Friday Favourites – Settling Into Our New Home

Happy Friday! The weeks are just flying by right now! Everything is kind of revolving around the house these days. We’re working on it around the clock and I can’t wait to start sharing more photos soon. My big plans for the weekend are lots of yard work (weather permitting), organizing things inside and researching some upcoming projects. Lots of things in the works!

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The chicks are getting so big! Even since I took these photos earlier this week they’ve grown substantially. They now feel about the size of a robin and they have so many feathers coming in.

 My favourite is still when they get all warm and cozy, and fall asleep.

We try to take them out every day but it’s been hard with so much rain this week. When we do get them out, they spend the whole time pecking up the yard. These ones found Garrett’s freckles and started going for them, ha!

I caught these two cuddled up using the feeding bowl as a bed, so I went and bought a jar feeder. No more worrying about everyone else starving while these two nap.

Our CSA was full of lovely organic produce this week – kale, swiss chard, mushrooms, mustard greens, bok choy, rhubarb, french radishes, green onions, wild spinach and arugula. I’ve been loving the Arugula Basil Pesto I made with this haul and we might have some more wilted greens stir fries this weekend like we did with the Sautéed Spring Greens & Perogies.

This whole home ownership thing is real. The last three weeks have been packed with planning, figuring out what work we’re doing ourselves and what we need quotes on, starting said projects…and cleaning up after they’re done. Even the mundane things, like when we shocked our new well together the other night (warranted a selfie!), can be fun when we’re figuring it out together.

We’ve been really lucky to have our families helping us research and learn how to do as much as we can ourselves. If we just had someone do everything for us, we could easily sink tens of thousands of dollars into this house, but by learning to do it ourselves we hope to keep those costs as low as possible.

I’ve been really lucky to have my brother and dad home a lot the last few weeks, as they’ve been able to help us get all our appliances installed, and Garrett’s parents are coming out tonight to figure out what work we need to do to prepare for the porch restoration later this month.

The photo above cracks me up. My brother and his friend were drilling through our over a foot thick walls to install our new dryer vent. He asked me to put my phone through the hole so he could take a picture on the outside and show my dad how much patching up need to be done on the stucco.

Thankfully we were able to get our new washer and dryer stacked and into this small alcove off the kitchen. Please note the dogs are always where all the action is and right under foot. Our little supervisors.

Last weekend we had both sets of parents over for our first official dinner party and a huge bonfire out back. It was such a nice night out and made us really excited for more summer nights like this.

We’ve been trying to get as much yard work done in the evenings as we can before the sun goes down and the mosquitoes really come out. Then it’s time to head indoors and keep working at unpacking boxes and sorting everything…usually while trying to get caught up on all the TV we missed this spring while getting ready for the move. We even got through all three Jurassic Park movies in anticipation for the Jurassic World movie coming out this weekend. We both have really found memories of the first one as kids so it’ll be fun to see this one together. I even made a big batch of my favourite Perfectly Popped Stovetop Popcorn for the occasion.

The dogs always eagerly wait by the stove while I make it because they know I’ve inevitably give them all the popcorn that I drop while pouring it into the bowl. They just know me so well.

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Hope you have a great weekend!