Cleaning Yard - Pruning the Big Tree Once Again

Five months ago almost to the day, I finally finished pruning my big tree. It was a project that took me MONTHS to do. Here is my post on March 18, 2015 where I finished pruning the tree.

I actually started pruning the tree in October nearly five months before finishing it. I was sharing in the post about a new tool I bought to use to prune the tree. Here is that post. 

In December, I finally gave up pruning the tree on my own and hired someone to finish the larger branches as I nearly killed myself with a branch that wanted revenge while I was still up in an extension ladder. Here is the post about that mess I was left to clean up. They cut the tree, I cut up the branches and removed them all from my yard. Click here to see that post.  

With that, I thought my big tree pruning days were over. However, for the past five months, the tree has been on a survival mode where it grew branches all the way down to the ground. You COULDN'T see the tire swing or the hammock chair that I have hanging in the tree because the branches covered the entire tree. It didn't look like a tree at all but like a HUGE bush.

It has been hot and I have been trying to get one thing done a day in the house. Because it has been so hot, I try to get that one thing done in the evening and somewhat cooler hours. It isn't much cooler but it is what it is. 

I have avoided the garden area as I told you I think the parasite problems I am having result from thread worm in the soil so I am not excited about my garden. In fact, since I have figured out what the parasite is, I have actually avoided the garden and didn't plant anything else and the garden has erupted into a huge mess of volunteer plants and weeds. Here is post one of the parasite posts.
 
Even the play area is getting overgrown with weeds as I can't deal with the heat and frustration of the huge kitty litter box it has become. I decided I needed to put my big girl clothes on and deal with it today. Princess Five wasn't thrilled I decided to get back to the yard but was good to help even though it was hot and overwhelming. I wish I had taken a picture of the tree before we started. You couldn't see the trunk at all.  


I thought the job would take about 15 minutes. Princess Five knew better. I had no idea how strong and large the new branches could grow in five months. I thought I could just go snap off the new branches and fit them all into the four garbage cans I had. 

Well, I couldn't break them off. As the new tree wanted to get as much sun as possible, it grew in every direction. I couldn't move under the tree until I cut some branches off. It took us hours to pull and cut down all the branches and then move around under the tree once I had cut a path. 

We finished when it got dark bundling up the last of it and hauling it out for the garbage men. I hope they forgive the amount of branches again as I wished after all that pruning, my days of many cans full of branches would be over. 

I still have a few bins of girls camp stuff that I have been procrastinating to put away as I need to mend a few things before putting them back into storage. It is my family reunion luau beach stuff. I just added the pirate stuff I bought for camp to the mix as it would be cute for that as well.

I am grateful to have one more thing off my "to do" list but I am sad to say it will probably be back on my "to do" list in another five months as that seems to be about how long I get before I have to address the tree again. I am just grateful that I have the tree. I was saying that to Princess Five as we worked sharing that I LOVE having a shade tree in our yard and I am glad since pruning it, it has come back and is now giving us shade again! 

Making Pirate Scarves, Headbands, Hats - Camp Fun

For girls camp this year, we did a pirate theme for our hike. We also dressed the Jr Leaders up as Pirates for the hike. Here is a link to a post about the bag of stuff we gave each of them.


I wish I had done a video of how Princess Five cut and tied off the fronts of the t-shirt. She cut the bottom hem off the t-shirt and then cut holes at the neck edge and then she laced the hem / ribbon through like a shoe gets laced so that the neck "ties" like a shoe or draw string. 


You can't really see it well in the pictures in this post but then we told each girl to cut up or decorate her t-shirt as much as she wanted. You can see in the pictures that each girl did what they wanted with the shirts. 


I made the scarf out of an Aeropostle scarf that I found for $2 at a second hand store. I was looking for a linen type fabric that I could cut into pirate scarves and was THRILLED to see this one that had skulls on it. 


It was PERFECT for what we wanted and it was linen and "frayed" looking which was exactly what I wanted for the scarf / pirate hats. 

I made a video of how I did it just for ease but figured I would show the details as well. It was a large square scarf which I folded on the diagonal and then folded on the diagonal again and again until I had it down to the size of a bandana half. I cut on the diagonals making 8 scarves.  

I used red bandanas for our pirate costumes for years so I knew how to tie off the scarf to make it look like a pirate skull cap. 
 
When tying the scarves off, you need to make sure that the top point of the triangle is tucked down into the bottom two pieces of the triangle when tying the base knot so that you can pull the top of the scarf tight.

I made Princess Five try them on for me so I could demonstrate how to leave the ends out and frayed so it looks more like a pirate scarf. 

After pulling the top corner into the knot, leave the longer ends out which makes it looks like a pirate scarf. 

Princess Five was really cute saying that she thought the hat was really cute and if I had an extra one, she wouldn't mind having one. I figure if a teen wants it, it must be cool! 

It worked well for the hike and many of the girls said it was their favorite event of camp.

Internet Frustration - Three Days Off.....

I had such a frustrating month with internet. You can see I had some problems for some time with my internet. The company I use said my internet was bumped down slower than I was paying for due to problems with it being slow on my end. 

I put in a new modem thinking the problem may be on my end. Click here to see this post. That was towards the end of the last month. I had been having problems for some time and when it rained, it seemed to be when the line didn't work. I was hoping that the new modem was going to fix the problem but it didn't work.

On Wednesday, after a week of things not working well for some time, our internet only worked for a few minutes during the day. On Thursday, it worked even less and the time was so short, I couldn't post. I called the internet company and they couldn't get anyone out here until Tuesday morning. We didn't have a second of internet from Thursday until 2 in the morning last night. 

I was so frustrated when my phone started beeping as I knew the line was working again. I was hoping that the line would still be down when the repair man showed as he can't do anything as long as the line is working.

My neighbor has had lots of problems with slow internet as well and she came over while the repair man was working on my line. We are paying for faster internet but can't get the faster speeds. The repair guy told me to call immediately if it goes out again and I told him it was just a matter of rain. I worry when the snow comes as it will be much harder to fix with frozen ground. 

He said there are only three more places it could be. Hopefully, it will happen before snow. It just gets worse each rain and we have never been without internet for three days. I am hoping when they fix it, they will be able to increase my speed. It takes over an hour for a few minute video to upload. 

The repair man said that most people only download things and not many upload and that may be a problem for me since I do upload. This is the first time in five years I haven't posted something for every day. I have been late due to internet etc but I have uploaded something for each day. I am not going to go back and post for those two days but will post this for today's post and begin again tomorrow. 

I have been giving gratitude for internet these past few days as not having it makes me grateful when I do, even though it may be slow, at least I have it! 

Pirate Sword Party Favors - Treats for Camp Hike

We did our girls camp this year to an underwater, ocean, boat, pirate type theme. 
 
I shared in yesterday's post about how we made a treasure map by scouting a hike before and planning where we would do lessons and give out treats. Here is a link to that post. 

We had each Jr. Leader give a little lesson at a specific place on the map. We wanted to give out a handout that would go along with the message.

Some spots we gave out charms and others apples, drinks etc. We wanted a sweet item they could enjoy while hiking so we talked about making sword out of sweets as at one spot we wanted to talk about "how to defend yourself against pirates." 
 
Pirates use swords so I came up with an idea to make swords out of some candy sticks I already had. 

We had the Jr. Leaders dressed as pirates and here is a post on how we made their costumes cheap and inexpensively. 

You can make these out of pencils and they would actually be sharp at the tip so they could be cute for a Pirate themed birthday or class party for primary aged children.

There are two ways to make them. One with a hand shield or without. Since it was for older kids and on a hike, the less garbage the better. I didn't make the hand shield but show on the video above how to make them and will share in the written form as well.

Basically, cut card stock paper in the shape of a large band-aid. Curve the ends. Use a punch to punch a hole in both ends of the paper band-aid just large enough to fit your candy stick or pencil into. 

To make the "shield" cut a round piece out of the card stock, silver would be cute, clip and "X" in the center of the circle and slip the pencil into the "x" and then slip one end of the band-aid on and then the other on pushing them close together so that the center of the band-aid shaped piece pokes out making the handle. 

It is easy enough that you can have the children make their own handle and shield. You could even make these for a castle or knight themed party and actually make a paper "shield" with a crest colored onto it for a favor as well. I think cub scouts, girl scouts, knights groups, and achievement day kids would have fun making these. Our middle school has "Castle Days" where each kid makes a castle from trash. Here is a post one about Princess Five making hers and post two on finishing it up. Here is another on her winning a prize.

In order to keep them from breaking, I stuck them in a large can for transport before the Jr. Leaders stuck them onto our pirates platter for the girls to "find" on their treasure hunt. 

These were cute and made the point for the lesson we intended. I think someday I may actually use these for a grandma party and have them find a treasure and maybe even use the same map and hike our girls did. It was a fun idea.  
 
As an afterthought, I searched "Sword" on my blog as I have been writing over five years now, I can't remember all my posts. Up came last years girls camp where we had a "fairy tale" theme and they used swords and shields for that, wouldn't this have been a cute and easy handout for that. Here is a link to that post where they made actual size swords and shields out of cardboard. 

Making a Pirates Treasure Map - Hiking Fun

We did an ocean, pirate, ship, anchor, under the sea theme for girls camp this year. 
 
We did a hike on the first day that we walked a week before and laid out where we wanted our cute pirate items to decorate and what lessons we wanted taught at each spot. I found some cute pirate stuff at a yard sale and posted about that here.

We had Jr. Leaders give little lessons at each stopping point. We also had them dressed up as pirates. Check out my blog on what we did to make the costumes inexpensively here. 
 
We also gave out something at each spot. The first was a eye patch. We gave out charms and snacks at other points with a treasure chest at the end with a pearl charm and a picture of Christ in a jeweled frame as he is the "real" treasure. 
 
I made the pearl charm from some broken pearl beads. I had to repair the treasure chest hinge that split the wood and that is posted here. 

I made a video on how I made the pirates map, just click on the video above to view that. 

I also wanted to share that walking the hike or treasure hunt ahead of time, so that you can detail items on the hike that you can highlight, on the trail, in the map makes for great fun. 

Also you can find areas that are good for a snack or take a rest and "name" those areas so the kids can be on the look out for those. 

We had a few people go up ahead of us and use ATVs to put up the decorations before hand and then once we passed that spot walking, they followed us and took them down.

They were cute signs and pirates, talking pirate heads, pirate buckets with treats etc. so we didn't want them to get taken by other hikers on their way down so having a team of people to help works well. 

After taking the hike and taking notes on the best place to stop or put treats etc, it is good to name them so they can be put on your map along with a drawing of the place. 

Basically, to make the map, rip up (not cut) a brown paper bag or wrapping. Crinkle it up to make it look old. Burn the edges of the "map" making sure to be careful to not let it "get away on you." Do it outside or over metal. Have a way to put it out quickly at hand in case it does get away. 

Decorate it with stamps, markers, colored pencils or crayons. Voila, you have yourself a treasure map! 
 
We also had different Jr. Leaders give little lessons along the way at each of the stopping points. I took a picture of our notes on it and what lessons we taught at each stopping point. I will probably post pictures of the decorations and hike if I can get them from those that went on the hike. 

I had to decorate the cabin during the hike so I just did the "pre-hike" the week before helping them to decide which decorations went where etc.  

We were lucky on our hike as there were mine shafts, log cabins, waterfalls, landslides, and murky mud holes and some goose neck winds, there was even a lightning chard tree! 


We gave them names like "Captains Hook" for the goose-neck switch backs. "Black Beards Cabin" was fun and the mud holes were "quicksand" and the mine was "Dead mans Drop" so naming the spots was all kept within the Pirates theme. 


I borrowed a little foot stamp that my sister had to use for the foot prints on the map but I think the girl I had draw the map actually just drew them on. 

I gave her the list of names and the map we used to scope it out and her sister had actually gone on the hike so she could answer any questions but I thought it would be good to include this girl in the preparation since she was going on the hike but hadn't been able to go with us on the prep hike. 


She did an amazing job. At first, we were going to rip the map into pieces and have them piece it together but after seeing how cute she made it, I decided I wanted to keep it to use with my pirates stuff for halloween so in the end, we didn't rip it up. 

It was a great hike, the map, decorations and treats at each stop made it fun. I had one girl "lead" the hike and give instructions on what they needed to look for as their next stopping place so they wouldn't go ahead. It worked out well. Fun day for some awesome girls!!

Making a Sail Decoration - Pirate Ship or Tall Ship - Part 2

Yesterday, I posted about the way I decorated the deck of the cabin we stayed at for our girls camp. Here is a link to that post.


I wanted to share how I made the sail for the ship decoration / deck. I thought I took a video of how I made it but I can't seem to find it on my sd cards. 

I got a large carpet roll from Home Dept for free. They keep a few on hand as people ask for them. 

I will mention here that you can also make palm trees out of them if you were doing a beach theme as we did as well but I didn't think of it at the time. 
 
I have seen them made with green paper hanging down cut into palm fronds and they looked good. You could paint the base trunk as well making them have the triangle shaped bark.

To make the sails, you need two dowels and a curtain or shower rod. You also need a sheet or blanket of some type. 

I was going to use a sheet and gather it up to make it look like sails as where the ropes go through the sails always looks gathered on a large sail. God blessed me though as I didn't want to have to spend the time on that and also the money to make it so I said a little prayer and as He always does, he provided the perfect thing! 


I was at the food bank a few weeks ago picking up Mangoes that they had an overage of and I was getting them to distribute. Click here for that post.

They have a spot where people can donated clothes and household items and this comforter was sitting outside in a bin. I asked about it and they said it was free to whomever wanted it. I still don't know why it was outside as they have never had anything like that outside but I was grateful as I didn't go into the area that they have for that type of thing so I would never have seen it otherwise. 

 
We ended up using white yarn to make / sew loops through the quilt to put the dowels through. On the top, we made them larger to put the curtain rod into. When doing this gather a larger area so that the tension on the yarn won't rip through the fabric.

The rod ended up bending in the wind as the blanket actually did become like a sail so I would recommend that you make it a shower rod which is a bit stronger than the thin curtain rod I used. A wooden curtain rod would be ideal.
 
After threading the rod through the yarn at on end of the sheet or quilt, I then tied the rod onto the carpet top using rope making the "sail" centered onto the top of the carpet tube. It could also be zip tied but I just looped the rope through the large holes after looping it around the curtain rod and then tied it firmly. You can see in the third photo that there are holes in the bottom and top of the carpet tube.

For the bottom, we threaded two different dowels through the bottom of the sheet using the yarn. I didn't want the dowels to show so we actually sewed them about an inch up on the quilt so you could only see the dowels from the back. I then drilled a hole into the carpet roll using a drill bit the same size as the dowel I used. Depending on the thickness of dowel you use, you would use the same size drill bit. 

Drill two holes through both sides of the tube so that you can push the longer dowels through  both holes. Once you have them looped through both holes and it is holding the bottom of the sheet down, I used Duck / Duct tape to hold the dowels together and also around the ends of the dowels so that they wouldn't fall out. 


I lashed the sail to the deck but you could actually drill a hole into a stump or log and stick the entire thing into a log if needed. Or, the back of a sturdy chair. Anything that can hold it secure.

The sail looked legit and I thought it was a creative way to decorate the deck. Happy sailing!!!!  

Making Your Deck into a Tall Ship or Pirate Ship with Sails - Part 1

I wanted to show you how cute the decorations are that we made for girls camp. I showed the other decorations in the video as well. I will show more of the decorations through the week and explain more how I made the decorations. 


We were staying at a cabin near a lake for our girls camp this year. Our theme was "Live Life Anchored." 

You can see some of the things I made for camp over the last few weeks including a beach bag drawstring backpack, sweats, and key chains. 

I visited the cabin before going to camp so I could get an idea of the space we had and how to decorate it. 

I was thrilled to see that there was a deck as I thought it would be wonderful to make it into a ship. 

We weren't sure if we wanted to make it into a pirate ship or a tall ship. Either way, I wanted to make it into a ship with sails. 
 
We already had an anchor from the beginning of the year theme so I wanted to put it down at the bottom of the deck to make it look like you are looking up at the ship.  

The day I went to decorate for camp, it was hot and there was a misunderstanding and there were people still in the cabin so I started decorating outside as they wouldn't be leaving until our girls were to arrive around noon. I had to do most of the decorating alone as the group was doing their hike. 


It was hot and I was overwhelmed and I had just started pulling things out of the car as I could only decorate the outside of the building because the others hadn't left yet. Feeling a bit discouraged, I looked down and right there on the rocks in front of me was a dime. I knew then that everything would be "OK" as God always lets me know with coins that I need to trust in Him.
 
 
It was a long hot day but the dime was such a wonderful blessing of the day. I'll share more through the week.