The coop...

Here are a few pics of the awesome chicken coop Brad built. He designed it, built it and furnished it all himself. The only help he got was when Ben and I helped paint it the adorable barnyard red.

Lesson learned, wait until your chicks are definitely too big to fit through chicken wire before leaving them in it alone.

A tribute to the lost girls:

Sally, Lightening McQueen and Mack (or pretty face). Sally is still around...and HUGE! :)

The coop is a triangle shape, has two large open areas for outside time, and then the dark, shady, safe area for roosting (sleeping off the ground) and laying (eggs! hooray!)

It opens at both ends. One end to let the chicks out to play and the other to reach in and check for eggs. The plastic golf balls are in the laying box now to show the chicks where to lay. This is a science people!


Sally should begin to lay around August and the new girls (yes! there are new girls!) should be about a month later. Can't wait to introduce you!

How to Make Beer at Your House

Brad Schatzel

Guest Blogger

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" -Benjamin Franklin

Step 1: Gather Your Supplies

All the supplies you will need to make beer at home are readily available at your local homebrew supply store or at various online vendors. It is common for supplies to be bundled into a starter kit. The Brew Shop OKC sold me such a kit at a very reasonable price.

Step 2 Making the Wort

For this batch I am using Cooper's Lager hopped malt concentrate which is a bit like using a Duncan Hines mix to bake a cake. You are making it yourself just not exactly from scratch.

The malt extract and malt concentrate are super sticky and must be heated to be removed from their cans.

The hopped malt concentrate (green label) and the malt extract (yellow label) are mixed with 5 gallons of water in the primary fermenter (a big plastic bucket).

I drove to Seminole to get high quality water from my in-laws' well. Chlorinated city water makes bad beer.

When the malt/water mixture is about 65*, yeast is added. The bucket is then sealed for one week.

Step 3 Racking the Beer

After seven days the beer is 'racked', which is beer dork terminology for moving the beer from one 5 gallon bucket to another 5 gallon bucket. This is easily done with a cane and hose which create a syphon to suck the beer from one bucket to the other.

I believe racking is necessary to separate the beer from a layer of funky yeast the settles to the bottom of the fermenter (remember, big plastic bucket).

Step 4 Bottling

After seven more days (we're on day 14) the beer is racked again. Then dextrose is added to the beer in order to stimulate carbonation. Immediately after this the beer can be bottled, which is the most labor intensive and fun part of the process.

Before being filled with beer, the bottles must be sanitized. This is very easy to do as most dishwashers have a 'sanitize' setting. Do not add soap, this will make your beer taste like soap.

Empty bottles can be purchased at any homebrew store, but bottles can also be purchased at liquor stores and gas stations FULL OF BEER. Twist-off bottles will not work, but all other bottles can be reused.

For bottling the cane and hose are fitted with a bottle filler which is a hard plastic tube with a spring loaded valve on the end.. Lauren is the primary bottle filler in our little operation. I am posing in the photos below because her hair "looks all weird".

This process can be intense. I needed to remove my sweatshirt.

Bottle caps must be purchased and are inexpensive. The caps we are using were included in my kit from The Brew Shop. The red machine is a bottle capper, it was included too. The capper is very fun to use.


The batch yielded forty-seven twelve ounce bottles of beer. This is a bit low and is likely due to some sloppiness on my part during the racking process.

While this beer looks ready to consume it is not. The beer must sit in the bottle to 'condition' for at least two weeks (we're up to four weeks now).

I was only able to wait twelve days before I popped one open. It tasted very, very good.

To sum up, it is easy to make beer at your house. Just follow the four simple steps outlined above.

"Lord 'beer me' strength" - Jim Halpert

garage sales are my new hobby...

I have always loved the idea of garage/estate sale hunting, but for several reasons never really embraced it. Back when I was working, I couldn't bear to give up my Saturday mornings to the hunt when I would rather just stay in my bed. Once I had Ben and began staying at home, I was thrilled with the thought of it becoming my new Friday morning ritual. However, he was willing to sleep in a bit with me and well, then, Ellen came on and the coffee was brewed and I had no motivation. Once Des arrived, the thought of braving the sales with TWO just completely threw me for a loop. I did decide to suck it up one time last fall. I toted the two tots, took along my coffee and slid Des in a sling ready for the finds. I snagged a great crystal lamp for 2 bucks and a cozy sweater for $1 at the first sale and just as I started to get a little cocky, Ben began heaving himself onto the floor in a tizzy because I wouldn't buy him the nasty plastic discarded toys that he all of a sudden he couldn't live without. Oh dear.

Needless to say, I gave up the hobby.

Pendant Lamp gutted of wires and bulbs and turned upside down (free), crystal lamp with brass base spray-painted and paired with a target clearance shade ($2 + $3) and 1 of 16 pottery barn christmas candles ($1)

Until now.

The last several weeks, I have been bound and determined to try again. And so far so good!

We have gone three Fridays in a row. The sheer satisfaction of finding something you love, buying it for cheap and then repurposing it so it doesn't get tossed away is a really fun feeling!

One day I filled my trunk with goodies for 6 bucks and then headed to Sonic due to starvation (the boys not mine) and realized I had blown just as much money on a nasty lunch as I had on all my new treasures! Whoa!

2 lanterns (wanted some for quite awhile!) 25 cents each.

I obviously realize that so many enjoy this same pasttime and finding amazing things at garage sales is not new or innovative or even really that creative. I am just so thrilled that I finally get to take part in it. Plus digging through stuff is pretty cool. I can tend to get a bit emotional about the unwanted treasures though. I find myself hoping that all of it finds a new home and that I can't take it all just to fulfill that hope. Other times I am amazed at how much people charge for their unwanted junk...and their unwillingness to come down on the price. I mean, you want to sell it right?

At one such sale, I kept finding really neat things all that were about 200% too much. I saw this funky pendant light, the kind that hang from the ceiling on a front porch. It was pretty big, had a pane of glass missing, had shattered light bulbs and clipped wiring. He wanted 5 dollars for this. Ha! As I was examining it, he came over, saw the broken glass and came down to $3. I politely said I'd think about it and he said, "You know what? If you can find something to do with it, just take it!" And boy did I! I think it makes an adorable container for seasonal decor or candles! I took it an ran just about the time Ben started HOWLING over a $6 broken tractor toy.

At another estate sale I was having no luck. The boys were getting fussy (I have about a 1 hour window) and I had almost given up when I saw a stack of wallpaper sample books. They were old and funky and somewhat reasonable at $2 each. As much as I wanted to take them all, I settled on just one...

I have no idea what I will do with it (it's these purchases that drive Brad to strangle me. He doesn't of course, but I see it in his eyes when I come home with 'stuff'!) I love the crazy prints and will surely find a fun way to craft with them!

I am greatly enjoying our new Friday morning tradition...I'd also be happy to hear any suggestions from you longtime salers!

Anyone want to join us?