Spring Cleaning

Now that we have warmer weather, it’s time to get busy in the yard.

Daffodils appeared all over our yard. Lovely!

I keep finding some friends in the yard too.. this little one was relocated to a safer place. (ie. where I wasn’t digging and raking)

The shop needed a good cleaning. Done!

And the yard needs a LOT of work. We’re starting it. A little bit at a time.

I edged the grass around the patio.

Briars everywhere…

I’m posting these as ‘before’ photos. We’ll see how the progress goes!

The garden…

Trellises.

These are the briars we have all over the place!

Dead wood all over.

Wild roses.

I’m thinking that we have a lot of clearing to do before we can put fences up.

My adventurer…

More mess in the front yard. Vines all over! Pretty flowers on the tree though.

The clubhouse also needs fixing up… here are before photos for this project -

The garden fencing and gate needs repair too.

More pretty flowers running wild in the yard.

And a new biker running wild in the driveway.

And to wrap up this post about lots of work to do, here’s Ninja to demonstrate some relaxation techniques.

Learning about Archery

We have started learning archery, as a family, and are really enjoying it. We do not yet have our own gear, but have had training and loaner gear from our local SCA barony – a wonderful group of talented folk. The marshals are inspiring, and safety focused, and make lessons fun.

Brian has taken to it quite well. He’s going to get good fast if he keeps it up.

 

Honor is finding it a little more difficult to get into, but we hope she’ll continue.

Brad is quite a good shot too, although it’s harder for him to get to practices. I just need to work on consistency! I have my days. We found out that I am left eye dominant now…. used to be right eye, but Lasik must have (maybe?) changed that. This means I had to switch from shooting right handed to left handed. I can aim better, but I am right handed, so learning to handle the bow and arrows ‘backwards’ has been interesting!

In addition to learning archery, we had a lesson in leathercraft and each made our own bracer. I like working with leather! It’s like carving wood, but somewhat different. I want to do more!

Honor made an archer kitty.

Brad chose an oak theme

Brian made a tiger in a top hat!

Because of my awkwardness in shooting left handed, I keep smacking my upper arm with the string (I am getting better!) and so we came up with a longer bracer design.

In other crafting news, Honor had a project for school, so we went out to the shop and broke out the tools. She had to make an invention. Her idea was to make a cat powered, bird feeding, bird powered cat toy. The cats would bat a toy to feed the birds, and the birds moving the feeding platform would wiggle the cat toy.

Our little tool user. She approved of our having a glue gun, but was disappointed in the lack of a scroll saw.

Honor and her invention! We’re not exactly sure how this would mount through a window or screen… obviously, keeping the cats separated from the bird is important!… but this is just a prototype!