Backyard Then and Now

This weekend it was time to close the pool, which is a shame since I never got around to an 'After' pic of the yard after all our work on it. We can't really call these 'after' pics since we still haven't figured out how we are connecting paths from the house to the pool and we don't have a lawn, but here it is today. It has changed a bunch back there, and overall I think we are all pleased with things.

So here is what the yard looked like 14 months ago when we bought the house:

Come to think of it... we may have more lawn now than there was back then. Note the use of rotted timbers as a retaining wall, the beauty of the cedar trees overhanging the pool, and the cracked and heaved concrete deck. Pic below is late last summer with the pool opened and goldenrod in bloom.

Here it is today...

Since these pictures were taken during pool closing, the stairs are up on end etc. but you can at least get a feel for the scale of the work that has taken place this summer.

So far we have removed and replaced all plantings along the fence, including building and planting an espaliered apple orchard (14 trees from Siloam Orchards) as detailed here. For foundation plantings we have a mix of Hardy hydrangea, daylily, hostas (suffering due to too much sun), iris - at least 3 varieties - and a bunch of other stuff mostly rescued from our last house, or from the beds when we dug them out. 

Fenceline Garden and deck:

We removed the deck ourselves and had it replaced with Brooklin Brick products. The border is Barnboard Pavers and the field is something that was on the discount pile. Not sure what the intended colour or pattern was, but the price was right. Hardscaping was done by Ryan at Dreamscape Landscaping, with materials sourced by us.

The pool coping and liner was replaced by Ewing Pools, using stock coping (not sure what the pattern is) and a Gulf Coast Gold Pebble liner from Premier. Although the water isn't perfect you can see the pattern pretty well in the pic below. This liner does an outstanding job of hiding algae, which comes as a mixed blessing. It's nice that the algae doesn't show, but it's embarrassing when you jump in and the bottom is slimy. We need to vac the pool more regularly.

The new retaining wall was installed by us using Colonial Buff block from Brooklin Brick. It is nice having a locally produced product with a retail outlet on premises. We used the barnboard as our capstone for the wall.

An ongoing challenge for us will be the chipmunk colony that had undermined the previous pool deck. They are still there, despite the disturbances of the reno. Talking to neighbours, we can expect them to stay for some time. It seems as though chipmunks have always been part of this neighbourhood.

A final shot showing the view from the shallow end - including the pipe draining the pool, cloudy water due to closing schemicals, and the floaties from the trees losing their leaves.

In the spring we will be completing the fence, building a pool shed, and hopefully have a new lawn. We may also expand the patio where the BBQ is for better function, and put up a pergola across the back of the house. Thats all in the 'maybe' file for now though.

Back to the Mystery Project...

First off, Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Also, happy Columbus Day to all my American Friends!

With the saw behaving nicely its back to work on the current project. I needed to make some small parts with mortices and tenons to fit the rest of this frame. Step one... round holes become square

With mortices cut into the piece, I used the crosscut sled to put tenons on the end of  pieces, and then set them aside.

I made 2 of these. As I went, my chiselling skills got better and better. I still tore the wood a little, but overall it went well. 2 parts done, 4 to go.

With those guys done, I put tenons on a pair of uprights, and fit everything together.

Looking good so far... Now its time for the outer frame. The layout on these had to be pretty accurate. I used the frame to locate the mortices, and then drilled and chiselled away.

The chiselling on these went well, but this wood is soft maple, and it works very differently than the hard cherry I used for the rest of the frame. The wood fibers tore and the holes came out a little oversized. I may remake these parts. In any case, here is what the complete frame looks like assembled and ready for glue.

Almost done... just a few more steps.

Pumpkin Not-Pie, Cake

It was about a week ago that my friend Gretchen over at Boxy Colonial mentioned she was doing a pumpkin themed link party. Never having been in a link party before I though that sounded fun, and with visions of cocktails and formal wear, I said I'd be there. I shone up my cufflinks.

Apparently dress for these things is casual. They are a virtual party - one where everyone shares ideas, and you mix your own cocktails. And cufflinks are not needed, just weblinks.

In keeping with the pumpkin theme for the party, I considered and discarded idea after idea, finally settling on giving a new recipe a try. When God created the world, he saved Southern Cooking for last, and for good reason. It is perfection, and not a thing to be trifled with. So when my good friend, and talented chef Sandy Netherton shared her recipe for a southern dessert - Sweet Potato Pie Cake, I jumped on it as my link party crowd pleaser - I would just need to adapt the recipe a little, and rename it.

Sweet potatoes are not pumpkins, and this was a Pumpkin Party after all. So the Sweet Potatoes traded places with pumpkins, and voila! I'm link-party friendly. Here it is - The Pumpkin Not-Pie, Cake:

The recipe appeals because it is one of those user-friendly, low effort deals that uses pre-mixed stuff that comes in boxes rather than depending on from-scratch baking that interferes with concurrently preparing dinner. Since Thanksgiving is only a week away, this is a good test run, and another cake may grace the table at our family gathering. Its that good. Yeah, I used my finger to smudge some of the topping off the plate in that pic. It was totally worth burning both my finger and tongue to get some of that candy coating before it was cooled. Here's how you can get some too:

Step 1 Gather ingredients (Dinosaur painting optional):

Cake - a mere 3 items.

1. - Golden Cake Mix - The Recipe calls for Duncan Hines; I used Betty Crocker. I'm a rebel like that.
2. - Eggs. Three of them. Not more, nor less, but three. Three shall be the number thereof.
3. - One can of Sweet potato Pie Filling Mashed Pumpkin.

You Will also Need Topping ingredients, but they won't be required for about an hour. (After you prepare the rest of dinner!)

Topping - a mere 4 additional ingredients (Plus one I snuck in when no one was looking...)
1. - Four Tbsp Butter. I used margarine because I am a heathen
2. - 1/2 cup of chopped pecans. I am against cruelty to Pecans, so I bought them pre-chopped.
3. - 1 cup brown sugar. I have no clever things to insert here.
4. - 1/4 cup plus one tablespoon heavy cream. It ain't heavy, its my dairy.

The cake is pretty simple, put the cake mix in a bowl, make a well, crack the eggs and dump 'em in there like a load of laundry, then slop the pumpkin on top.

Mmmmm looks De-Lish!! Actually at this stage the pumpkin tastes like baby food squash. I tried it. its not very appealing. Anyways, mix that stuff up for a minute or so. Once its all good to go put it in the Bunt Pan that you just bought this afternoon 'cause you needed it to make this recipe. Of course no stores stock bunt pans, so you had to drive around for an hour after work trying to find a bunt pan the week before thanksgiving when the stores were full of crazed housewives looking for tablewares to impress their mothers in law. Yeah. Good times.

Ok, the recipe says that the bunt pan needs to be greased and floured, but this lovely new pan ($9.99 at Home Outfitters - made in Portugal or Italy or Spain, or some place European and totally unexpected) is non-stick. Dilemma time. I greased it just to be on the safe side, but I don't think it was necessary.

Anyways, put the day-glo orange cake mix into the carbon-black pan and marvel at the wonderful contrast of the colours, then pop it in the oven at 350° for an hour or so. The recipe says 65 minutes - I put it in for an hour and ten minutes. It will be a little gooey when its done - a halfway point between the smeary gooeyness of pumpkin pie and the firm crumbliness of golden cake. Your knife will not come out clean if you do the "stab it to see if it's dead" test.

Flip the cake onto a plate and set it aside to cool.

Now lets get going on the topping. I suggest you have all the ingredients close at hand for this stage. You are making pralines, which are a candy, and require some rapid-fire movements of ingredients into the pan. If possible, pre-measure everything into coffee cups on the counter beside you to make it faster and easier to get things into the pan as you go.

Alright, ready? Get the butter (margarine if you have no God) in the pot and start it melting. While it's melting, cue up the pecans and brown sugar. Once all the margarine is melted, dump in the pecans, and fry them for about 2 minutes. This step will increase the nutty flavour of the pecans, but you want to be careful not to burn them by cooking too long.

Mmmmm Pecans. I love Pecans. You know what else I love? Maple Syrup. Wouldn't it be great if there was some Maple Syrup in this recipe?

OK there is also Bailey's in that pic. Dunno how it got there. I should have put a little of that in the chef.

So once the pecans have suffered for 2 minutes, add the brown sugar and keep mixing (and a splash of maple syrup too if you are so inclined, I was thinking some bourbon would go nicely in there as well, but I couldn't hazard a trip to the liquor cabinet). Also put in the 1/4 cup plus one tablespoon of cream - which is the weirdest measure of ingredients I have ever seen. Probably 1/3 of a cup of cream is about the same. I dunno.

Anyways mix constantly - you don't want this to burn, and soon it will boil like in the picture above. Keep it boiling for 2 minutes, then remove from heat, and set aside to cool. You want it to thicken, but still be drooly. If it's too thin, all your pecans will fall off the cake, if it's too thick, it won't run down the sides of the cake. You can really see the difference between the stuff I put on when it was still too hot and the stuff I waited to put on in the pics below.

Also, because you have basically made caramel, the goo will be super sticky, so don't try to clean it off the plate - it will only make a mess. A delicious, candy flavoured mess studded with pecans. Who am I kidding, you know you're going to try a little of it! Just try not to burn your tongue.

And there you have it - Sweet Potato Pumpkin Not-Pie, Cake - just in time for thanksgiving! Let it cool before serving, and the candy shell will harden nicely. But let's be honest, you're gonna eat it long before it's cooled.

For more Pumpkin-related autumn fun, please follow this link to the Boxy Colonial blog, where you can see the rest of the pumpkin-related posts in this link party!

Saw Wars

I *hope* this is the end of the saga with my table saw. You may remember a while back, that mid project I got upset with it and whined aloud that it wasn't holding its depth settings when cutting dadoes. I cried. I stomped. I emailed my woodworking mentor Duane ( Check out his facebook page) and like Obi-wan he gave some great advice...

"Shit, be smarter than the saw. It went together didn't it? Where there is a will, there is a way. I've fixed a million things that said " no user serviceable parts inside", just get into it and do it...ok, back to my sanding."

Shortly after this, Busy Bee called. The parts I was waiting for are no longer produced. You can't get them.

But its only a metal tube with a slit in it. I thought I would go to a metal shop and get a piece of metal and drill it out to the right diameter. Then I went online and started shopping for saws. I pout like that.

Looking back at my old posts, I came across this pic:

I went out in the garage and looked more closely at the saw. You see the space between the roll pin and the slitted tube in there? well that is how much slop there is in the saw adjustment. When you raise the blade, the bar slides back by that much, and when you lower it, the bar comes to the front of the saw.

When I bought the saw, there was a washer on that bar between the threads and the roll pin. So I took everything apart again, and tried moving the washer back between the slitted tube and the circlips (barely visible in front the of the tube). The washer now rests against the angle pointer thinggy and holds back the slitted bar.

The saw seems to be holding its depth setting again. For now. I still have to get it assembled the rest of the way - I am having trouble realigning the fence, but I think I have it figure out. This means I can get my month-old, one day project back under way!

Bikeride!

A skill we've been working on this summer...

At the beginning of the summer, he couldn't even ride with the training wheels...

Now he's zipping all over the place!!

Next step... operation remove the training wheels!!

Before and After

Buddy Got a haircut....

Thursday Sailing Pic...

Wednesday nights are sailing nights around here. Last night there was no wind, which makes for bad sailing, but good picture taking. I got a couple shots of our competitor "Still Time" with my blackberry...

Even though the sailing was meh, its great to get out past the noise and hustle, and just relax. A couple hours of sail therapy can put your head in a much better place.