Part of a Kitchen

It would be nice to finish one project so we can move on to the next.  The garden is only almost done.  And then we worked on the kitchen.

We have all the cabinets, but there is a lot of work to be done.  First the upper cabinets had to be installed.  You don't want to be reaching over base cabinets to install the wall cabinets.  The problem with installing the upper cabinets first is you forget they are there and stand up or back into them.  Mostly with your head.  This can be painful.  Don't ask me how I know.

   

A trick you might not know about involves a long board screwed to the wall.  Of course it has to be the right height and perfectly level. But after that, you place the bottom of the cabinets on the board and they will be the right height and perfectly level.

Oh, you naïve fool.  Of course they aren't level.  You bought them from a store.  And the store bought them from China and they were shipped across a great ocean in a hot container and then trucked cross country.  Even if they started out perfectly square and level, they aren't NOW!

But you have a board to rest them on so that the wife (me) can hold them up without whinging (that's Brit speak for whining).  Then the husband (Lee) can use wooden strips in gradually increasing thicknesses, called shims, to finish the whole leveling process.  They don't just have to be level from side to side.  They have to fit together and be even across the front.  Now you also have to remember that the walls aren't straight.  They weren't shipped in from China, but they were installed by guys in a big fat hurry to be paid so they could go home.

   

All this means that the wife has to hold us the cabinet for a long time and the husband has to make sure the screws go into studs.  Otherwise they will fall off the wall with all your dishes!  He also has to make sure they are even and symmetrical, because if not, every time he looks in the cupboard it will bug him.

   


Then you have to screw the cabinets together.

Trust me and put up the board.  This does mean there will be holes in the wall to be fixed when the board comes down.  On the other hand the wife is planning to install a tile backsplash and it just might go up to the bottom of the wall cabinets and then she won't have to fix the walls.

Next the bottom cabinets have to be installed.  Oh, wait.  Some of the electrical boxes are either too high or too low, so now you have to move them.  Oh, goody.  We waited until the appliances came to make sure we were leaving enough room to put them in and not too much room for big old gaps.  Once again, you have to use shims to level the base cabinets.  You didn't expect the floors to be perfectly level for 13 feet, did you? 

   

Here is the weird part.  The corner cabinet is a lazy susan to make the most use of the space.  But it doesn't go all the way to the back.  Why is this???

   

I have no idea.  If it just went MOST of the way back we could just use blocks of wood to secure it.  But, no.  There was a gap of almost 8 inches all around.  We have always had custom built cabinets before and never saw these weird things.  This is the second kitchen in the house and a kitchenette, really, so we went with stock cabinets.   It meant we had to build a frame work to screw the cabinet into.  We also had to install a 2X4 along the back for the counter top to rest on.

   

Then we cut and installed another set of 2X4s along the back side of the cabinet.  Then we cut a short piece to hold the cabinet away from the wall so that it lines up with the other cabinets.  We have planned the range on one side and the dishwasher on the other side, so there was a big of wiggle room.  But we still wanted it to be perfect.  Lee used screws to go up under the two long strips and now the cabinet is secure.  Just to be sure, we cut 2 sections of pressure treated 2X6s to go behind the cabinet on the floor.  This will prevent the bottom from going back if bumped.  The counter top will hold the rest.  Not Going Anywhere. 

   

We need to get a few more things done and then we can call for the counter top guys to come and measure.

doors and drawers

   















I WAS going to build a tile counter top, but Lee and I have both reached DIY fatigue.  I think this is a true disability and should be treatable with...I don't know...professional guys and adult beverages.  So a professional guy will cut and install me a granite counter top.  And I will go drink an adult beverage.

We are now part way through building the kitchen.  And then we have the bathrooms.....  Can I get a pitcher to go?

MOSTLY planted

Whenever I use the word MOSTLY , I think of The Princess Bride where Wesley was MOSTLY dead all day.  Love that movie!

   

I prepped the garden last week.  It is amazing how much better the soil is each year.  Now we even have worms!.  Every time I cleaned up after the horse on a rainy day, I would throw a bunch of worms in the bucket to add to the compost.  Then the composted horse droppings were added to the  next garden.  Now the garden soil is soft and wormy. 

   

Check out who is watching me work this morning.  Perhaps she is scoping out where she will steal the fruits (vegetables) of my labor.  Can you see her?  How about now?

   

Today I rolled out the weed cloth and staked it down.  I didn't have quite enough for the whole garden...I guess I got cheap when buying it and didn't get enough. 

   

I hate it when that happens.  Rather than going all the way into town to buy more, I decided I could weed the areas where the soil isn't covered.  Chances are I won't weed that either, but it won't be a lot of weeds and they don't scare me!  The open spot is where the rhubarb will go.

   

I usually shop for my veggies at Sharin' Flowers.  It is a collection of greenhouses on Highway 11 and is just down the street from us.

   

They don't usually have everything I want, so I go to the greenhouse at the other side of Buchanan.  Support your local gardeners! They weren't open yet, so I went home and planted what I had.

   

I bought two big tomato plants.  I try new kinds each year and can never tell you from year to year which I buy and which is the best.  Don't ask, don't tell.

I also bought a Roma...that I know for sure.  Then I bought some yellow squash and some herbs.

I always buy basil and it does very well.  My lavender is coming back after a cold winter,  so I don't need any more of that this year.  It makes for some nice lavender bread and cookies.  I may try to make some sachets for the closet in the B&B this year.  That way it will smell nice and not all closed up when it isn't being used.

Next I bought some Rosemary for cooking with meat or potatoes and some cilantro.  I don't hold out much hope for the cilantro.  I have grown it before and after the first time I cut it, it got all leggy and bloomed and that was that.  But hope springs eternal, so I will try it again.

Sharin' Flowers was out of zucchini and didn't plant any rhubarb, so I went home and planted what I had.  It is supposed to rain all week and I wanted to get the first batch of plants in the ground.

   

I cut an X in the weed cloth and dug a hole for each plant.  Here is where I have to confess.  It is so late in the year, that I didn't buy the wee tomatoes in a 4 or 6 pack.  Oh, no.  I bought the tomatoes in the gallon pots.  That way I won't have to wait until summer is over to have some garden fresh tomatoes.  So I had to cut a BIG X and dig a big hole and now I will have to remember to check the plants for fruit.  Now that I don't have to go past the garden to feed the horse, I may forget it is there!

   

Later in the afternoon I bought three zucchini and planted them.  The rhubarb she planted won't be ready until next week.  I am thinking about rhubarb pie and bread and maybe some muffins.    I might get a big box of strawberries from Sam's Club and make strawberry rhubarb jam.  Doesn't that sound good?

I better hurry up and lose weight.  I need to start baking again. 

Blueberry Pie

I had company this weekend and so I got to go off my diet.  YAY for company!  It is a self-imposed diet, partly determined by my upcoming high school reunion and partly by the fact that my pants are getting tight.  I don't know most of those people well, but they have likely been living in the LA/Orange County area and there is a strong chance of embarrassing my not-so-slim/wrinkly self.  So the diet.  But blueberries are so good for you that I have convinced myself that this is a health food and I should be able to eat health food on ANY diet, RIGHT?

   

Blueberry Pie

6 cups fresh or frozen blueberries, thawed and drained
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 Tablespoons butter, cut up

2 uncooked pie crusts.  Treat yourself and buy them!

   

If you are going to make this using frozen blueberries, give yourself enough time to thaw them.  They will end up sort of soft and squishy and you will have to drain off a little blueberry juice.  IT WILL STAIN, so be careful!

AFTER they are defrosted and drained, get out the pie crusts,  I like the Kroger and the Pillsbury version, and let them warm up a bit.  Assemble all the other ingredients.

   

Preheat the oven to 425.  Spray a pie plate with Pam.  Unroll one of the crusts and place in the pie plate.  Press it gently in place.

Place the blueberries in a large bowl and add the lemon zest and juice.

   

You can carefully zest a lemon and measure it and then juice the rest of the lemon and measure that.  But I didn't.  I just zested the whole lemon and then squeezed the lemon and used the whole shebang.  I love lemon after all.

Sprinkle the flour, sugar and cinnamon on the blueberries and gently mix.  Spoon into the prepared pie crust.  Cut up the butter and dot the top of the berry mixture.

   

Unroll the last pie crust and center on top of the berries.  You can make cute cutouts with a small cookie cutter first, but I didn't have any so I just stuck the top crust on and crimped the edges together.  That's faster anyway!  Don't forget to cut a few slits in the top to let the steam escape.

   

If you wish, you can add an egg and milk wash on top

   

To do this whip up an egg and a Tablespoon of milk and brush the top of the pie.  I sprinkled a Tablespoon of sugar on top of the egg wash.  None of this is necessary, but it gives the top a shiny surface and the sugar adds a little bit of sweet to the crust.

   

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until the crust is turning a golden brown.  Mine got a little too brown at 35 minutes, so check at 30 minutes.   Let the pie cool until just warm or the blueberry filling will ooze all over the place and will not stay in a pie shape.  And you might burn your tongue. So curb your cravings and let it sit, at least 30 minutes to an hour.

Serve with vanilla ice cream.  The ice cream will melt from the warm pie and ooze all over the plate.  When you are done with the pie you will be tempted to lick the blueberry cream puddled on your plate.  Use a spoon, unless you are by yourself and no one will see your blue nose and chin.  Why not?   You have totally blown your diet and the next week will be boring, so indulge for now.

Cat Entertainment

   

I just spent $39.00 to entertain the cat.  As luck would have it, the dog is not quite as entertained.  He just barks at it.

   

I have been enthralled by the idea of getting a Roomba  This is a small robotic vacuum cleaner.  It roams around a room, over carpet and floors and does the vacuuming.  Then, when it is done or the charge is running out, it goes and plugs itself in.  I have no idea how well these work, but I love the concept. I love the idea of going to bed and waking up to a clean house.

I don't know if the Roomba works, but I do know the various models sell for $400 to $700 dollars.  I hope thousands of you go out and buy some, so the price can come down for me.  I won't be spending that much money anytime soon.  For that kind of money I could just hire some one to come in at night and clean.  They could do the toilets, too.  Well, except for the creepy part having people sneaking around the house in the middle of the night.

Now O-Cedar makes an O-Duster.  I guess it is the poor man's version of a Roomba, assuming a poor man would buy such a silly thing, when he can just use the vacuum and be done with it.

   

The O-Duster is rechargeable and uses a disposable cloth to pick up hair and small debris off of hard surfaces, like wood floors or tile.  The cloth is held in place by a Velcro kind of ring.  It is able to go under my couch and some cabinets so that it gets the hair I can't get.  Well, I CAN get it, but I don't always flip up the couch when I vacuum.

   

When it hits an object or the edge of the rugs, it goes back the other direction, ricocheting  around the room, until, the theory is, the whole floor is covered.  I had to rescue it once from under a rocking chair that was part way on a rug.  Poor thing got trapped on three sides and couldn't figure a way out..

I like the concept of setting the O-Duster and letting it run while I do something else.  It doesn't replace vacuuming, but may keep the house a wee less hairy on the days I am NOT going to vacuum.  There are a bunch of those.  It doesn't get everything, but I am happy for every hair picked up.

   

And, like I said, the cats are fascinated.  I just wish the cloths were washable. 

A Late Start

    

I has been so cold for so long that I didn't even try to start the garden.  I don't grow a lot of things, but I love to grow zucchini, yellow squash, herbs and tomatoes and then I can make some fried green tomatoes.  I rarely find green tomatoes in the market.  Hmmm.  I wonder if you could make BAKED green tomatoes.  Gotta look into that.

Any way, I decided to spend some time in the garden.  Lee had some other things to do, so I didn't have the usual help.  He generally gets giant scoop from the compost pile with the tractor and dumps it in the garden for me to work in and refresh the soil.

   

The fruit "orchard" (Is 8 trees an orchard?  Yes, I decided.) is on the way to the fenced garden, so I had to get a bucket of bleach water to take with me.  Last year I had a bout with fire blight on the apple trees.  Fire blight kills the leaves and branches and they look dark brown and burned.    I didn't spray for it this year and now another tree has it.  You have to spray just when the blossoms are out and at no other time, or it doesn't work.  You don't even know if you have it then.  We weren't here when the blossoms first developed, so no spraying.  But now one apple tree is badly infected.  Fortunately, the Granny Smith apple trees seem to be OK this year.

     

I discovered ( I love Google) that you can cut off the infected branches, but you have to use a mix of bleach and water to disinfect the blades in between each cut. You don't want to spread the disease.  Sadly, some of the largest branches of the tree were the most affected.  I had to make some pretty severe cuts and I hope the tree can recover.  We may not live long enough to have a decent crop from our fruit trees.  Every year is some new disaster.  At least this year the spraying I did over the winter kept the peach leaf curl at bay.
 
   

After butchering my apple tree, I went to the compost pile and filled the back of the Mule.  There was still some remnants of the black weed cloth I had used in the garden from two years ago.  Last year I just added a huge pile of hay on top of the existing weed cloth as a mulch, and it worked all right.  But now the weed cloth has broken down and I have to start fresh.

   

After clearing all the dead debris and weed cloth, the hard part began.

       

The Mule is great for moving things around, but it is too wide to fit into the garden.  I had to scoop and fling to cover the entire area with an inch or two of compost.  I do this every season to add nutrients back to the soil that the plants removed.  I hesitate to call compost made mostly from horse manure, nutrients, but there you have it.  Plant nutrients.

When we moved here about 5 years ago, the soil was pretty bad and rock hard.  We have been working in amendments every season and now the shovel just slides in.  But it is still a chore to work in the new compost each year.  I spread it all over the raised beds and then did some digging. 

   

Essentially you just take a big bite with the shovel and turn it over in place.  If the soil clumps a bit, I chop at it with the shovel, move over and do it again. 

   

I do this every foot or so .  It isn't a big garden, but it feels that way when I am digging in it or weeding it.  I am actually pretty good about getting a garden ready.  It is the follow through where I fall down.  I hate the constant weeding.  That is where the weed cloth comes in.  It lets water through and allows the plants to breathe, but keeps the weeds out.  The only bad part is that it doesn't last for more than a season or two.

I raked everything smooth and decided to finish another day.  Maybe a day when I start the work at 7 AM rather than 10.  It is hard to imagine it was freezing just a few days ago and now it is in the 90's.   Plus I got a boo-boo. 

   

This is not indicative of all my hard work.  It is indicative of my NOT working and keeping up my calluses.  So I bought a lottery ticket in the hopes of hiring out the physical labor around here.  It would be my own personal effort in job creation.  And that would be good for the country and I am nothing if not a patriot.

I guess I better not say that too loud.  Wouldn't want to attract the attention of the IRS.

So Sorry

I just spent an hour or so updating all the recipes on this blog.  I didn't realize that I couldn't search for a specific recipe on my blog unless I had put the name in the label section for that particular posting.  I believe it was fellow blogger and all around computer genius at www.theblueridgegal.com who pointed that out.  I am so glad to know how to search as I have tried and failed in the past.

While doing that I was on my lemon blueberry coffeecake recipe and thought I would check it out.  My sister in law mentioned that hers didn't turn out as promised.  Gulp!  And there was what I think is the culprit.  I wrote about creaming the butter for the streusel topping, but never put the butter in the list of ingredients.

Ooops.

Fort all those that have tried it and failed...I am so sorry!

I am my own editor.  I wish I was better at it!  I promise to double check the ingredient lists.  Maybe triple check them because I thought I WAS double checking them.

Bluebirds Of Happiness

Is that from Rowan and Marin's Laugh-In?  Have I just dated myself?

   

A few weeks ago we put up a birdhouse made by Thomas Hearn.  It is supposed to be made just for bluebirds.  I think they need houses with smaller holes to protect themselves from "predator" birds. 

   

This guy was hanging around the "house next door" and looks blue.  He also looks too big to be a bluebird, but maybe he is a chubby one.

   

There is a fun little door with a plastic window to peek inside the bird house and there is a nest!   I thought it might take a year or so for a bird to find this lovely one bedroom "ranch".


   
And now there are three sweet little blue eggs.  I took a bunch of pictures and , believe it or not, this is the best one.  I keep getting a glare from the window.  Maybe I need to try again at another time of day when the sun is going down, but I think I'll just leave them alone.  Don't want them to abandon the nest.  I don't want to become an incubator for birds.