skirts off the rest of the trees and exposing a forest of gimpy legs. Many had grown at strange angles that made sense when they'd been avoiding a gluttonous bush, but now they jutted out with no purpose, Vs and Ps, like letters fallen out of their words, memories of the old lawn, incomprehensible pieces of a forgotten story.

So we kept cutting, and in one weekend the front yard became a forest of spikes and we met all of our neighbors. The men would slap Jacob on the back. We were liberating the street.

We left three small trees at the northwest corner of the house, and they stood there through the winter awaiting the second reaping. But come March we saw the mulberries. Like some offering of gratitude. Laden with the berries in their natural ombre of green to pink to black, the branches bowed to the ground .

The squirrels and the birds mostly had their way with the ripe berries before we could, but we heeded the tree's gesture.

And we didn't cut it down.

We went out last weekend to pick berries. They fall from the tree and hide like jewels in the St. Augustine, so we hunt for them.

We only met one neighbor. She told us to watch for cedar waxwings. They love mulberries, she said.

We love them too.

Landscaping is for the Bees: Before and After

**This post is sponsored. But please don't run away!! It's still me! Kate! Just with (very small) dollar signs for eyes and some lovely new plants from Monrovia.**

So you remember that we bought a house a while back.  A MAJOR fixer upper, and I've stopped talking about it because we stopped working on it right about the time Jacob's winter crazy season started. While we haven't 100% finished a single room, most of the house is mostly done. Except we've done virtually nothing to the exterior.

Friday found us traipsing to Lowes so I could find some plants for the little bit of landscaping in the front yard. 

I'm not good at gardening, but like making traditional sourdough bread, it's not something I'm willing to give up on yet for all its attendant heartache. Baby #3 ruthlessly threw down the gauntlet when it came to any real garden aspirations for 2015, so I've decided to satisfy myself with a little landscaping. Behold my canvas:

The front of the house is not pretty, and life's still too busy to paint it and replace the windows, but I thought maybe some flowers would make it look like somebody loved it because this mound of old stump plus weird grasses was positively haunting.

After our wisteria bloomed in the backyard and brought with it bells and bells of purple blossoms: I knew I needed color. With Monrovia's help, we scored some yellow lantana. Growing up, I loved lantana. In the hottest part of the summer, it would still be blooming. My grandmother insisted that it was a weed, but I always felt kinda sorry for weeds. Monrovia tells me it is not a weed, that it's a match for Houston summers, and that the butterflies love it.

The great planting effort went as you might expect. The kiddos "helped."  

We all looked very cute. 

 Even cuter.

Jake eventually got bored and adopted a snail he named "A-Snailia," and Lucy June tried to eat fertilizer. 

In the end we landed here. It's definitely suffering from some "I just got planted" syndrome - landscaping kinda goes through it's own little funky ugly newborn stage, huh? - but I think it says "someone loves me and her name is Kate and so long as she remembers to water me and keeps her son from overwatering me, things will turn out just fine."

We'll eventually plant some flowers in the empty spot and fill the bowl with a big hunk of Rosemary.

[Unrelated aside and poll: Jacob and I agree - to an unprecedented level of agreeing on anything ever - that Rosemary is one of the loveliest names. But she will inevitably get shortened to Rose - also fine - except for the whole...Rose Rhodes thing. That is my question: Rose Rhodes. Would you do it??]

When we got back from our Easter travels, I noticed that one of the plants I didn't rip out of the landscaping because it looked intentional bloomed and turns out it was a lily. So Happy Easter to you all from my gardening-high.

Thank you again to Monrovia for sponsoring this post and encouraging me to spruce up the yard. Be sure to visit them and learn all about how to keep the bees and butterflies happy in your neck of the woods!

7QT: Books and Spring and Such

Joining Jen for my third link-up in as many days. 

- 1 -

I had to break from my typical only-online reading regimen for book club this week (without the kiddos!!!) Like a good book club comprised almost entirely of Catholic mothers, we read a Flannery O'Connor short story - changing it up from Evelyn Waugh. It was the second time I'd made it to book club since the move to Houston, and I loved getting to use and hear college words like "unreliable narrator" and "opposition of matter and spirit" and "mechanism."

- 2 -

Far cry from my the warblings of my almost three year old which today sounded like this:

Jake (having dropped his spoon): Help me! I want help! HELP!!
Me: How do you ask nicely?
Jake: AYUDAME!!

- 3 -

Teaser for next week: We finally have bees again! Huzzzzzzzzzzzzah!

- 4 -

The Houston weather is showing these California transplants some mercy and being just gorgeous. Nothing is so beautiful as spring.



Except for the whole unrequited love part.

- 4.5 -

This spring is also seasoned by a beautiful garden that seems immune to my black thumb. We are two cucumbers into our harvest.



Unfortunately I think cucumbers are about as exciting as iced water. Hopefully some heirloom tomatoes and hefty butternuts will be mine before I run out of my newfound gardening luck.

- 5 -

It's been too long since we talked cloth diapering on the blog, so I'll update you with some pleasantries. Jake's night diaper greeted me with some serious ammonia yesterday morning, so I broke out the stock pot and heated up some water for a good ole fashioned strip fest. (Jake: Why are we cooking diapers?)

We were blessedly ammonia free until Jake was two years old, and since then I've had to strip the diapers every 3-4 months. I'd love to hear some of the washing (and/or stripping) routines of those of you who cloth diaper. How often do you wash your dipes? What detergent do you use? HE or top loader? Prewashes? Rinse cycles? You know, that sort of thing. I don't like to admit how seriously I take the task of diaper washing.

- 6 -

When life gets crazy and all the balls you have in the air start falling to the ground in a heap of dirty dishes, moldy bathtubs, and extra Curious George episodes, what's the last ball you keep in the air?

I just told you mine. When life gets messy, my diapers still get clean. It's mostly because the routine is so ingrained, but it's also about control. I'm environmentally conscious and frugality is a second religion, but it's really just about having that one thing I can control. I certainly have to let that ball drop too sometimes and I think that's probably healthy.

So what's yours? What's your last semblance of hanging in there? Are your nails done? Is your bed made? Is your bookshelf alphabetized? Spill.

- 7 -

Between book club and the super super exciting publication of Jen's memoir over at Conversion Diary, I've decided to call this week: Something Other Than Blogs

I almost had to call this week: Something Other Than Something Other Than God because I still hadn't received my copy and was getting royally antsy over here, but then it came! Like ten minutes ago! So I'm off to go Instagram a picture of me with it!

Now go visit Jen's for more takes and to wish her a hard-earned congratulations!