Rock Out Reach Out

I've been spending a great deal of energy on planning an event for the Center for Justice & Sustainability at Jewell with Anthony & Andy. It finally went down Saturday night, and I could not be more pleased with it!

Rock Out Reach Out was a huge success! Many thanks to everyone who helped out and came out to support our hard work, and more importantly, the hard work of the justice & sustainability community of Kansas City.

Here are the results:

Five bands & artists performed to benefit the organizations present.
Seventeen bands donated songs for the album (which is still available for a limited time).
Fourteen organizations shared their messages of justice & sustainability.

Over 300 people came out to the event.
Over 100 people signed up with the organizations present.
Over $2000 was raised for these organizations.

We shared the vision of the Center for Justice & Sustainability with Kansas City.
Learn. Practice. Partner.

And we're not the only ones who feel this way either. Check out this glowing review at the Pitch's blog: http://blogs.pitch.com/wayward/2009/04/rock_out_reach_out_roundup.php

Yes, you read that right, it says RORO "could serve as a model for all benefit rock shows to come." I new we did a good job, but now I am in shock!

We had a beautiful spring evening here in KC tonight, so after work we spent a couple hours catching up on some yard work & gardening. The neighborhood kids were out enjoying the weather too, so they came over to "help." Trinity did a good job of finding them some helpful things to do, and I showed them how to use the reel lawn mower. They helped Trinity clean out the winter mulch cover from the strawberry patch.

The chickens seemed to have a good night in their new home. Every time we looked in on them they looked like they just settled right in. We opened the trap door this morning so they could get down to the grass, but they never ventured down there on their own. So, when we got home, Trinity grabbed each of them and showed them the way down!

After showing them the way, they enjoyed dinner down there and then when it started to get dark made their way back upstairs for the night. Success! We built a coop and it works! As long as it keeps the predators out... We sent Benton (our three-legged cat) out to be the first predator - I watch him stalk birds out the back window often - and he definitely tried to get in there. So far, we still have three chickens and one hungry cat. Here are pictures:





Benton also basked in the sun for a while before he went back to hunting.

The Ladies

The Ladies are spending their first night outside in the new coop tonight! I finally put the finishing touches on it after work today and we just put them out there. We'll let you know how it goes!

I worked on the coop a bit more today. Here it is - the only thing left to do is figure out our roof. We were going to use some shingles that my Dad had left over, but our door is causing some confusion on my part as to how to roof it. I started to put them on, but the shingles need to overlap, and if they overlap at the hinges, then we can't open the door... Not to mention the fact that our moveable coop would be a lot heavier with the asphalt shingles. Today I slathered water-sealer everywhere I could reach.



I used some of the scraps to make a nesting box. The consensus online is that one nesting box should be enough for our three chickens. Speaking of the chickens, here they are, definitely getting bigger. They're starting to cluck a little bit instead of just chirping like chicks! I am eager to get the roof figured out so they can stretch they're legs outside.

We started the day with rain, so I spent a couple hours working on one of out other unfinished projects. We might regret this later, but we decided to take down the plaster walls in the bathroom. They were cracked and patched so many times that we decided they just needed a fresh start.


And, I'm also trying to start some seeds indoors. It's going okay, but our drafty house is definitely stunting their growth. It's been pretty slow going, but making some progress.

Chicken update

We started building the chicken coop this weekend (finally). We were trying to get it finished before "winter returned again, but after an hour in the increasingly cold rain this morning, we decided the roof would have to wait - well, our numb dysfunctional fingers decided for us... The chicks are growing quickly - actually they are "pullets" now, which means adolescent chickens - but the farmer we got them from said they're still too small to go out in this cold spell, so we still have time to finish the coop. Here are some pictures from the building process. Not too bad considering it's the first thing Trinity or I have ever built from scratch, if I do say so myself!

We think we've decided to call the chickens the Ladies, like we used to call the goldfish the Guys. We can't really tell them apart enough to give them each names. We brought them outside for a few hours while we worked on their new home. It was a beautiful day, and they loved it. We could tell right away that they're ready to be outside instead of stuck inside. If only the weather would cooperate.

The chickens are already bringing people together. Neighbors saw us working on the coop and stopped by all day, including these girls. They stop by all the time anyway, but they were especially interested in the chickens.

I was determined to get as much done as possible this weekend, so we kept working until we could barely see anymore. I got up this morning pretty early and got a lot more done, but I haven't taken any more pictures since it started raining. All we have left to do is shingles and painting the few parts that won't be covered by shingles. We're almost done!

Our latest project!

We have taken another step in our urban gardening project. Say hello to the new members of our family!

Spring Forward

We had a blank calendar slate this weekend, so even though we "lost" an hour, we gained a lot of time to regroup. It feels like it's been forever since we've had this much energy, and it feels good to be back! Here's what we accomplished.

Fixed the downstairs shower and officially moved into the downstairs bathroom.
Got a gas leak fixed. (No telling how long this has been going on... We never noticed the gas smell in the basement before, so hopefully not long!)
Did a bunch of dishes.
Made a bunch of chicken broth.
Did prep work to make dinner for 30+ people at the Shalom House.
Made pumpkin muffins.
Did 2 weeks worth of laundry. (Since we were out of town last weekend)
CSA pickup & grocery shopping for the week.
Made progress on smoothing the bathroom walls...
Made progress on stripping the bathroom trim...
Made progress on clearing a decade of weeds in the back corner of the yard...
Got a HUGE roll of black landscaping plastic and started covering the garden to warm the soil.
Started some seeds (tomatoes, broccoli, various flowers & herbs) and ordered some others online.
Burned some brush. (Don't worry, it was all in the fire pit)
Hung out with some neighborhood kids. (Agnes' former family. The fire brought them over!)
Trinity studied some anatomy.
Tim gave himself a haircut.

And somehow we still had time to sleep and veg out in front of some HGTV for motivation. Seems like the motivation worked!

Bathroom Update

When we went to bed Saturday night, Tim soaked the paint covered hinges in a water based paint stripper.

It worked pretty well on the part that was soaked.

Before we moved into our house, they textured the walls and did a horrible job. We have wanted to fix this but weren't sure how. Tim woke up Sunday morning on a mission to have smooth walls! He sanded the walls which worked really well. Then he primed and painted one part of the wall as a test. Thank you for the paint, Allison! Here is what it looks like:

The trim will go over the part on the right and cover up the holes you see. It looks much better without the texture but it was hard to get in a picture. I will take more pictures as we move onto more parts.

While Tim was working on the walls, I began the tedious process of stripping the trim. It is going to take a long time and lots of elbow grease but it will be so worth it. Here they are after 2-3 coats have been removed - only 2-3 more to go. Can you imagine our bathroom trim the pink color?


Here are some other projects we are also working on for the bathroom.

My mom gave us a cabinet she got from an antique store that has been cut for a vessel sink.


Today I bought this red sink on Ebay for 1/2 price!

This is a picture of the shower curtain that my mom got us for Christmas that we using as our color inspiration.

Now that we have started our first renovation/remodel in our house, we have been coming up with tons of other ideas - thanks largely to the This Old House magazines that Tim's dad has given us. We are interested in tiling the shower in place of the lovely plastic insert that we have currently. Since neither one of us know how to tile, it will be the last project of the bathroom. If anyone knows how to tile and wants to teach us how, please let me know.

We have really been enjoying working on the house! These projects are the reason that we bought this house and it is nice to actually get a project started. I guess I should be more excited when it is actually finished! If you anyone wants to come check it out in person (much better than pictures), you are always welcome. Don't worry we have another bathroom downstairs.

Honse Home Improvement, Inc.

We woke up this morning and decided it was finally time to do some real work on our house. Our sister, Allison, gave us some paint a couple of months ago which matches the new shower curtain and rug that my mom gave us for Christmas. Since we had paint and the bathroom is pretty small, it seemed like the best place to start.

We got our supplies and were ready to prime and paint. Next thing you know we have started taking apart the bathroom!

This was our light and medicine cabinet that we took off. They had a wood frame behind the medicine cabinet.


This is what it looks like now

Then we decided that if we were going to do this then we were going to do it right! Tim took off all of the baseboards, molding and even the door.

Here is the "finished" product

We are going to work on it some more tomorrow and will post updated pictures soon. We had a lot of fun today and are excited to finally work on our house!

Tim's New Blog

FYI - I have started another blog for my more reflective stuff, like I used to post on One's-Self I Sing. You can find it here if you're interested: http://www.volume2kc.blogspot.com/

Trinity will keep posting here at the Zoo.