Deck Day!

Today was an excellent day - my parents came up to visit me, and to help me build a new deck off the back of my house. For some reference, here are a couple of “before” shots from a couple of years ago – when I first bought the house:

 

Post carpet removal.  Pre Power Washing to remove
the red paint. Pre window and new back door.

The new window and door in place.

There was indoor/outdoor carpet on the brownish-red painted concrete pad.  A couple of steps to the ground and that was really it… I removed the carpet.  I power-washed off the brownish-red paint.

Today, my parents helped me build a small (8’ by 8’) cedar deck. The materials were pretty simple, to be honest.  I reclaimed all of the 2”x6” joists that were originally in the living room (well OK, the contractors reclaimed them for me) and in advance of today’s efforts, I bought some concrete pier-post blocks (and was also given some by an old pal from high school – thanks Frank!) and some galvanized finishing nails. 

When my parents arrived, Dad and I moved some of the blocks around in order to facilitate building the initial box and then adding the inner beams to be the actual joists for the deck. This deck is “floating” – what I mean by that is that it is essentially a platform that is not attached to the house in any way. 

Initial framing done

Look at the glory of this frame!

Pier blocks all in place, frame securely held.
This baby is not going ANYWHERE!

Once we had the platform constructed and in place, Dad and I went over to Slegg Lumber and picked up the 2”x6” cedar planks that would become the deck itself.  We all went into Courtenay to have a yummy lunch at the Atlas Café.  After lunch, we placed pieces of tar paper under the beams but on top of the joists to help make the fir last a little longer) and then the cedar the planks were laid in place (and then nailed in) and then Dad routered the plank ends to ensure they wouldn’t fray off or catch an unsuspecting person (ok, it is me – I walk into things and this prevents me from getting cedar slivers in my legs) as they walk past.

Tar papered joists, spacing out and nailing the
cedar planks in place.

When all was said and done, we put my little bistro table and chairs in place and sat and had a cold cider and rest on my new deck.

Isn't it pretty?

I still have work to do on it.  I need to go through and nail down into all of the joists – we tacked each plank on and after Mum & Dad went home, I went around the outside edges and put in the second nails in all of the ends – but there should be 2 nails in each beam at each joist – and so I will still have a fair amount of nailing ahead of me. In addition, I will need to give it a very light sanding (just to smooth out any rough patches) and then stain it in order to keep the wood protected.  In addition, I will need to pick up some pot feet so that I can put my herb planters onto the deck and ensure that I don’t; cause the beams underneath to rot out.

After I had some dinner, I started canning.  I had enough ripe tomatoes to do another 8 jars of tomato sauce – to which I added a couple of jalapeno peppers to give it a little bite.  Mum brought a bag of peppers up for me (and some gloves to handle them with) for pickling and cooking with. I also got the kitchen ready for tomorrow’s canning exercises – the peaches I ordered (4 cases of them!) arrived yesterday and I need to spend the day tomorrow prepping things and then canning.  I am SO glad I picked up the pressure canner last weekend – it allows me to do 16 pint jars at a time (instead of the 8 that the water-bath canner allows) and this should help me get through those cases of peaches in record time. 

Before I can really get going on the canning, though, I need to go into town and pick up a few supplies.  Honey… and some spices… I’m going to try making a batch of spiced peaches as well!

With love across the waters…

…And Now I Have a First World Problem…..

I am filled with gratitude.  My cupboards are filled to overflowing with sauces and fruits – most of which have been grown by me, all of which was canned by me. I now, though, have a first world problem – I am running out of space to store my canning. 

Kitchen cupboard full to the brim

Peaches are in a storage cupboard

Some dear friends of the family had a kitchen that was remodelled (I'm not certain if it was done by them or by their home’s previous owners) to build shelving in between the studs of their walls… and I have the perfect wall in mind… The wall has no electrical or plumbing connected, but appears to have some wiring running through it (I am thinking it was wired like that in order to provide light and an electrical socket to my “mud porch” with is really more of a catch-all junk area – that will also need renovation… just not now.

The idea is to pull off the drywall, build “insert” shelving units and install them right into the space between the studs - here is a blog link to where someone has done exactly what I am thinking about doing... complete with pictures!!

I have this coming week off work – vacation time.  My plans for this week include potentially getting a jump on making and canning apple sauce (this is no rush – the apples could still use ripening time,) making and canning more roasted tomato sauce, building some shelving in my bathroom, and generally working on some of the finishing projects for the bathroom. 

What I may do, time and energy permitting, is pull some drywall off and see what I have to work with.

Oh – and I am already “getting ideas” about other spaces where this kind of shelving would be great – including behind bedroom doors and in the living room by the front door…

With love across the waters…

…And Peaches…..

This past Monday I arrived to work to see an email telling me that the peaches were in… later that same day, they arrived at my office – and OH. MY. GOD. They smelled AMAZING.  I had forgotten just how glorious peaches smell – and I think it probably a Really Good Thing that I don’t live near a peach orchard – I would be arrested for trespass and theft!

Anyhow, home Monday night and I scrambled to start canning peaches… it took me a little bit to get into the swing of things, but once into the swing, I got one canning’s worth completed.

 

The box was FULL of peaches

Can't you smell them?

In a Lemon Juice Bath

 Like the pears, I opted for honey syrup instead of sugar – but unlike the pears, I didn’t add any vanilla to the syrup.

 

Honey Syrup

Moving the skinned and sliced peaches from the
lemon juice bath to the syrup

Kitchen... canning in progress

Lost one out of the first batch canned

First batch success

  

Reward for the first day... YUM!

Once the kitchen was cleaned up from Monday’s canning adventures, I decided to get the jump on the canning I would need to do on Tuesday night and I got the kitchen ready for the next night.

 

Tidy kitchen - organized and ready to go on Tuesday morning

even the pots and jars are ready to get moving as
soon as I get home from work!

Batch 2 complete... the ninth jar
makes up for the lost one the night before

By Wednesday I was a pro… While the peaches were in the water bath I picked the next bunch of nearly ripe tomatoes for making more tomato sauce, and once the peaches were done and the kitchen cleaned up again... I got the last of the pears cut up and into the crock pot to make pear butter…

 

Third batch cooling.  Peaches done.

Semi-ripe tomatoes picked to finish ripening on the counter

Pear butter in progress

With love across the waters…

This Time of Year

I had been thinking to stop in at my Brother & Sister-in-Law’s house  for a visit today on my way to Mum & Dad’s, but the clean-up at Grandpa’s house is all but done (and there is a showing on Sunday) and so my help wasn’t needed this weekend… as a result I opted to stay home and do some things here… My Sister-in-Law sent me an email this morning – one of the things she said (thank you Carrie!) was “Have fun in the yard- I love the bounty of this time of year; makes life feel so full...”

I know exactly what she means. I have been trying my hand at gardening and canning now for two years. In the 4 years I spent in my house in Ontario, I mostly puttered and weeded in flower beds.  Though I considered putting in vegetable beds, I never really managed it. My house there didn’t actually have any taps outside that would have made watering productive. There was a tap that went into the back wall of the garage, but nothing else – and that meant carrying watering buckets around, or running hoses out windows and through the house in order to water.  Not a house built for anything other than lawn that didn’t require water.

Here in my little lot in Cumberland, I have a tap out the back of the house.  I’d like one out the front as well (I could do more out front if I had the capability to water without running hoses all over hell and back around the house) but that isn’t in the cards at the moment.  There are many other home improvements I need to tackle before I put in a faucet for watering convenience out front. The tap out back makes it possible to set up drip lines that keep the beds alive.  Beans, snow peas, carrots, Swiss chard, tomatoes, spinach, kale and lettuce – not to mention the pears, and plums I have been able to harvest this year - so far. I pulled the peas, kale and lettuce a week to two ago – and am readying those beds to put in a next planting of kale, spinach and snow peas.

Where I was really going with this is that there is a real feeling of security for me in being able to open my cupboard or freezer and see food in that I grew myself, see things that are so much healthier and so much tastier than the commercially made options.

This coming week I will be working on peaches and pears – and then the apples.  The peaches, freestone peaches, are coming to me from the Okanagan – maybe Monday, maybe Tuesday, but then Wednesday night I will need to get started on canning again. I looked in my canning jar cupboard today when I was getting ready to can the tomato sauce, and did some quick calculations… and I am thinking I may need to get my hands on my pint and quart jars… and maybe more cupboard space to store my food.

I love the bounty of this time of year; makes life feel so full...

With love across the waters…

On Being The Ant

Remember Aesop’s fable about the grasshopper and the ant…?

Once there lived an ant and a grasshopper in a grassy meadow.

All day long the ant would work hard, collecting grains of wheat from the farmer's field far away. She would hurry to the field every morning, as soon as it was light enough to see by, and toil back with a heavy grain of wheat balanced on her head. She would put the grain of wheat carefully away in her larder, and then hurry back to the field for another one. All day long she would work, without stop or rest, scurrying back and forth from the field, collecting the grains of wheat and storing them carefully in her larder.

The grasshopper would look at her and laugh. 'Why do you work so hard, dear ant?' he would say. 'Come, rest awhile, listen to my song. Summer is here, the days are long and bright. Why waste the sunshine in labour and toil?'

 The ant would ignore him, and head bent, would just hurry to the field a little faster. This would make the grasshopper laugh even louder. 'What a silly little ant you are!' he would call after her. 'Come, come and dance with me! Forget about work! Enjoy the summer! Live a little!' And the grasshopper would hop away across the meadow, singing and dancing merrily.

Summer faded into autumn, and autumn turned into winter. The sun was hardly seen, and the days were short and grey, the nights long and dark. It became freezing cold, and snow began to fall.

The grasshopper didn't feel like singing any more. He was cold and hungry. He had nowhere to shelter from the snow, and nothing to eat. The meadow and the farmer's field were covered in snow, and there was no food to be had. 'Oh what shall I do? Where shall I go?' wailed the grasshopper. Suddenly he remembered the ant. 'Ah - I shall go to the ant and ask her for food and shelter!' declared the grasshopper, perking up. So off he went to the ant's house and knocked at her door. 'Hello ant!' he cried cheerfully. 'Here I am, to sing for you, as I warm myself by your fire, while you get me some food from that larder of yours!'

The ant looked at the grasshopper and said, 'All summer long I worked hard while you made fun of me, and sang and danced. You should have thought of winter then! Find somewhere else to sing, grasshopper! There is no warmth or food for you here!' And the ant shut the door in the grasshopper's face.

It is wise to worry about tomorrow today.

Yeah – I always thought that the ant was a little bit sanctimonious – I would like to think that instead of shutting the door in the grasshopper’s face, she would  offer some food, but still – the moral of the story cannot be argued – prepare for tomorrow today.

I’ve spent the last couple of months playing at being the ant - harvesting, doing yard work and, most recently, getting the yard and garden beds ready for winter.  Today I gathered leaves that have come down and piled them over top of some of my garden space.  Next weekend I’ll do more of the same, only this time pile it up into the compost bin to let it gently rot down through the winter until, in spring, I can use it in my vegetable beds.

Garlic is planted & has set up shoots – I have mulched more leaves on top of that bed to keep them healthy and feed them come spring.

Canning is complete – I ended up with more than sixty jars of applesauce, pears and peaches and enough fresh apples and rhubarb to make up six crisps. I also made up plum jam (which is more like plum syrup) and rhubarb ginger jam. 

The last of my apples went to my brother’s home a couple of weeks ago where we ground and pressed apples to make juice - I came home with apple mash which was dug into the garden bed and a couple of gallons of the juice (both of which are gone now) it was delicious!

Putting the garden and yard to bed for the winter makes me think of the ant – getting ready for next year’s planned crops, gardens and enjoyment.  I will have a proper vegetable patch this year – fenced off and planted with things like beans, snow peas tomatoes, squash, courgettes, lettuces and carrots. When I was over on Jersey, my neighbour had an utterly brilliant way of growing courgettes and squash – she would buy a bag of soil, cut a hole or two in it, and plant her plants directly into the soil. These bags sat on her patio. At the end of the growing season, that bag of soil was used to fill and seed lawn or to augment garden beds. I figure I will do as she did and plant squash and courgettes in those and then cover the rest of my garden space with other items…

This coming year’s garden will be smaller – eventually I want to have a larger section of my yard – all the way back to my compost bin actually - fenced off for vegetables.  Being able to plant, grow, harvest, preserve and then, through the winter, eat the foods I have grown myself is my eventual goal.

For tonight, though, I will have a dinner of roast chicken and trimmings (stuffed with bread I made myself) and a yummy desert of baked apple and rhubarb crisp. If a grasshopper shows up at my door seeking food and shelter I won’t be slamming the door…

With love across the waters,

Happy Anniversary to Me!

 Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of “all hell breaking loose” for me. One year ago yesterday I:

• Started my new job (and the associated training program – which just finished last week,)
• Took possession of my new home, and;
• Moved into my new home (and out of the townhouse I was renting)

When I look back over the past year (as is, I think, appropriate to do right about now) I can see I have accomplished a lot both on the job and around my house…

At work I have made a good change for myself – am now involved in a job I like – one that interests and challenges me and, for the most part, one I can leave at the office when I go home at the end of my day.

At home I have made a start to the renovations inside (and the removal of 17 different kinds of wallpaper)

And am now surrounded by clean lines and light colours:

I made a start to the changes in the back and front yards.  I hacked back a lot of this:

Removed all SORTS of strange and interesting crap:

And am left with this for now:

No more jungle out there but still a ways to go.

Where renovations to the house itself are concerned, I have also learned that I need to use some temperance in getting things started – or rather, taking on only one project at a time and seeing it through to completion BEFORE starting a new one.

I have learned how to water-bath can food and am in the throes of preserving as much of the current bounty of my space as I can before winter sets in. Next year I hope to have an actual garden and to produce (and preserve for myself) even more of what I can grow.

I still have a long way to go, but looking back, I’m pleased with my progress.

With love across the waters,