Stuff

This is what it looks like when we pack for an extended stay at the cottage. I don't think we forgot anything. Or did we?!

Smoked pork

I ran out of project updates to share with you from last weekend at the cottage, so instead, I'm going to regale you with some of our preparations for Mom's birthday dinner. Yummy!

So, the menu was mesquite-smoked pork roast, spare guys (a.k.a. asparagus), and potato salad.  Mom made the potato salad for her own birthday dinner, because her potato salad is insanely good and the kids will accept no substitutes.

First, we soaked the mesquite chips. I picked up a bag of them at Walmart, of all places. (They're probably pressure-treated off-cuts for all I know!)

Then, the Captain (because touching raw meat gives me major heebiejeebies) sliced the roast and unrolled it to make a long, flat "steak".

We chopped up some rosemary, green onion, and garlic, and added a bit of salt and oil before mashing it into a paste.

And then, I forgot to take a picture because I was turning the cottage upside down trying to figure out where we put the butcher's twine (answer: it was still tied to one of our home-made kites). While I was doing this, he spread the paste over the steak, and rolled it and then tied it with the string found in the knick of time.

The soggy wood chips were loaded into a tinfoil packet, which was poked on the top-side to create holes that would let the smoke escape. This was put on the coals in the BBQ, with the burner lit directly underneath the packet. The pork bundle was put on the other side, no burner (cooked with indirect heat).

Then, it was time for dinner! The smoked roast smelled like heaven. It was so good, I almost forgot to take an "after" picture until it was nearly all gone!

It ended up a little over cooked (lesson learned for next time) but it was delicious.

Look at that smoky crust! YUM!

For dessert we had strawberries and whipped cream. The only mixer at the cottage is an ancient hand-held. You'd think it was the newest game console the way the kids were clamouring over who got to use it next.

These are farm-fresh berries from Johnson's, just down the road. Oh man were they good.

So.. are you hungry now? (-:

Wire you looking at me like that?

When you're naughty at the cottage, we don't just put you in Time Out, we cram you into a hole in the wall/attic!

The Captain wasn't naughty, but he did find himself up in the wee crawlspace (above the old cottage roof, below the new cottage roof) that I suppose is technically an attic? As part of the "clean up the wiring mess" initiative, we decided to check out the multiple junction-boxes secreted away up there. If Dr. U had any part in their creation, we couldn't in good conscience leave those fire traps untended.

Once he got up there, the wiring was certainly hodge podge lodge, but the terminations in the junction boxes were actually done properly. WITH MARETTES. It's like Dr. U didn't have anything to do with them at all!

Well, almost nothing.

A few wires were re-routed, and a few connections were cleaned up.

Before long the Captain was out of his hidey hole and back to work detangling the wires for the outside lights ...

....sorting out the associated switches....

... and installing and wiring the recessed pot lights.

Here's where we left off.

The outdoor lights were detangled, grounded, and routed through tidy junction boxes to the switches

The pot lights were installed and tested.

And the kitchen lights were installed and tested.

By the end of the Weekend of Wiring, the livingroom/ kitchen reached the state where we can begin to install the white-painted tongue-n-groove pine panelling.

Yay!

Garden update

Holy Smokes! When you're forced to spend 3 weekends away from the cottage, the garden grows a LOT while you're away.

Check this out!

It's quite a difference, isn't it!

The cucumbers I thought wouldn't survive are burgeoning and are awash in future-cucumber blooms.

We've even got a few small (4") cucumbers growing. Right now they're pickle-sized.

This is my swiss chard. It's still light green, but I'm sure in another week or two it will be ready to start eating. Mmmm. Swiss chard and butter.

Here are my carrots. Ok. ok. Here are my carrot tops. The carrots haven't started forming below this yet. They're still spindly roots. You can see how well the green onions are doing behind them.

And look at my tomato plants! These little tomatoes are about the size of a ping-pong ball right now. I hope I get to eat them before the critters on the island do.

Change in plans?

Happy Birthday to me!

We arrived at the cottage on Friday night to find these two pretty planters perched on our dock. These are my birthday gift from my mom and dad!

Pretty...

Potato vine, I love your light green colour!

Now I need to decide what to do about the planters I was going to build. I think I'll still put the one I've cut together... but maybe I'll used the wood for the second one to make some side tables for on the deck.


Back to the drawing board!

Can of worms

Dad has been opening a big ol' can o' worms at the cottage.

Fixing Dr. U's electric has become a bit of an obsession. We know, from the bathroom renovation, that under the roof, sitting on top of the old roof (about 2 ft lower than the real roof), is a mess of electrical wiring a junction boxes.  Dad decided he needed to take a better look and try to get in there to fix it up.

To that end, he took down the "Pine Cathedral Ceiling" (Ms. Macklin, creative writer real estate agent, I'm looking at you!) and cut a hole in the particle board that's behind it, and peered in to see what he could see.

 I'm guessing he didn't like it, because that's as far as he got. Maybe he's cowering in the corner?

A better gate

Dad build a better doggie gate for the cottage.

The old "gate" was a chunk of discarded wall panelling pulled sideways across the deck. It will held at one end with a hook and eye (fancy!), and at the other end it was just wedged into place behind the nearest rocking chair.

It was a temporary solution that we'd already been living with for two summers.

The new gate is lovely.

Spring hinges swing it closed automagically, and now Miss Maggie has more room to roam on the deck.  She'll also be able to see more chipmunks that she can't eat, which should be entertaining.

Thanks again, Dad, for the pictures!

Cheese club

The first rule of Cheese Club is: You do not talk about Cheese Club!

Oh. My mistake. Apparently the first rule is that you must love cheese.

This is what happens when you leave kids alone with markers, my friends.

Thanks, Dad, for this great photo of the kids' door at the cottage.

Alas, I have nothing!

Hello friends!

I have no blog content for you this week because I am entering my third week away from the cottage.
[insert plaintive sigh]

The captain and the wee lad were there this weekend with one of the lad's friends, but they didn't think to take a camera with them, so there is no photographic evidence.

After this weekend's dance recital, we hope to be there every weekend and a few weeks in between.

Hodge Podge Lodge! I miss you!

Garden update

Things in the garden are taking off nicely.

The cherry tomato plant is starting to produce flowers (Look closely, they're there).

The carrots are sprouting, finally.

The onions have taken root.

The swiss chard is already starting to product its first true leaves.

And the cranky cucumbers are flowering!

I hope to start getting edible produce by late June/early July, assuming the fauna don't find it first.

Wooden planter boxes

Side project!

Because we don't already have enough to do working on the ceiling at the cottage, I decided that I need  to build some wooden plant boxes to go down on the dock.

First, I hopped on to Google Sketch up to fiddle with my design. I had trolled the internets looking for something I liked, but couldn't come up with a quick, stupidly simple box design.

Here's what I came up with after about an hour of fiddling and reacquainting myself with how Google Sketchup works:

 It's made entirely out of 1x3 lumber (roughly $1.70 per 8' length) - inexpensive furring strips - with no fancy cuts or angles.

I figured I'd need 8 boards to build a box, and I plan to build two. It works out to around $15 per planter, once you factor in screws or nails.

The "leg" boards are each 21" long and the side boards are 18". The horizontal boards were measured and cut to size. Inside the box (immediately behind the bottom horizontal board) is a matching horizontal board, upon which the 5 bottom boards will rest.

Here's my workstation; aka: the deck. Clean up is a snap; I just have to sweep the sawdust into the spaces between the deck boards. The captain jokes that we're going to end up filling up the space under the deck with sawdust.

And here's my helper. This was supposed to be a project that the two of us would work on together, but he quickly tired of the "work" part of it, and buggered off to scheme about his go kart. Slacker.

This is where I left things at the end of the day on Sunday. Everything for one planter is cut. I just need to put it all together and paint it. As soon as I get back to the cottage. Which should be in about three weeks. *sob*