Will these box people ever STOP!

Another one has cropped up, this time in Quebec (at this point I would normally give you the link but like any true Quebecers, their site is in French and the English Button is broken - hahahaha).

They may speak funny but they sure can build a container home and on the cheap too....here are the details from JetsonGreen -

Using seven recycled shipping containers, architect Bernard Morin and wife Joyce Labelle built this contemporary residence in St. Adele, Quebec.  The home is the first of many to come for their new company, Maison Idekit, which will help homeowners turn containers into architecturally unique, and inexpensive, homes.  The company has two more residential projects set to break ground in the next couple months using a total of twelve container modules.

IDEKIT's first home is 3,000 square feet with four-bedrooms.  It cost about $175,000 to build and turns container design on its head.  Rather than feature the exposed containers on the exterior, the containers are exposed on the inside -- you can even see serial numbers, dents, and corrugated detail in several places throughout the home.  On the outside, the home has five inches of insulation that is topped by brown wood siding.

Photo credits: Maison IDEKIT.

Post-Twitter recap

So my cohorts in initially rescuing Twitter were great friends Kathy and Katie. Well, Kathy's sister lives in NYC and upon learning of the Twitter story sent this recap that pretty much sums up the whole Twitter story -

" My sister Kathy and her friend Hannah found a newborn baby finch (christened Twitter) who's mom kicked it out of the nest because her was the runt.  They rescued poor little Twitter and actually dug up worms and chopped them into bite-size pieces for him. To get him to eat, they mimicked his mom by making high-pitched chirping noises.  Kathy had to go home, but Hannah continued to feed (actually buying high quality worms from the pet shop and still lovingly chopping them up) and care for little Twitter.  Twitter grew and flourished under Hannah's care and even took to hanging out with the computer mouse on Hannah's desk (see pictures below).  Every once in awhile he would chirp for food and flex his little wings, but he was content to hang with Hannah.

This afternoon, Hannah watched proudly as Twitter took his maiden voyage and soared through the air... where his mom promptly escorted him back to the nest.

WTF? Hannah feeds and raises this poor abandoned bird as she would her own child (actually making her underlings at work provide daycare services) and the mother reclaims it, with not so much as thanks to Twitter's foster mom?  The welfare system of this country is atrocious! I'm moving to Canada."

Empty Nest

It finally happened and couldn't have had a more perfect ending. The little birdie - Twitter, flew the nest on Friday morning.

I was having trouble getting him to hunt and peck for his own food and I was going to be gone most of Friday so wanted to leave him in his house with some worms so he might figure it out when he became hungry. In the process of getting him into his house before I left he kept flying out and wouldn't stay still. So I took him out on the back deck and put him on the floor, hoping he might see the other birds flying around and get the idea of what he was SUPPOSED to do.

Not a minute after he was on the deck, who should fly up but his mother. I have no doubt in my mind it was his mom, she cam right up to  him by the back of the deck, stayed there for a few minutes and then flew back to the deck railing as if to say "come on, time to go". I made myself scarce at this point not wanting to scare mom away from showing her babe the ropes, the part of birdie raising I can't do.

When I poked my head back on the deck a minute or two later, Twitter was gone. I hung out for a while listening for him but nothing. He had a great start as it was morning and he had all day with him mom with no dangers (no kitties or doggies) and hopefully has figured out the flying thing and the searching for worms.

Good luck Twitter, come back and visit anytime.....

Of Mice and Men

Like we don't have enough to do around here - just when you think you have a plan and are actually ticking things OFF the list, something unplanned  happens that throws it all off and chaos ensues.

Last night we got to it and finally got our household composter built. We have been using a small wire netted area outside but it was a mess, the dogs could get into it, you couldn't turn it and it was drying out.  So we kicked butt (well Kyle did) and got our new one made. Pretty cool, huh. And we can rotate it daily and its got worms etc... just like it says in our fabulous composting book (thanks Mom for snagging that book at the flea market for 25 cents, its awesome).

Well, we had just got this finished and oiled and in place when this little outside faucet that we have, its in the middle of the garden and has had a little trickle of a leak so Kyle put a bird bath underneath it so put the little trickle to good use, though the only one that uses it is Ziggy as his personal drinking fountain.

Well this afternoon the dam broke. It slooged water everywhere and was flooding. So Kyle turned off the water at the house...no go, that wasn't its source. So he went up to the shop, which has its own cistern and turned the water off there, that relieved the pressure but water still flowed. We finally figured that it was attached to the cistern and was now being gravity fed directly from the cistern. So Kyle dug down to the joint and we tried to detach the faucet.

He said twist, so I did, Oooops, it broke off. So now we had a true geyser. So we ran around collecting the water and irrigating everything we could. Every tree, plant and bush got a huge flood of water. Finally the cistern ran down and I was able to dig out around the pipe while Kyle went to the Depot (read Home Depot) to get the parts which is where he is now.

Morning Update - the new faucet is up and installed. We now wait to see how long it will take for the cistern to refill.. a good test for the property as to how much water we have available beneath us and traveling through.

Hmmm, wonder who won this David/Goliath match up......I can tell you the toy is no longer.

Little Birdies

On Saturday as we were relaxing out on the deck, we found a little sparrow type baby who has fallen out his nest. We put him back a few times but  he kept falling into the netting we put up for them and then we watched  the nest for a few hours and the mom no longer was feeding him. So out he came and into his own private Condo.

He has been doing well, except for Monday morning as I got to work with NO food for him, I was seriously stressing. I dug for over 4 hours on Sunday and then again around work on Monday, and no worms. Where the heck are all the worms, no wonder our soil stinks!! To the rescue Katie and Danielle as they jetted off to Petco to pick up little containers of worms which birdie LOVES!

Since then he has been doing great, he is getting strong and big and strutting around. This morning his siblings flew their nest, well stumbled out of the nest, half flew, half fell onto the deck and then into the blackberries, where they will be safe till they figure out. Unfortunately, Birdie doesn't seem quite ready to fly away and prefers the safety of the Condo...he is still a tad smaller than his siblings so we will give him an extra day before the Tough Love kicks in and he will have to go it alone.