A Bit of Press!

We made the newspaper!! The Advocate, the newspaper for Baton Rouge, periodically features articles on historic neighborhoods throughout the city and discusses their culture, community, and why they are so successful. Today's front page of the People section featured 'Spanish Town Thriving' with Travis and me on the front cover painting our orange door!  View the article with all of Mr. Moore's quotes, and be sure to check out the multimedia link to the left with all the pictures.


     "Moore, a landscape architect planner, is even getting married a block outside the neighborhood, at St. Joseph Cathedral. “We live, work and play downtown,” he said.

      "Moore loves the fact that he can walk or ride his bicycle to his downtown office. “We share a symbiotic  relationship with the state buildings and downtown,” he said. “I made a lifestyle choice not to sit in traffic 30 to 40 minutes a day.”

He has an edible garden and is raising chickens in his backyard.

“We trade with our neighbor — cucumbers for blackberries,” Moore said. “That’s the way a neighborhood should interact. Spanish Town is not some cookie-cutter development that tears up some tract of land. We’re investing in a home some 90 years old that has a lot of work to do. That’s right for the environment and the lifestyle that comes with it.”

 It does a wonderful job of explaining why we all love Spanish Town so much. Thanks to our neighbor and Advocate photographer Liz for coming by to take the pictures!

{Spanish Town residents! Photo by Liz Condo from the Advocate!}

In other news, we are loving everybody commenting on the blog and interacting with us as we document our projects. The other day we received two surprises in the mail: chalk and eraser for our chalkboard from Deb and Dwain, and a giftcard for Home Depot from Boppy and Reggie. THANK YOU!! We are preparing for our next big project and that card will surely come in handy! 

{We love the chalk!!}

Tropical Depression Bonnie passed over us last night. Our emptied rain tank gained 150 gallons and the thunder and lighting shook the house a bit in the early morning hours I'm told, but all in all it was fairly uneventful being that I was snoring away. Not that I want some huge storm, but hey, for someone that is used to earthquakes, these storms are new territory and kind of exciting. Maybe next time it could come by during they day so I could see it??

Project Dreams

Major improvements both inside and out have taken a bit of a back seat this past week to cooking, cleaning, and well...life. It has however, given us a chance to ponder the living room, the arrangement of all the pieces of furniture that have been accumulated, and how we can fit a dining table in there, thus beginning new projects.

We all know I have a thing for chairs, and at some point I will get my hands on the ones sitting in the kitchen area. Maybe something a little like this I stumbled up on Design Sponge:

{cute!}

Mary passed along some backyard projects from Sunset that were exactly what we had been talking about. SOMEDAY when we are done rebuilding the shed, putting on a new roof, and planting our edible front yard we'll start to think about the deck we are going to construct off the back door. It will most definitely include this shower, built off of our rain tank for an au-natural shower, in more ways than one....

{rainwater shower}

And if the whole front yard being transformed into our personal produce stand isn't quite enough, lets include these modern wall planters to add some space and spruce up that shed we will have finished. 

{old rusty orange siding: like}

But for now we'll leave those on our inspiration board, we've got sinks to unclog and mosquitoes to kill. 

Added Color

Between the daily afternoon thunderstorms and the heat there haven't been too many large projects going on outside right now. We did however, get a chance to add a little bit of color to some spots around the house. I may not be able to paint that wood, but I will find a way to get some splashes of bright in the house. And for those of you that remember my bedroom third year of college, these color selections should come as no surprise.

Our shed door was barely covered in paint, and what little was still remaining would wipe off like chalk as we walked through it. A little coat on the door frame and we might be able to hold out on shed renovations for a bit longer?

{orange!}

The chalkboard window frame FINALLY got finished and hung! Sadly, I still haven't made it to the store to get some chalk to actually test it out. We'll get there....

{blue!}

And our eggplants got a little growth spurt  and have added some anticipation for meal cooking next week. Jackie, I bought everything to make your Eggplant Parmesan recipe!!

{purple!}

Just wait until I get to paint a room....

200 Gallons

The rain tank is up and running! And thanks to tropical storm Alex we got enough rain to load up our 200 gallon tank with about 150 gallons, even with the faucet being left open for the first 20 minutes of rain. It was more of a process than I expected, getting the stand strong enough to hold the weight of 200 gallons of water, level, and drained, and a couple trips to Home Depot for the right pipe fittings. Using some perforated drain pipe we picked up at Habitat ReSore, we trenched from the downspout the tank is attaching to all the way to the drain outlet along the side street to keep the extra water from the tank and roof from piling up under the house or turning the back yard into a mud pit. Of course the minute the trenches were dug an abnormally large storm came through and turned the yard into a slip & slide that left me flat on my butt, all in an effort to keep the chickens from getting soaked. (No pictures necessary of that) The trenches were filled back in with the concrete and brick walk that we broke up, instead of buying any new materials. We've still got some more work to go, but finally we have a big project completed! Now if only we could get that shed door painted...

{see, I do more than take pictures}

{the chickens approve - drain out to the street}

{trench}

{faucet attached... getting closer}

{complete.}

Now we'll see how long it will take us to pay off this thing. With a montly water bill of around $10 I think we've got a ways to go. 

On another note, we attempted The Wednesday Chef's latest post for roasted chicken with mustard  only with a slight variation by cooking it in the BBQ, because quite frankly turning on the gas stove in July is just miserable. It was DELICIOUS. Finished off with some chocolate chip cookies with a little something green hidden inside (nope, not what you think) and we were stuffed.

Let the inside projects begin.

Poor Blog

I know, I know. It's been way too long since the last post, but I promise we didn't forget about the blog. In the past few weeks we have been VERY busy, and the list just keeps on growing. Let's see if I can remember everything we've done:

• Planted a mini-garden with some of our vegetables.
• Got the front doorbell working.
• Backyard security light sensor is up and running. 
• Cleaned out the gutters only to find the concrete elbow completely packed with debris. Fixed just in time for a downpour.
• Finally received our very own recycling bin!!
• Raided the back shed with a bug bomb while we left for the weekend. We came home to a cemetery of roaches. (For someone that grew up where roaches were a sign of a restaurant that didn't pass its health inspection rather than just the southern humidity, the roaches HAD to go.) The mosquitoes somehow figured out how to survive :(
• Bought a rain tank! 
• Picked some tomatoes, blueberries, and peppers from our yard. Watched our oranges get a little bigger.
• Discovered it's about time to begin projects inside, as it's certainly not cooling down anytime soon.
• And.... we got CHICKENS!!!

Yes chickens. Little tweeting baby puff-balls that are beginning to look like real chickens now.  Two brown ladies and one black chick (named Cosmo, in honor of Kwaaammmiieee). They hang out in their coop while we are at work, then come flapping out to peck around in the yard until it gets dark, where they like to roost on the handrail to the backdoor. Pretty darn cute. Countdown begins until the Fall when we will hopefully have a daily dose of fresh eggs!!

{baby cheep}

{getting bigger}

{cheeeeepieeess}

The 200 gallon rain tank will hopefully be installed this weekend, raised and with a drain so we can get some pressure to water our plants and keep excess water from piling up under the foundation. Plus it couldn't hurt our water bill. 

{200 gallons of awesome-ness}

{veggie garden beginnings & the rest to come after the shed destruction}

All of our tomatoes seemed to ripen at the same time, so I ended up making a pizza with our garden prizes. And I have to say, the crust rivaled Trader Joe's herb crust pizza dough, it was THAT good.

{mmmmmmmmmm}

It is finally raining again downtown. I say that because it can easily be a torrential downpour at work 15 minutes away, and not a drop will fall at home, and because I have somehow gotten used to a daily afternoon rain, instead of SLO's 3 days/year. Time to watch the lightning over the river.