Gumbeaux

Last Sunday Travis and I hosted the monthly 'Spanish Town Supper Club' at 765. The hosts cook the main meal while all guests bring a side or dessert and something to drink. With the theme being "From Your Hand" it was obvious we would make the chickens a part of our meal. Saturday morning at around 6am Gumbeaux made his last "cock-a-doodle-doo".... For those of you that find this terribly gross and inhumane you might want to stop reading right now. (and add Food Inc. to your Netflix queue immediately)

{Gumbeaux}

While I was in the house preparing everything else Travis caught Gumbeaux and put his duck hunting skills to use. By the time I got outside most of the feathers were gone and nearly looked like a whole chicken you buy shrink wrapped at the grocery store. After plenty of cleaning and trimming he made it directly to the BBQ. Travis headed off to the neighbor's house to pick up Pot Pie. Same process again. 

{prepped and ready}

{getting there...}

An hour or two on the pit and it moved its way to the dutch oven for a day of cooking up as gumbo. When we tell people where the chicken in our gumbo came from most seem disgusted and saddened that we have 'eatten our pet'. Simply put, we named our 'pets' after food with a wholehearted intention of raising them for food and eggs. Not only do these chickens have an enjoyable life in our backyard, but they live off the food a chicken is supposed to live off. Not antibiotics, steroids or hormones in these two guys. And they lived to be the ripe old age they should for cooking, unlike a storebought chicken that is about that same size in just a few short weeks. If that isn't enough reason to know where your meat comes from I don't know what is.

{mmmmmmmmm}

With plenty still in the freezer this meal will be lasting us a while. Honey and Cosmo are happily pecking at the yard without a rooster constantly mounting them, laying eggs daily and learning to fend off a bounding puppy. Hopefully little chickies will be popping up in our yard sometime soon to add to our farm.

{Juju Bee says hello!}

The Incredible, Edible...

It has been weeks of checking the yard's nooks and crannies for one of our ladies' prizes and now I can finally say it: WE'VE GOT EGGS!! Travis and I returned home from work one day to find it sitting casually in the cage, left their as if she couldn't quite decide what to do next. Now we find them almost daily in the neighbor's yard, hidden in between fence and weeds, precisely where Juliet can't sneak her head in. So far we think it is likely Honey because of the egg's color, but hopefully Cosmo will follow her lead shortly.

{eggs!}

Travis and I are saving up the eggs to use this coming weekend for the Spanish Town Supper Club we are hosting at 765. The theme, "From Your Hand" is in an effort to get as many neighbors to bring something they grew, raised, harvested or cooked for everyone to enjoy. Yard eggs seem a perfect addition to what our main course will be: Gumbeaux. And what will make the whole preparation of the supper so much easier? Our brand new BBQ! It is completely put together now, every screw accounted for, and just waiting to be fired up. Thanks again to everyone that got it for us!

{I can smell the burgers now}

It seems this colder weather (again, only 80 degrees) has sparked some new growth in alot of things. We have eggs in our yard, a new puppy getting bigger daily, caterpillars and cocoons all over our walls, lettuce starting, and amazingly we have tomatoes. After months of gorgeous plant but no fruit I had nearly given up hope and stopped watering. Now there are tomatoes falling over the fence and into the street. I guess that just goes to show you, patience is a virtue. 

September is Gone, Hello Fall

I say this with more excitement than most of you would imagine, but FALL IS FINALLY HERE! At least for the next week or so here in Louisiana. With a low in the forties tonight I'm pondering the idea of breaking out my Uggs, but am a bit scared to jinx this good fortune. For now I'll be happy with the comforter back on the bed. Celebrating this crisp weather (crisp meaning in the mid 70's) we've spent nearly every moment we could outdoors: BBQing (Grilling-out for some folk), a few house projects, and.... playing with the new puppy!!!

{Juliet}

{puppppppyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy}

Juliet made her arrival at 765 last week when Anthropologie hosted their Sit.Stay.Love event and the Denham Springs Animal Shelter brought in six pups they hoped to find homes for. She is a Catahoula mix that flew out of the car and into my arms and obviously I couldn't let her go, even though we had planned to hold off on a pup until after the big day. So far she is an amazingly well behaved dog - she chases the tennis ball AND brings it back, is getting pretty close to being potty trained, herds the chickens but doesn't eat them (yet), and has limited her puppy destruction to only things paper. Fingers crossed it remains this easy.

{Existing framework, no roof}

This afternoon we did a little project on the house. The side door had the wood structure for an overhang but no roof over it and we were left with a bit of extra tin from the shed project, so we put it on up. It is nothing major, but it will allow for a new dry entrance if it's raining and will hopefully block some of the hot morning sun in the summer to keep the house a bit cooler. We had hoped it would show off the tin a little more but the angle of the original structure wasn't much more than flat. Probably not permanent, we'll be happy with its functionality for now.

{covered!}

And I promise I'm not forgetting.... We have made a few purchases with the Anthro gift cards we got at the CA wedding shower. I'll show off my favorite buy yet, the Coat of Arms mirror - slightly girly but Travis still approved! The mirror is hung in our bedroom and inspired a cleaning and rearranging of the whole space. It's rather amazing what a mirror can do to make it feel like a bedroom instead of just a room with a bed.

{It's larger than it appears!}

September Is Here

Things around here have been a bit slow on the project progress. It seems we've been gone for nearly every weekend lately, leaving little time to actually accomplish anything. Not to mention is is now September, which means football and hunting are now upon us. We did however manage to get all four walls up and the door lockable on the shed. This means our dining room is back!! Everything is cleared out and beginning to find its home in the shed, though getting it organized is the beginning of a whole other project.

{orange door makes its return!}

{door trim}

Between the loaning of tools, knowledge and physical labor, tons of people have helped us with this shed. But we decided we couldn't bum everything forever so we finally made a purchase: A chop saw. And it has already been removed from the box and put to good use by BOTH of us! (Though mostly Travis) We spent this morning working trim for the orange door, which has officially made its return.

{chopsaw}

Our yard hasn't seen much love lately since it is mostly a staging location for shed work. The tomato plants are absolutely huge but we haven't gotten one tomato. The eggplants have been producing but I think they have about seen their days. Three green oranges are still hanging on. To make up for the lack of production, out of nowhere came a bulb popping out along the fenceline. Hurricane Lily/September Lily/Spider Lily (Lycoris radiata just for you Jeff) made its first appearance earlier this week and are known for staying underground all year until September. Right on time.

{September Lily}

I have a few Anthropologie home purchases to post later and I promise it won't take me 2 weeks!

Progress

It's funny, when people ask me what I did last weekend, and the weekend before, and every night after work, it's the same response: "We worked on the shed". It has gotten to the point where they are often responding, "STILL?". Trust me, I know it's been a while, but I don't quite think people realize the scale of this so-called shed. This is no six foot tall throw your shovels and broom in shed. This a 400 square foot home for tools, boats, trailers and everything else that is lingering in the house. It's a beast. All that is to say, it's not done yet folks. We're getting there, but you can't rush perfection.

 {window - BEFORE}

The roof went on fairly quickly after the structure got built - we couldn't leave that tin just sitting around burning up our lawn. The walls however, took a bit more time. Initially we had planned to reuse the tin that was on the original shed. After a bit of further consideration we opted for some shiny new tin instead. We might as well make this look as shiny and new as it really is! While much of the work on the shed only had room for me as the assistant, I did find one project to call my own - the window. The old cypress one from the neighbor is in need of some sprucing up, and with a little work with our brand new sander, it's on its way to looking as shiny and new as the shed. 

{back wall - DONE}

Getting these 10 foot tall panels of tin lined up perfectly top and bottom was a challenge, but so far it's looking great. Before we got all the walls up one of the bigger projects was running power to the shed so we could get rid of the orange extension cord running across our yard. With some amazing help from Dennis and Jeanne (Thank you guys!!!) we now have power! Actually seeing every step of the process, from digging the trench for the conduit, to connecting the wires to the light, then finally flipping the switch (and it actually working) was very exciting.

{Power!!}

We've got a bit more wall that needs to go up, but we'll save those pictures for the final unveiling so everyone can get the full effect. Just wait... it may not be only an orange door that returns! All we can say is these ladies approve:

{Gumbo, Pot Pie, and Cosmo enjoying the shed}