Todd Family Blog

So I am getting IMs, FaceCrook messages, and now Jes’ co-workers asking why I don’t have pictures of the chicken coop on the website yet.  WELLLLL…I work for an evil corporation that relies on backend systems that appear to have been designed and implemented by monkeys on crack.  “But wait….weren’t you on vacation for the last week of 2011?”  OH HELL YES I WAS!  But like all my time away from evil..uh work, I got sidetracked by other chores…like finishing the coop, staining, cutting and installing baseboards in the basement, cleaning my horrifically messy den, and finally getting the home first aid kit completely organized.  And YES…. I played Battlefield 3…I admit it… but mostly at night when pictures would be out of the question and the kids were in bed!!! SO THERE!

So where are the chickens?  Well, we need the permit first…  The coop itself has a 4×8 run completely enclosed with chicken wire that has been reinforced to keep predators out and chickens in. The coop is 4×4 and sits on top of the run, has an access door for cleaning, and a small door in the front with a ramp for the chickens to get into the run.  The “cage” has a door on one side that allows us to open and close the run access door so we choose when the chickens get “runtime”    lol sorry a little tech joke for my IT friends.  The coop will be mostly heated by chicken body heat but has a 40 watt incandescent light bulb on the inside.  It has a nice perch inside and two nesting boxes.  Finally, there is also a wireless thermometer mounted inside the coop that lets us monitor the temperature from comfort of our home.  Sorry no wood burning stove for the chickens….we want eggs, not roasted chicken.  Side note…this coop is my own design, I did not use ANY plans from the Internet…so yeah I designed it as well.

Now…back to evil…er I mean work.

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…our little boy is growing up.  Today he started Kindergarten.

Of course he came home too…  ( for those of you keep score at home…that IS a good thing)

Don’t I have the cutest family you have ever seen?

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Who in their right mind thinks of Winter heating in the middle of a heat wave in July?????  Me.  Some people want to know what three tons of firewood looks like…..here ya go….

All wet from the rain!

Yep...still wet from this angle too!

Oh copme on...wet here too?!?!?!?

So…you are probably asking yourself :  Why does that firewood and driveway look wet?  Well even if you weren’t asking yourself that…I’m gonna tell ya.  The truck delivers the firewood…and as soon as we start loading it…. BOOOOOM a freakin’ downpour hits us.  I promised my manager at work a picture of 3 tons of firewood so I guess the rain hepled me to remember that promise.  So I spend the next 5 hours moving firewood via wheel barrow to the backyard where the racks are.  I am exhausted, sore, and physically drained….AND IT’S NOT DONE YET!  Oh please, please, please shoot me now!  With some leftover in the driveway and this being trash day…Jes was worried about someone just taking it…or some of it.  I said “I am kind of hoping someone does.”

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Well the one thing raccoons and rabbits have not gotten too is our carrots.  So with a few of them ready to go , and just to be perfectly honest we were hungry, we had Brayden and Brooklyn pick a couple carrots for dinner!

So the kids got to pick their own carrots for dinner tonight….aaaaaaawwwwweeeee isn’t that adorable?

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So a couple people have been asking us for pictures of our garden…well I got off my lazy butt and took a few pictures yesterday.  Okay so I am not really lazy, but I have been pretty busy lately…deal with it….

And there you have it, and to make sure I covered everything…I caught Brooklyn in one of them.

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….we finally have a picture of our entire family!

On Friday we had dinner at Caps on the Water in St. Augustine, FL.  I handed my camera to my sister to take the shot…with my settings preset mind you!  She did pretty well for a Canon user, except I had to crop out my mother’s nose!.  This was the view that we had while we had dinner.

This scene brought our hectic week in Jacksonville, FL. to a close…. I think we are all happy to be home…I think.

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So I was in the living room with Brooklyn and we were just playing with some of her toys, when out of the blue she just stands up.  Didn’t pull herself up using anything… she JUST FREAKIN’ STOOD UP!  “WWWWWOOOOOOOWWWWW!”  I said…and she loved that reaction so she plopped down and did it again.  I had to get this on camera, so I went and got the camera… now getting her to do it was like pulling teeth.  Great, most people who read this blog are after the pictures (because my kids are cute…admit it) so I needed the evidence.  It took some time…but I got the proof!!!!

Here we go!!!

I can lift now!

Do a little dance...

My little girl is growing up.

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So, as most of you might know “The Family” expanded by one recently.  So I thought I would take a quick portrait of the “The Family” nothing really fancy just a quick update shot.  So I dragged them all out of lock-up (sounds bad huh?) and checked their actions…wouldn’t want a member of “The Family” going off would we, then I lined them up and snapped a quick shot.

The Family

and a single portrait of the newb:

The Newb

Okay everyone….back in lockup!  Except you Walther P99, you go on my side.  The Newb is a Marlin 981T bolt action .22 rifle that has a tube magazine that properly cycles .22 short, .22 long, and .22 long rifle!! Got sweet deal on him too, all he cost was a computer I wasn’t using, it was just taking up valuable space in the house…. no brainer right?!?!?!

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So we had our little family Christmas and then visited relatives and ate multiple dinners.  To be perfectly honest, these small family type Christmas’ are much more tolerable than the giant productions of the past. Who can argue with these:

We ARE cute!

Don't forget Barney!

This is MY pile, back it up...

WOOHOOOOOOOO!!!! Socks!

He no nuts!! He's crazy!!

I got stuff..new stuff!

For those that don’t get the caption under Brayden with his DS game… take a closer look at the game, then go read up on popular movie franchises of the 80′s ..  THERE YA GO!!!  That’s a ShortRound quote from Temple of Doom.  Plus 10 points if you can tell me the scene!

So anyway, here we are having a nice quiet small family Christmas and Santa goes and does something whack!  Apparently, Santa wants Brayden to be a self-sufficient bachelor.  Your thinking…”What are you talking about?”  WEEEEEEELLLL how about this one:

Uhhhmmmmm, Santa? Sir..Brayden is male...

But it’s okay… you see, Brayden WILL be getting a .22 youth rifle this year for his birthday. Time to teach him to go huntin’ and killin’ with Jimbo and Ned (South Park reference people.. come on, keep up).   I have to do something to erase the potential damage the above gift may do.  Granted, he loves him some cookies and brownies….oh wait is this Santa’s way of getting out of baking things for Brayden, ooooooh make HIM do it… damn that is evil.

(Side note, this was published late because I had to actually sit in front of a computer that wasn’t playing College Football to work on resizing the images… deal with my laziness!!! muahahahahahahaaaaaaaa)

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Brooklyn had her first birthday today.  I can’t believe it has been a whole year already.  We got her a cake and had a little party, and she loved it.

Just a small little get together for the the family, nothing fancy, but she loved her cake and her presents, and the day wore her out.  Click any one of the images to see the rest of the pictures.

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So it got chilly this week…not dead of Winter cold, but it it did dip into the upper 20′s and lower 30′s a couple of nights.  So we tried out the wood burning stove.   Holy crap…it is rated for up to 1500 square feet, we have a little over 1800 square feet.  It heats up the entire house.  On the night it dipped into the 20′s the upstairs was nice and toasty, while the den, the furthest room from the stove was kept at a nice 75 degrees.  Wood heat is nothing like gas heat, everything is warm when we use the wood burner, floors, bed sheets, couch, and sofa.  It is awesome… and here is a visual for you!

Burning some wood

We should have installed one of these a few years ago when we first talked about it.

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Remember the “Awe crap…” post?  I found a solution to my problem.  Overkill?  Well, I’ll be nice and warm this winter, so pfffft.

Wood Burning Stove!

Vogelzang Shiloh EPA certified Wood Burning Stove

Brand new shiney chimney!

So you can freeze your butt off this winter…I’m not.  Of course the hearth isn’t completely done yet.  I still have a little work to do on it, but dang it….it looks good.

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We had plans to remove several trees from our backyard to make room for some fruit bearing trees and a second raised garden.  Well, a couple weeks ago the first of those trees was cut down and we are STILL cleaning up the mess.  Today I left work in downtown Columbus, and looked around and thought “hmmm it looks like it could storm again this week.”

Tornado sirens were going off, the winds were whipping up…. and I still headed for home.  When I got there I looked out the back door of the house and was dumbstruck by this:

This is the tree we wanted to keep…it was our summer shade tree.  And somewhere under that big mess on the left, is Brayden’s turtle sandbox, part of our raised garden, and at least 2 bird feeders.

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…she has painted the foyer, the kitchen and the family room.  Er…uh… living room, not family room.

Click the image above to see the transformation.  Stay tuned to see MY portion of the work.  It’s going to be another awesome project!

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