HFM

Made more solid progress on the cabinets during week 2 of vacation. They're now close to done. Countertop is in place & cabinet doors have been hung: For reference, the entire thing is 12 feet long, and has 7 cabinet doors along the long side. I'm very happy with how the counter has turned out: I'm going to go ahead & level the uneven places out with a block plane after all.  AJ helped me brainstorm what to do about the cabinet doors. I settled on maps mounted on cardboard in a wooden frame: In addition to finishing the counters, there are some other final odds & ends, and then I will do something drawer-like with the cubby holes in the square shelf thing on the short side. So far, I've spent about 40 hours on it, and about $40 -- I had to buy hardware for the doors and some more wood glue, but everything else I already had lying around. Next up: finishing this project & moving all the brewing stuff to its new home! * * * Update: When I looked the other ...

Week 1 of vacation done! In addition to sleeping late and drinking too much coffee, I made very good progress on the cabinets this week. First thing, I had to make some sawhorses, having none: Next, the skeleton of the cabinets: Pickles did not appreciate that I worked past her dinner hour that day. Getting everything level was a challenge, because the floor is not level -- it slopes front to back, and also left to right.  Next, the backing for the cabinets. I used some leftover corrugated plastic so that the natural light from the windows can also light up the cabinets: Next, blocking large gaps in the back of the cabinets to keep mice and dust out. It was a lot of cutting tiny pieces of wood to fit odd-shaped holes, so it took a long time. For the gap under the framing that I'm attaching the cabinets to, I had this 15 foot board from the concrete pour last year that worked perfectly: Next, putting in plywood shelves: They go through only four of the cabinets, leaving the two on t...

I am now officially on vacation. Let the cabinets begin! This weekend, I started by moving some things I have been storing on this four foot high work bench that the construction guys had built to fabricate the kitchen counter, and then removed the work bench entirely. Here is the before: Pickles helped, as usual, by chewing a bully stick: Then I cleaned up the dust and dirt, sorted the lumber, and set in place this cube shelf thing that a neighbor gave us: The counter that I will build on top of the cabinets will be L-shaped, and this cube thing will be the short end of the L. Ready to go for tomorrow morning!  Before I cleaned up for the night, I did one additional project -- I made a taiko practice drum for AJ: It's packing tape over the tire that was left in the house when we moved in, fixed to the top of a broken stool I picked up on the sidewalk for this very purpose. The idea -- from The Atlanta Taiko Project  -- is that it is more taiko drum-like than the practice pad ...

Hugely busy week with work & school, so nothing much to report. But here are some pictures of the flora & fauna on Mars: snap peas starting to fatten up (2-3 inches long) tiny baby fava pods (half an inch long) dog, enjoying her pre-bedtime nap (four feet long) Next up: Duserhaus Cabinets 2015 begins next week!

Busy with summer session starting up for school, so only little doings this week. More mousing. Pickles has redeemed herself, ferociously chasing a tiny baby mouse out of the treadmill on Friday night: It ran straight into my closet. Pickles was very helpful the next day, as well, while I was trying to figure out whether it was still in there. It wasn't. I think I've figured out how to keep the intruders confined to the kitchen and AJ's office until I have time to start to plug up the holes in the garage, which is how they're getting into the house in the first place. On Saturday, I finally put our clothesline back up: I set it up by putting up two cleats on either side of the yard, so that we can easily take it down when we're not using it. On Sunday, I made some ricotta cheese with some milk that was about to go off: I used too much lemon juice, so it ended up with a very desserty flavor. Which isn't all bad. I also saved the whey for pickling. Lastly, 30 Days...

This week, we discovered that the mice are back! We spent Sunday patching mouse holes and cleaning up after the mouse party. Pickles was no help in any of the mouse endeavors, & completely failed to detect that they were back. In fact, it's clear they have been back for a while, this time invading through AJ's office. I see that she was busted back down to Private in October  for dereliction of duty, so I'm not sure what to do. Admiral AJ suggested that she should be kicked out of the Rodent Roundup entirely, but that seems harsh to me. Maybe we'll just put her on potato peeling duty for a while. I also had to find a way to stake the favas this weekend, despite the fact that I can't seem to make myself go to the store to get bamboo stakes. The spring wind had knocked down one of the plants, which are now three feet high, so I had to just make something work (AJ suggests you click to make this bigger..."you really have to see it to believe it," she say...

This week, all time and energy was focused on celebrating AJ's 40th birthday! On Friday night, Mr. Bunkport's partner Reina, who co-owns catering & food consultancy Mocha & Matcha , helped us throw a cooking lesson/dinner party for AJ. Here is the menu (click to make it larger): We had a total of ten people chopping, dicing, stirring, and cheering the cooking on throughout the evening. Everyone had a good time, and the food was incredibly delicious. Some photos of the evening's festivities: (Photographs of AJ as a baby were required for decorating purposes, of course.) Happy Birthday, AJ!