Chickens pt2

A few weeks ago my family and I got baby chickens and they have changed quite a bit since then and I feel like I should update you guys on their status. When we first got the chickens they were very small, fuzzy, and scared of everything. Now that we have had them for a while they have become acclimated to their new home and we have been handling them quite often so they aren’t as scared as they used to be. These once little and cute chickens are starting to put on some serious mass and develop thick feathers, they truly get bigger and bigger every day you see them.

The past two weeks we have been letting the chicks out into our yard to free roam and become comfortable in the outside world. My dad had to buy a gate to block the chicks from coming onto the patio and pooping everywhere.

When it gets hot the chicks like to sleep on oddly shaded places. A few of the larger once have found out tree planters an ideal napping area, but for the ones who can’t jump up there, they settle for under the bushes . One problem you might have are hawks! We have been seeing hawks swooping down on the poor things and stalking them from the telephone wires. The chicks do their best to stay out of plain sight now that they have had their lives threatened.

The more and more the chicks grow up the more individualized they become, the thicker feathers have much more color and grow differently on all of the chicks. I highly recommend getting chicks to raise, they are a lot of fun and you get eggs too.

Hair

This weekend I went to the school play, “Hair” with my friend Eli. The reason that we wen’t was because both of our teachers offered extra credit for attending and writing some things down about what you saw. I am very glad that we went to the play because I really needed the extra credit if I wanted to keep my grades the way they were. The play proved to be somewhat entertaining in my opinion, because by older sister’s best friend was performing as a major character.

The first thing Eli and I found as a dominant thing in the theater was the amount of fog in the room, along with the crazy hippie lights that filled the room. The fog moving in the light is almost hypnotic when listening to the tribal love rock music. All of the acting and singing was very well done and was quite fast paced and fun. The emotion of the characters was dramatic and showed the practice and effort that all of the performer had put in to the play.

Aside from the amazing singing and stage set, the story of the play was pretty interesting if you could keep up. it was basically about a bunch of hippies fighting against the war and everything else that hippies don’t like. At the end of the play I felt like I actually got to know each and every one of the characters, and it was weird seeing what all of the performers looked like without all of their silly costumes and makeup. I feel more appreciative of theater now that i’ve seem how much effort it takes to compose a play and perform it without making a single mistake, it is truly incredible! I am hoping to go to more plays and other events held by the theater group next year, they are a great time and sometimes even help out your grades.

Spainers

Last summer my family and I took a trip to Paris and afterwards flew to Spain for an additional three weeks of fun. We stayed in beautiful San Sebastian and Barcelona. When we arrived in San Sebastian we were in the middle of a tropical looking area at a sketchy small airport. We took a cab into the city and eventually found our smaller than expected apartment. Once we all got all unpacked and ready to be comfortable we found out that there was no wifi!…

To make up for no wifi the family and I went to the beach daily and went out to dinner. The beaches in San Sebastian were among the prettiest iv’e ever seen during the day time, but undoubtedly are prettiest at sunset. San Sebastian offers so much to do, like go to concerts or hike to the top of the local mountain and go inside the old military fort that once defended the city from invaders. all of the food was very fresh from the sea and prepared expertly at almost all restaurants. while in San Sebastian I was forced to use the little Spanish vocabulary I had, but I did learn a lot too. 

After our amazing time in San Sebastian It was time to head to Barcelona and experience some big city culture. We did much of the same stuff but this time we had wifi:) The food was honestly even better in Barcelona. We only stayed in the city for one week but

Beach Days

Going to the beach is one of my favorite things to do, especially when there are some decent waves. Unfortunately it was recently winter and the water has been very cold so I haven’t gone in quite a while. However my friend that I usually go with talked me into going this weekend. 

We headed down to Hendry’s beach in the morning after getting a delicious breakfast at Spudnuts and Bagels. when we arrived there weren’t very many people besides the surfers and people at The Boathouse. The water was a bit to chilly when we first wanted to go in so we ended up taking a stroll down the beach quite a ways until the sun warmed us up more. To ease into the water we started skim boarding, and challenging each other to various tricks and maneuvers. One might think that skim boarding is hard, which it really isn’t but you sure do fall a lot. 

After a few hours of chilling on the beach, getting tan, and messing around in the water, and playing some beach volleyball we sure were tired and hungry. fortunately The Boathouse is on the beachfront just a few yards from where we were. Since The Boathouse doesn’t serve sandy sun baked hooligans we were forced to eat from the small overpriced snack shack, but convenience and “quality” comes at a price I guess. 

After my friend and finished our lunch we went on another walk down the beach looking for something to do. We weren’t feeling the best after the mediocre meal we just at minutes ago so we thought that non-vigorous  activities would be the best idea, so we walked up to the Douglas Family Preserve. It was getting late by the point we got the the Preserve so we just walked around, explored, and eventually ended up at the end of the walkway just as the sun was going down. By then we were getting ready to get going so we headed back down to the beach to get picked up, and boy was the sunset beautiful.

LAX life

Lacrosse is a huge passion in my life and I play it any chance I get. I haven’t been playing for that long, just one year with the local Santa Barbara Lacrosse program, one season at the terrible school San Marcos on JV, and now this year on the SBHS Varsity team!

several of the varsity lacrosse players decided to bleach their hair in honor of the San Marcos rivalry game, including Myself… On monday night I decided that I was going to bleach my hair and show my dedication to the team. I thought that getting a do it yourself kit would do the trick, so I had my dad pick one up at CVS on his way home. My dad began the process of making the bleaching mixture, that composed of powders, oils, and other chemicals that I was about to put in my hair. As My dad began to coat my whole head of hair with the toxic concoction of bleaching chemicals I has beginning to have to serious thoughts that I had made a very bad decision.

Once the bleach was in my hair I had to leave it in for at least 30 minutes, but I knew that wasn’t going to be long enough, so I kept it in for about an hour. After the hour was up my head was burning and I couldn’t wait to get in the shower. Once i did shower I couldn’t help to notice that my hair turned out golden yellow. I went to school the next day and got a tremendous amount of hate and extreme responses toward my hair. To fix this problem I though it would be a good idea to redo my hair to get rid of the yellow. Luckily for my one of my friends mom if a hair stylist that could do it for me for free and professionally. My friend and I both went in to his mom and gout our hair bleached, for me a second time. The trick is to keep it in for as long as possible and of course having salon grade hair products help too.

Once I was done with the process my hair was actually white! The next day people shared their opinions, on it like last time but at least they were good opinions this time

Spring Boarding at Mammoth

Going to the snow isn’t something that I get to do very often, so when the opportunity comes my way I am sure to take it up and have a great time. I did just that this spring break with my family and some friends at Mammoth Mountain Ski Resort.

My Dad and I headed out from our house around 12:00pm and only got to Summerland before having to turn around because we realized that we forgot a few things… I got to get about four hours of driving in on the Mojave stretch, while my dad decided to sleep on me. The drive to Mammoth along the 395 is full of very beautiful scenery to gaze at.

Luckily for El Nino California received some decent snow this year which was a great change. The first two days I was there there were storms that provided some pretty good snow to board in, but often times there was so  much snow in the air that you couldn’t see.

Right when I got on the lift I felt so happy and ready to start boarding. I thought that I would be rusty, but I was actually doing very well and felt comfortable. After a few hours of boarding by my self I felt that I had already improved so much and I  began to jump off of everything that I could and go through the trees. Unfortunately going through the trees is a risky thing to do when you are going fast and I managed to hit a tree, twice! Luckily they were small and I only boarded away with a sprained wrist.

I wasn’t snowboarding alone for the whole trip gladly, on the second day my dad and I went everywhere on the mountain. He was really interested in my snowboarding so he would follow me through the trees and record me. On the last day it was very hot and slushy, so I had to unclothe quite a bit, if you know what I mean.

Mammoth always delivers such a great family snow experience, whether you are actually on the mountain with your family or not.

Paris!

This past summer my family and I traveled to Paris. We got to experience so many new things like the food, architecture, the museums, and of course the culture. We were there for one week and we certainly had no dull moments, especially since our parents decided that we would walk everywhere…

One of the first things we did was visit the Louvre, one of the largest art museums in the world. The day we visited the museum it was insanely sunny and the area outside was nearly impossible to be in without being blinded by the light. Once we found the entrance with our eyes watering and stunned we couldn’t choose where to go first. The Louvre is so massive and there are so many pieces of art to see. New saw the Mona Lisa, which was surrounded by hundreds of people. The walls were always displaying some sort of art painting. The sculptures ware awesome, the detail is stunning for when they were made.

All of the food in Paris was so unique, different, and authentic in my opinion. there are tons of nice restaurants, pub, and food stands to get a quick bite to eat or have a full nice meal. The photo above is when my dad and I were eating fondue at a very nice little restaurant that was hidden away. In the mornings we would go to the crepe restaurant and watch our tasty breakfast’s be made.

We couldn’t have visited Paris if we didn’t see the Eiffel Tower! This huge tower is magnificent and truly an amazing piece of work. I didn’t really appreciate the amazing size of the beast and the beauty or Paris until I was at the top. From the top you could see practically all of the city and every little detail of how it’s facilitated. My eyes would get lost tracking the various streets projecting off of the Arch De Triumph

Paris Is by far one of my all time favorite places i’ve ever traveled to and I highly recommend going there once in your lifetime. The culture is amazingly rich and enjoyable to be around.

Chicken Coop

About a year ago my family decided that we were going to get chicks, raise them and harvest their eggs. Before we even got the chicks we had to prepare by making a suitable housing area and incubator for the chicks when they arrive. My dad and I started off by Making a small 4×3 incubator with heating lamp for the chicks to grow up in, but now we just use it for food storage. The incubator has two lids, one for viewing the chicks and one for accessing them. The overall process wasn’t too difficult because of the somewhat simple design and small size. In the end the incubator turned out great and has help up through the first part of El Nino and the past 12 months with no trouble, but most importantly it kept the chicks it ideal safe growing conditions. 

We knew that the chicks were going to grow up fast and need a much larger housing area. So before they were too big for their incubator my dad and I headed back out to that drawing board to come up with a new house for the chicks. We ended up spending about a week making a huge chicken coop that our chickens would love. We used a similar design as the incubator but we just increased the size and added new features. Those features include nests, a sleeping rod, and a door to the outside area. Speaking of the outside area, it was a 7×7 area with food and water containers, hay flooring, and a tree branch roost that the chickens could hang out on during the day. Soon enough the chicks turned into chickens and we moved them into the new house. They loved it from the minute they moved in and they have ever since.

The best part of having chickens besides the cute chicks, are the amazing eggs. The eggs are way better than any store bought eggs because these chickens are free range! Sadly however the eggs don’t last forever and our chickens stopped laying a little while ago. I highly encourage you to get chickens at your house, they are such a great resource, pet, and experience!

Farmers market

Yesterday my friend Owen and I decided to check out our local farmers market after school. Both of us hadn’t been in years and thought that the experience would be a nice refreshment to our lives. We were just planning on looking around at all of the different stands, but we brought money just in case something caught our eyes.

The market its self takes up two block of state street with dozens of tents and stands that offer all or your basic fruits and vegetables as well as many unique items as well. While in the market, you don’t feel like your down town because the road is blocked off and there’s not noisy traffic. The chill music from the various people playing it on the sidewalk provides a relaxed and fun feeling that is very enjoyable to be around.

Most stands are presented very nicely any creatively like the one above. It gives a spanish sort of look that makes the market feel authentic if you will. At this stand there were a few exotic fruits being sold like cherimoyas, passion fruit, etc. Since I love passion fruit and I get it on such rare occasion i decided to buy one pound of them. The seller was charging 8 dollars per pound however when he gave my my change the total was only 5 dollars which was an unexpected pleasure of the day.

 Some of the more interesting things for sale at the farmers market are goods like pies, honeys, nuts, wheat grass, and even dairy products and oils. All of these different products really make me appreciate how they got here from these small “farms” and businesses. Things like cheese and milk that are sold are very unique products to be selling at a local market. The pie stand offered a variety of different types of pie flavors, sizes, and nutritional preferences. Owen bought a small cube or apple pie that he said was absolutely great tasting.

overall the farmers market is a must do at least once. it will provide a amazing experience that you wont regret. Walking down the street full of food stands with a honey stick in your mouth with rad local music is certainly is a great thing to do to relax and burn some free time.

Decorating Doughnuts

My sister was recently performing in the Music of The night Play at my high school. My family was asked to bring some type of snack to contribute to the food stand. My mom thought a great thing to do was decorate doughnuts with weird and interesting toppings like cereal and candy.

We had to make an improvised adhesive/glaze to stick the toppings to which was made of liquified powdered sugar. when My other sister and I started it was very difficult the get the toppings to stick and they were just running off the sides of the doughnuts and making a complete sticky mess! We soon figured out that we needed to thicken out the consistency of the improvised glaze, and once we did we had a much easier time. We certainly had a lot of fun with the experimental combinations of sprinkles, candy, and cereal. We ended up with so many different combinations from simple sprinkles to very detailed ones with multiple sections.

As cool as these doughnuts my look, the process of it was very messy, and surprisingly difficult. Dealing with so many small sprinkles, proved to be difficult when pouring them onto plates and into bowls and was almost impossible to do without at least 30 of them flying off onto the floor and any other place that you will run into later. Even just applying the toppings was hard enough, half of the time they wouldn’t stick to the doughnut and you would have to re-sprinkle toppings onto the bald spots on them. The lucky charms cereal topping was by far the biggest pain because none of the individual pieces of cereal would stay on when trying to dip the doughnut into them. So, we ended up having to place every piece of the lucky charms onto the doughnuts one by one which took lots of precision and patience, in order for a decent outcome that would be sellable.

In the end the experience proved to be very well worth it, and is something i’d highly recommend as a fun and creative family project. I feel that it truly brought me closer to my sister and id imaging for her as well and the project gave me a feeling of satisfaction for completing such a surprisingly challenging feat. Knowing that they sold out very quickly at the food stand only contributes to that great feeling! 🙂