January 2016 – Peacock Orchard

Wine Review: Purple Paws Moscato and Apple Smoked Gouda Cheese

Wine

Purple Paws Moscato $11.99

Description:

[From the wine makers website] Our winemaker always enjoys crushing Muscat because he says time stands still as you take in the floral wisps and watch the bees circle around you in slow motion. This moscato enjoys all those floral characteristics ubiquitos in this varietal. This wine pairs well with patio guests on a hot summer day or light desserts.

Cheese

Apple Smoked Gouda

Description: [From the cheese makers website] Our smoked cheeses are slowly & meticulously, naturally cold-smoked for six hours using a special aged Apple pulp and hardwood to achieve our unique flavor profile.

Wine Review:

This wine was pretty gross. Not what I’ve come to expect from moscato. I wouldn’t suggest it to anyone. It wasn’t bubbly at all. The flavor was lacking that normal moscato sweetness. Perhaps if I hadn’t opened this wine expecting a moscato I wouldn’t have been quite as disappointed. Unfortunately I was quite disappointed

Cheese Review:

We loved it. Even I loved it. In fact we ate all of it in one sitting and have bought these cheese twice more since Christmas. It’s lovely on it’s own, goes great with sausage and crackers, pairs well with about any wine I think. It’s just a great over all cheese. Definitely something to keep waiting in your refrigerator.

Neem oil review

In THIS post I mentioned problems I was having with pests on my indoor houseplants. BIG problems. I tried various methods of control to no avail.

Neem oil was one of those methods. I sprayed it onto my plants. It is often recommended online as a means of controlling houseplant pests. I would not suggest it. It seems to have damaged my plant leaves in places.

I acknowledge that my plants were under serious attack and leaf damage was caused by houseplant pests. Still, I have continued to spray my plants as a precaution so this damage is most certainly from the neem oil.

I do have healthy new growth though.

Jasmine

Black Peppercorn.

My peppercorn plant was so damaged at one point I was convinced it was not going to live. It’s doing great!

So why am I down on Neem oil if it does seem to have eradicated the pests? Well it didn’t. I’ve been physically washing the plants off in the sink every time I water them. It makes a big difference. And as you see in this peppercorn picture (kind of) I still have little eggs on my plants, so the neem oil is not repelling them.

One other plant worth mentioning is one that was a bit of an accident.

This is a rosemary plant I bought around Thanksgiving for cooking purposes. My lovely Daughter keeps yanking the leaves off of my larger plant. In fact it’s a small plant now as she’s lopped the top off. Anyway, so I bought this one from the grocery store and I didn’t think it’d live particularly long. I put it in this mason jar just to collect water as it sits in the kitchen window sill. I’m rather lazy so the jar has filled up with water over time. I was surprised to see the rosemary roots growing down into the water and the plant flourishing under these conditions. Rosemary, from what we’re told, is a dry loving plant. I think I’ll water mine a lot from now on.

The fridge has been moved! Also, how to make your own rustic faucet and sink.

The day has finally arrived. The stars aligned and the fridge has been relocated. My biggest obstacle to removing the main wall has been eliminated. Gosh I’m nervous. I’m removing a main wall. Eeeks!

Enough of that. Let’s talk what happened this week. I soldered for the first time. Soldered a faucet. Then I made a sink and a counter and TA DA! Bathroom is now fully functional again!

A bit about soldering, it’s not that hard. It seems hard. I procrastinated on it. Then I did it and it was so easy I had no issues at all. This is a first try faucet.

Entirely hand made by moi! Allow me to show you how:

Whilst the kids were supposed to be sleeping I gathered my supplies. I cut the pipe to the necessary sizes, cleaned all of the fittings, donned gloves and began.

I put a small amount of flux on the inside of my fitting and the outside of the pipe and put them together.

Then, over a small flame, heat the fitting from the bottom. You’ll know the metal has reached the correct temperature when the solder melts within 2 seconds of touching the pipe.

You’ll see the solder get sucked into the crevice. I put on a bit much my first few solders but with time I began to figure out the perfect amount.

Thicker fittings take about a minute and a half to reach temperature. The regular copper fittings about a minute.

The pipe that you aren’t soldering, but are holding on to, gets HOT. So do be sure you are wearing thick gloves for this.

They really aren’t that sneaky. They think they are though.

You can polish up your finished faucet by simply smearing flux on, heating it and then wiping it off with a cloth.

Now, on to the sink I made. I bought a bucket at the farm store. A beautiful bucket. I arranged it just so, then marked the bottom as to where I needed to drill the hole.

Then I gathered what I needed to install the drain onto my new sink.

I bought a basic sink drain fitting, some plumbers putty and some plumbers caulk. Couldn’t be more basic. Put a ring of putty around the drain fitting, screw it on, caulk it and you’re done.

It’s GORGEOUS!!!!!!!! I have a burlap skirt that just needs a few staples to cover the front of the sink. It’s country perfect! Oh I should add we just shark bite’d it on to the old pex pipe. Super easy installation.

I was simply waiting for the bathroom sink so I could move the fridge. I attached the ice maker water tubing through the wall on to the bathroom sink. No leaks, fridge fits, it’s a dream come true!

Had time to stain the pantry shelves,

Fly a kite,

And admire the pantry shelves.

What’s next? Well other than the details, like doors on the pantry and finishing the plank wall that is going to be the last pantry wall, well this:

This hideous wall.

The entire thing. It’s all going to go. A giant island will take it’s place. A glorious, giant island. Oh the vision I have for it is so strong. I’ll be able to move around the kitchen better what with kids and dogs constantly observing and attempting to assist me. I’ll be more connected with the kids while I do daily tasks such as cooking and dishes. We’ll have a lovely counter top eat in section. I just know that this island is going to bring the family closer. So long as Husband can survive the destruction first.

Another Kitchen Remodel Update

If you haven’t been keeping up you can go to these posts to see what I’ve been up to:

I spent a large amount of my Saturday and Sunday completing some of the parts of the remodel I was most excited about. The new pantry was painted (though the shelves still aren’t stained as it’s been too cold to do so far). The best part is the over the fridge storage I built for all of my important kitchen bits.

I had most of my pans stuffed in a single cabinet next to the stove, my baking stone and cast iron skillet in the buffet in another room and the cutting boards stashed on top of my pot rack. It was a mess. I could hardly find anything and getting the stone and skillet were a hassle. No more! They are within reach of us tall people, in the kitchen and beautifully displayed. Of course, some of them aren’t exactly beautiful….that blue cutting board. Still, I am in LOVE!

Since I built, I was obviously able to customize the different heights and widths. It is spectacular! I even had room left over for my huge serving trays.

Allow me to back up though. The first thing I did, after taping, puttying and floating the new walls was add the 2×4 frame the new storage would sit on.

Then I painted, with help.

A very happy helper indeed!

Then I measured and cut the top shelf out.

And painted some more.

The pantry is 70% complete. I still have to make doors. We are also putting a wooden fronting on the side of the wall and the front of the 2×4’s. Also, I have to stain those shelves!

I love it already! Of course doors are needed as not all our food is that…photogenic.

Have to build a door for the top shelf storage as well. It’s quite hideous at the moment. Terribly functional though!

I also primed and texture the part of the new wall that faces in toward our formal living room. The walls are different sizes. The original interior walls of our house were made with 1 x 3’s. I used 2 x 4’s. Still, it works. I have the wall primed and ready for a decision on color. I’m hesitant as there is another wall in the formal living room that is going to be removed so I suppose I should just wait and paint the whole thing at once.

The fridge is almost ready to be moved. The water is the only hang up. I’m building a new sink and faucet for the 1/2 bath as shrinking the wall made the old sink too large. Once those are done and installed I’ll be able to turn the water on and thus have the fridge connected to water for the ice maker. May not be a big deal to some but I’m fairly certain my husband and children could not live without ice.

A life changing hope I have for the orchard

I’m excited about many aspects of our future, mature orchard. One of the things a lot of people probably wouldn’t consider is going to be the most life changing. I live in Wyoming. Windy, windy Wyoming. I also live surrounded by commercially farmed wheat fields. Wind and constantly plowed fields, not a good mix.

So what do I hope for? A plant filter. Dust is all consuming here. It seeps into the smallest crevices. Settles on every surface. Causes breathing problems and is just plain yuck!

I’m clearly a long way away from lush acreage.

My biggest hope is that the plants and trees that will cover our acreage will act as a living filter; stopping, collecting and keeping the topsoil blown to us by surrounding acreages. I can see some topsoil collection already in action, will take pictures when it’s not under snow. Speaking of the snow, it’s a great barometer for dirt. Our snow is quite brown, coated in topsoil from the surrounding areas.

These dogs don’t help.

Such a small thing to hope for if you live in a city, somewhere without wind or somewhere that just isn’t….here. It would be life changing for me. To wash the table and have it looking like I actually washed it. That would make me wonderfully happy.

Kitchen Remodel Stage 2- Update

Before

I always have eager helpers.

I pre-cut the wood for the walls I needed to build before knocking out the final part of the wall between the bathroom and the kitchen.

The walls were built (the above picture is not of the finished walls, simply me laying them out. They are not that crooked once built.) and then:

It’s a family job. My niece and children got in on the wall smacking action.

Here is the new wall behind the old wall. Waiting to remove the old wall until wiring is done.

Boxes have been installed for re-wiring and…

Thanks to the most amazing father in the world, things were re-wired! It should be noted that I removed some residual drywall whilst he was wiring and so he got…..dusty.

The new walls were then put up. I know in this pic the wall isn’t knocked out yet. This is my testing to see if I built the walls right pic. I did. VICTORY!

So part of this is going to be our new pantry. Oh a new pantry, I’m so excited. You have no idea how crappy our current pantry is. It’s a weird trapezoidal shape and is so deep that you have no idea what is in the back corner. So I used 2×4’s to create the frame for the shelves. The shelves are 1 x 12’s.

I measured and cut out a notch for them to fit neatly around a 2×4 for complete coverage.

Repainting over the awful color I chose when I was so very young is quite a trial. 2 coats of primer and 1 coat of paint should do the trick.

Then it’s time to drywall. I made this handy 1 foot tool as my space was 3ft. Drywall is a standard 4 ft and thus I simply needed to cut off 1ft.

And the bathroom wall is up. So exciting! Needed to tape and use joint compound still. That was fairly easy though:

Bathroom wall

Kitchen wall view

Still not even close to done. I need to float the walls, then sand, then prime, then paint. Then I need to assemble my incredible over the fridge storage. I’ve already started on them but I’ll save it for it’s own post. Coming along though.

You can see where I fell off the ladder holding the gallon of primer. Only got a bit of the floor white with that. Fun times!

As a funny aside I got home with the drywall tape and the joint compound and then had to text my father on how to use it. I wasn’t sure how the tape was supposed to stick. He sent me text directions. Drywall sucks by the way. It’s dusty. It’s heavier than you’d think. It’s super fragile and the taping process just isn’t any fun. Worth it in the end, I know. I really need a break from all of this though. I’m beat.