Well we have been busy on the ol’ homestead, we are not planting any of our veg until June having learned our lesson last year when we had a frost in very late May which rather did for a lot of things. That being said we have been prettying up the place, which will be an ongoing process but we have made a start.
Plum tree in solitary to keep the Deer off of it.
So our kitchen is done….for now at least. We left the countertop for around the sink until last as we figured the first two would be good practice, which they were. Our neighbor Scottie was a big help with getting the form built, he did the hole for the sink part, Suzie bought a little bottle of acrylic paint for the faucet hole as it was the perfect diameter. However as soon as we got the concrete poured Suze realized the form had not been built as a mirror image to what we actually wanted (the sink on the left)! While we were deliberating what to do and how we might be able to use the side with all of the bubbles on, one of our chickens jumped on top and left a claw print in the wet concrete – which made up our minds, we were using it!
Thinking we needed an orbital sander we headed off into Paducah, Lowe’s had the sanders but not the diamond discs we needed so we had lunch and drove home. This happens a lot actually and it’s why we order a lot from the internet I guess.
Once the concrete had cured we needed to get it out of the form which proved somewhat difficult so we whacked it with a mallet and cracked the concrete, thought what the hell and then this happened:
We had no choice but to start over, our contractor was booked. We did things differently this time though and did not silicone around the form for the sink and we poured the concrete in smaller batches (to try to avoid pour marks, although we do kind of like those).
John our most excellent contractor arrived to fit the cabinets we bought and our new countertop. However, we bought an under-mount sink but due to the rough, uneven nature of the underneath of our flipped counter we could not use it as such. Which left us with a real problem as the hole we had left for the sink in the concrete was too small for a standard over-mount sink! We phoned around but not even mobile home and RV manufacturers could help us, their sinks were too small. The sink we had though just about fitted the hole so I decided we should have a go at jimmying it in and using it as an over-mount, John was concerned about bending the inside of the sink but went and fetched his rubber mallet.
We got the sink in without damaging the bowls of the sink, so we took it out, glued it and put it back. There was a bit of the lip sticking up at the front and I asked John to give it another whack and DISASTER struck!
Suzie was at work but when she got home she just loved it, crack and all, because that’s just who she is. I am “Mr Everything Needs to be Perfect” but Suzie said the damage was part of the countertops story now and that we should just fill the cracks, Kintsugi was mentioned but who has the money for gold!
With the mid-week find of eggs in the compost our weekly total was 54. Suzie not wanting to waste anything hit on a plan, we gave some eggs to our neighbors and hardboiled a good few but then she had a day of baking.
Everything was DELICIOUS!
We figured as it’s winter that our chickens had gone off the boil (no pun intended) particularly our Easter Egger (Esther) who lays beautiful, smaller eggs that are green/blue (I think as I’m color blind). Esther is a bit flighty mind you and even laid one in our garage once.
While working outside we have however been hearing the “Egg Song” coming from the compost bins quite a lot but every time we have peered in there we have seen nothing. Today though as I needed to climb into the compost for the second of our hugelkultur beds I found 21 eggs including many of Esther’s plus a couple of smashed ones. Some of them were really buried so they have clearly been laying them there for a good while, we did the water test and they are all still fresh. It kinda/sorta brings our tally for the day to 26 eggs with probably one more to get from the coop today.
Suzie being the brilliant gardener that she has no doubt known about Hulgelkultur for quite a while but it was news to me. It is our plan to prevent the vegetable beds from flooding again when it rains (and blimey does it pour down here sometimes). What appealed to me about it was that it uses up the byproduct of land management, pruned trees, dug turf, etc., etc.
BuzzAndCluck 