Where have you been?

Well, you know, I've been around. Summer is in full swing and the days have reached their max length and are slowly shrinking again. This only means the pace to accomplish has quickened as time is visibly passing. I know it's been a while since I've talked about the Cozy or, well, much else. Regardless of my lack of updates here, know that we have been busy.

First and foremost, we've been making decent progress on the Cozy. Remember, we picked it up in the state below in July 2010.

Two years (gah, years??) later it's looking a lot like an airplane. The canard is complete and stored hanging on the garage wall. The right wing is now complete and nesting in the front room of the house, and the wing tips are glassed. This weekend we hope to bond the cores together for the left wing so we can knock out one of the last major part builds in the upcoming weeks. If only work-work didn't get in the way. Oi.

I'm pretty sure Ced has worked every weekend for a long, long time. He's enjoying himself, but it doesn't leave much room for Cozy prep or any other personal work. His preoccupation with figuring out enginerdy problems for work has allowed me to have a lot of weekend time to do outdoor updates, at least when I'm not working out designerdy problems for work. 

Earlier this year I decided I really wanted to put in flower bed liner in the front yard. Installing this bit of plastic, I told myself, will help prevent grass creep into the flower beds and keep mulch out of the grass.  After a bit of internal debating about how to stake the liner in the ground, I convinced myself pointing the metal stakes towards the lawn was a good decision.

It wasn't.

I ended up piercing the pvc line that feeds the drip system in the front yard. Once the pipe was fixed, we had to swap all the drip heads since dirt had gotten into the system and clogged everything. I'm still fighting clogged drip heads and it's been a few months since the repair. When the liner was installed in the other part of the front yard, I opted to forgo use of stakes.

When not out in the yard I've tried to do work for me. This box did hold a little still life I was drawing. Mr. D has a knack for locating things I want left alone and plopping on them. 

But he's so cute I forgive him.

Ced did buy a fun toy to play with while he runs simulations and such.

Meet The Replicator. "The MakerBot Replicator™ is the ultimate personal 3D printer, with single or dual extrusion (2-color printing)--and a bigger printing footprint, giving you the superpower to print things BIG!"

It's a nifty tool to have on hand.

There are big plans for this guy.

We were able to catch the Transit of Venus last month. Ced set up his telescope at the back door and propped a whiteboard up in order to see Venus cross the sun. 

Amelia helps me unpack our box of organic fruits and veggies when we get them. How sweet.

In order to properly celebrate a milestone achievement at work, Ced bought a fancy grill. I haven't actually used it, but Ced is very much a grill master now. I just deal with sides and let him run with the meat.

During our vacation earlier this month, I gave these chairs a facelift. I've yet to finish the matching table simply because sanding everything down is such a pain. Maybe tomorrow?

In between coats on the chairs, I took apart the outdoor light fixtures (eight total), washed the glass, and repainted the metal bits. 

I tell myself it gave the house a subtle facelift. Now to scrape off the peeling white trim around doors and windows and resurface and paint it all.

I think this is Rev C of my office curtains. I found black-out fabric that eliminates the pattern bleed-through issue. Once again, I took apart the curtains, swapped out the lining fabric with the black-out fabric, and reassembled them. I think I'm finally done. With that bit of accomplishment I'm now moving on to other naked windows of the house. The first ones to tackle are the skinny back windows in the kitchen/living area. The afternoon sun is pretty vicious and that black-out fabric does wonders for keeping us from being scorched. I'm not sure if it's just my imagination, but I think they also help keep the room a few degrees cooler. (Pictures to come of those shades at a later date).

Comparison of doubled thin lining fabric vs blackout lining fabric. BIG difference!

This past December Ced went crazy and bought a kiln.

I'm pretty excited about it, but we're both terrified to hook it up to the gas line for fear of a firey ball of doom. Despite being a wuss about running the kiln, I got back on the wheel to start getting a feel for throwing again. The problem I keep running into is throwing something and not getting back to it before it completely dries out. Different climate, so different rules to play by. I'm also trying out a new clay type, so I'm feeling doubly rusty. 

My main goal for this summer was to plant as much as possible to 1) help keep me motivated to work out in the yard and 2) help keep the weeds at bay. A lot of the bulbs, shrubs, whatnot I planted last year have established fairly well and have grown a decent amount. At the end of the last planting season I was getting a bit demotivated for various reasons, but this season has taught me that I was being silly.

Last year I planted these little russian sage runners at the top of the hill and only got about 65% of the desired geotextile fabric laid down.

I learned my lesson about not putting down the fabric since I had to fight back all the weeds in order to finish this job this year. The little sage plants are filling in nicely, too. If only I can finish the next two tiers of the hill, then I'd feel accomplished.

At the beginning of the veggie growing season I had to beat back the weeds around the raised beds. Now that the fabric is in place I hope to eliminate that step next year. I'm slowly but surely learning that putting in the hard work to do something properly the first time will save loads of time the next go around. Geez.

With a lot of volunteer squash plants, some volunteer potato and tomato plants, and some purchased tomato plants, I ran out of room in my two raised beds. We had planned to put a third one in anyway, so I cleared the area and we both took time pick axing the ground (not pictured). Right now the pit is serving as our compost heap, but I do hope to build another box after the season is up to get things moving along for next year.

The garden is starting to produce veggies that are ready for harvest. We ate a little tomato off the vine today. It was quite delicious. We also found out that the volunteer squash came from an acorn squash, so I'll be stocked up for the winter on these. Mmm.

In early spring I told myself to finish planting along this fence line. It took a lot of pick axing and shoveling to dig the holes, but I finally got everything placed. Lots of lilies, spirea, roses, and other various flowering bulbs were planted.

This isn't a great photo since the volunteer sunflowers I transplanted cover up everything else, but I'm liking the look of all the greenery. 

With things along the sides of the house coming together, I'm slowly getting prepped for developing the backyard. There's not a lot to see in this picture other than a sad transplanted iris, some young daylilies and that buried pot of weigela. The plants are now out of their pots and in the ground, getting established. I made a decision to not put together a chicken wire basket around the root balls before planting. I'm not sure why other than I was being lazy (after pick axing) and just wanted to plant the darn things.

I'm now regretting that decision because we have a persistent neighbor who tends to tunnel throughout the yard, dig up my gladiola bulbs and scratched the top off a newly planted daylily. He's super cute, but I'd rather admire his cuteness from afar. 

When I need some calm scenery, especially after glaring at pesky ground squirrels, I like that I can now take a walk around the yard and see some of the following sights.

I think anyone who is a gardener has the same desire to create a peaceful area around them they can go to after a stressful day. 

So, that's pretty much what we've been up to. Keeping busy on various projects and tossing in some relaxation here and there. 

How about you?

Bundles of Deliciousness

Last year (or so) I bought two grape vines because I got sucked into Home Depot's promise that these vines grow in the high desert/mountains. One of them died soon after planting (probably from shock of being stuck in such harsh conditions), so all my hopes of grapey goodness have been pinned on this one little vine.

During the growing season last spring, it did well enough. It proved that it can, indeed, survive in our backyard. It eventually spread out a little, then winter came and I pruned it back.

Last spring, the tiny grape vine survived.

This growing season started much like the previous season. Vines started reaching out as I beat back weeds and promised my little grape vine that I would provide something for it to climb on.

Then I noticed these little bud clusters. I initially thought these were clumps of aphids. (I've been struggling keeping the aphids off my roses this year.) Resisting the urge to stomp the life out of them and run away, I bent close and realized that these may very well be the beginnings of grapes. My expectations were low of their survival, but it was still exciting to see these forming.

Then the buds flowered, fertilized, and began forming fruit. Unbelievable!

Once the clusters reached the pea-sized stage, I was sure they would dry up and fall off, but the fruit continued to swell.

There are around eleven clusters on the vine now. They all have a long way to go before they're ready for picking, but I can't help but be excited.

I finally wrangled together some materials to build a shifty arbor. It's not much, but it does the job of allowing the vines to cling to something and get the fruit off the ground.

The Mixer Dilemma

A few months back I wanted to make a lemon meringue pie. I had never made a meringue pie of any sort, but I had a few delicious smelling organic lemons just staring at me. So, I made a pie crust and the custard and then eyeballed the portion of the recipe that described making the meringue. You see, all I had to accomplish this task was a stack of plastic bowls, a whisk, and a lot of elbow grease. So, I started whipping egg whites with my one little whisk in my big plastic yellow bowl because, well, that's what I had.

When my right arm felt like a limp noodle, I switched to my left arm. When both arms could barely grasp the whisk, I threw the bowl in the fridge and took a breather for five minutes. Out came the cool bowl and the whipping of egg whites resumed. Ced noticed my efforts and pitched in trying to achieve those dreamy stiff peaks. After all four arms were spent, I called it a day and plopped the soft peaked meringue on my custard. Despite not achieving the textbook perfection, the pie tasted all the more delicious because both of us put in a bit of effort to make it.

Not the best looking pie, but it was tasty.

Soon after our hand-whipped meringue incident, I found a large box full of KitchenAid machinery at the front door. Ced had gifted me with a standing mixer! We took it out of the box and set it on the counter, where I proceeded to flip through the manual and caress the shiny accessories that held so much baking promise. I was quite content to let the standing mixer sit there front and center on the kitchen island, but Ced wanted to test out the moving mechanisms of the thing. So, he switched it on and we both watched as the attachment arm spun around and listened to the whirring of the gears. Even with the setting on low, I was terrified of the noise. Baking had never been so. . . audible.

A week or two went by and I still had not properly utilized the new standing mixer. You might think it was solely because I had the thought that my fingers may get caught in the batter beater on high and break off. Although the potential of losing my fingers was a concern for me, the thing that was really preventing me from using the mixer was an internal struggle between manual mixing and machine mixing. I've always been one to do everything manually. It's how I was raised - you used what you had to get the job done and 98% of the time that meant using very basic tools and your will power. Now I was forced with the decision to utilize a mechanical thing to do my job. I had developed a severe John Henry complex.

Finally, I succumbed to the new tool and made a batch of classic chocolate chip cookies. Something so easy I was sure the machine could do it, too. Following the mixer directions, I measured, poured, and  utilized the recommended mixing settings. I stood and watched. I grew bored just standing, watching, and judging the mixer. I kept wanting to tell it to scrape the bottom of the bowl to make sure all the ingredients were properly incorporated. I struggled with the idea of stopping the mixer, detaching the bowl, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a new tool that I now had to clean, reattaching the bowl, and turning the mixer back on just to watch it do my job. I thought about the time that was supposedly freed up now that my arms were no longer mixing. I thought about doing push-ups now that my kitchen workout was no more. I thought about how many cookies I could have placed on the baking sheet by now if I had mixed the batter by hand instead of using this machine and coaxing it with my thoughts to mix the batter the way I wanted it mixed. Not being able to watch and do nothing anymore, I turned off the machine, scraped the dough off the beater, beat the dough a few times by hand, and baked the cookies. They really did taste fine, but they just weren't satisfying.

The next recipe I tried was classic banana bread. I opted not to mash the bananas by hand and let the mixer do all the work. After watching the banana chunks just get pushed around the bowl without much mushing, I took the bowl off the mixer and mashed them by hand (dirtying yet another tool). Fixing the bowl back in place, the rest of the ingredients were added in order and things looked promising. Then I poured the batter into my prepared baking pan and was surprised to find a pocket of dry ingredients sealed in the bottom of the bowl. Argh! Foiled by the promise of an efficient machine and the naivety that this contraption will do the job I want it to do in the way I expect it to be done! Again, the end product tasted just fine, but simply wasn't as satisfying as mixing it by hand.

Several other recipes went by like this until I realized I'm just not ready to let machines do everything, especially when I'm constantly finding fault in them. The mixer and I now have this understanding that some recipes I will handle all on my own, and others the mixer will take point on. I'll continue to give the mixer a chance, seeing that it is a fine piece of machinery and, I'm sure, isn't purposefully letting me down. I know that some of the issues I'm having may just be user error coupled with an unwillingness to give up a task I find enjoyable. I do enjoy the mixer and find that it does great things with bread recipes (not quick bread, mind you), whipping up batches of homemade icing, and, of course, meringue.

New Residents

A few months ago we noticed a new structure being built inside of the tower at the front of the house. Initially, I thought it was a massive mud dauber nest that needed to be knocked down, but Ced noticed the pattern of the mud did not look anything like a typical insect nest. A day passed and we finally caught a glimpse of the builders - two barn swallows were moving in!

You can see a blurry head and blurry tail feathers here.

Neither of us have ever had any experience with swallows, so we ran inside and researched their habits.  

My main concern was being too active near their nest. Anytime we go in the front yard, we would pass under their roosting area. Fortunately, swallows aren't terribly aggressive (I was expecting mocking bird terror) and adjusted to our presence well enough.

In the mornings they would exit their nest and circle the front yard until we'd leave. Even when I stood under the tower (under their nest) to try to snap some photos of them circling, they would hover, chirp, and continue their circling.

They eventually laid eggs and cared for them until they hatched (I found the remains of two eggshells).

We found this all very exciting until we came home to a dead baby bird on the sidewalk. The following day we came home to the second baby bird having fallen to its doom and the swallows had moved out of their nest. For a week we ignored the sad reminder of the swallows and clutched onto the faint hope that they would come back and try again.

Instead, a new type of bird decided to make use of the nest and stuffed it with bits of dried grass and feathers. I've yet to properly identify this bird, but it has successfully hatched a brood that chirps en mass every time we walk through the front gate. Although I'm sad that our swallows have moved on, I am pleased that the mud nest has been recycled into a new home.