Refinished Rocking Chair

I have this awesome rocking chair that my grandparents gave me when I was pregnant with my first kid.  It had a light finish on it, but really needed to be stained and sealed.  It remained in that condition for years.  As we moved from place to place, it always came with us.  Patient and ready for it's new lease on life, there is sat... waiting.  :(

Now that we have moved to this nice open property, I have been motivated to get it protected!  I want to have my rocker out on the front porch, with out worry.  A trip to the hardware store, and I got all I needed!  I set to work right away, before the motivation waned.  I had sanded it bare a few years back, in fact when I was pregnant with my second child (and she is 5 now!) so really it should be easy! (haha)

I got the stain all done in one day, and was ready to start the first coat of vanish the next day.

After the first coat (letting it dry overnight) I did another light sand and the second coat.  There was rain in the forecast, so I was really rushing to get at least that second coat on before there was too much moisture in the air.  So I slapped that on and cleaned up my refinishing mess...for now!

I had used wood filler back when I sanded it down for the first time (5 years ago..oops!) and it didn't take the stain like I had hoped.  Oh well, I guess I shouldn't have waited so long, eh?

After the rains came and went, and a few more days on top of that (did I mention it was finals week?) I got the third coat of varnish down.  Doesn't it look great!?

Now I can rock on my front porch and wave to the neighbors as I watch them ride by on their horses and bikes. (And shake my fist at the ones in cars that fly down the road, slow down!  This is a neighborhood!)  The sounds of goats, and peacocks, and roosters fill the air; the sing song of the free range coming from our neighbors.  We have joined them, embedded ourselves in this.  Oh country living, how I love you.

We finally got the chickens!

So, now that the coop has been finished enough to actually house some fine feathered friends, we felt it was time to visit the chicken farm and ask some questions before we actually brought any hens home.  We saw some Barred Rocks and Easter eggers still in the brooder.

There has been unseasonably cold weather recently and it looks like it will be here for a good week or two (frost on my aloe!) so we are just going to have to wait to have to wait (darn the luck!) for the barred rocks that we wanted to be able to come out of the brooder.

Frost on everything!  I thought this was California?

We have not equipped the coop for any sort of heat source.  The chickens we want are about 2 1/2 months old.  So plans were made to come back in a few days and get those birds!

It took a bit longer then that.... did I mention that this is procrastination ranch?

Delays aside, we did it!  We decided on four Barred Rocks and two Ameraucanas.  They were all around the same age (hatched late Sept/early Oct) and were young enough that they would grow up around us.  The kids could hardly contain their excitement!

Getting use to their new home!

Come on out ladies, we're here!

We emptied the bags carefully into the coop and watched as the little gals ran around.  They took to the food and water right away, no problems!

I noticed that one of the Ameraucanas was the smallest of the group.  Other then that I could not tell them apart at all!

The four Barreds all looked the same to me, but I figured that their personalities would come about as we all spent more time together.

Out getting some sun :)

This was it, our first step towards our little homestead.  What we had talked about and planned for years was coming to fruition.  It is a nice sense of accomplishment, we put our minds to something and made it happen. 

Something that was surprising; the chickens were still cheeping!  The little noises I had been expecting to hear coming from the yard was not the bok bok cluck, but rather a tiny high pitched kind of squeak!  It was the. cutest. ever.