REFURBISHED SIGN

When Jim retired from the ministry in '99 the church we were serving gave us a terrific retirement party and a wonderful gift:  A carved wooden sign for the Garden Centre:  

This has stood at the end of our driveway for almost 20 years now, and was looking very much worse for wear.  I had repainted it once long ago, but it needed a lot of help.

Two weeks ago I devoted a lot of time to it.  I sanded and scraped and then put on a good coat (or was it two) of Killz primer.  Then I repainted the whole thing.  It took two coats. It was totally worth the effort!  It looks absolutely as good as new.

We had some help this weekend erecting it again.  It's solid wood, 2 x 2s, and really, really heavy.  Our carpenter had put in new posts--that was quite a job in itself.  And then some friends helped us carry it from the greenhouse where I had done the renew, and set it up on the new posts.  Alas, it teetered on the rock underneath.  Craig, who is enormously strong, lifted the big rock and moved it over, took some dirt out from underneath.  Had to repeat that process, but the result is lovely.

This finished project was completely worth all the effort it took.  We are very happy with it.

And in July our landscape is always at its most colourful, so here are a few pictures of it today:

And here's the rented construction fence, guarding our small vegetable garden from the deer depredations:

This is working very well, and I'm so glad I thought of this.  Dinner tomorrow will be "Kale Plus" with pretty much everything, except rice, coming from this garden.  

We had a terrific windstorm yesterday which tore down the sugar snap pea vines.  I'm hoping enough of them will survive to keep us in fresh sugar snaps for a long time yet.

HARDWORKING DAY

Well, harder than usual.  About six years ago, as far as I can determine from checking dates in iPhoto, I scraped, sanded and repainted the surroundings of the front door and the windows on either side.  I started removing the paint on the other door and windows that exit into the solar space at the downstairs front of the house.  Somehow or other the project stalled there.  This week is the week that it will, by hook or crook, be finished!

I have a free week, no commitments other than the usual cooking, housekeeping and preparing music for Sunday's service.  Did I mention that I've been playing organ for the Knox United Church here in town?  They are very appreciative and it's very good for me to practice, prepare and play the music for the Sunday morning services.  But other than that, it's a free week, so this is THE WEEK to finish that project!

It was an all day effort, beginning with using the heat gun to loosen the paint and the scrapers to bring it down to bare wood again.  The problem was that it had been sloppily painted some time in the past.  What really bothered me was that it seemed the paint had been applied over a build up of fly dirt.  Hence the need for a thorough stripping.

Sanding followed the stripping, and was followed by a primer coat of KILZ2 and then the first coat of the brown finishing paint.  It will need a second coat to insure the white of the primer does not show through.  But WHOOEEE!  I got all that done!  It's looking good.  Later this week the window beside it needs the same treatment.

BAG #4

This morning I finished Bag #4 in the Quiltsmart Midi Bag series.  I really enjoy this bag!

Mary Keenan gave the the fabric to make this bag, as I am going to teach a class in how to make this bag at her quilt shop in August.  It turned out very well.  We are both happy with it.  It's now hers.

Here's another view:

I learned a lot making this bag and am understanding the pattern much better.  I drew out a sketch that shows how the four panels relate, to help in placement of the squares.  Here's the schematic:

This shows which square of the four panels will attach to which square of the adjacent panel.  By charting this out I was able to plan which squares should go where in each of the four panels.  I'm very happy with the result.  So is Mary.

Of course, now I have an idea for another variation of this pattern!

COOKING WITH WHAT YOU HAVE

Especially when the garden begins producing I practice what I call, Cooking With What You Have.  On Sunday there were several things available, but not a whole lot of any one thing, so I made "Kale Plus"--something original.  Here's the recipe (if that's what you can call it.)

KALE PLUS

All ingredients freshly picked, washed and chopped:
Kale
Swiss Chard
Celery
Mushrooms
Zucchini
Sweet Potato
Green and regular onion
Broccoli
Red and Green Peppers
shredded Carrot

Additional:
crushed garlic
oregano
basil
fresh Rosemary leaves
salt and pepper

Heat some canola oil and sesame oil in a heavy pot.  Add the cubed sweet potato and cook until softened.  Cook the kale in another heavy pot with a little chicken bouillon.  When the kale is wilted add the other ingredients.  Add the cooked sweet potato and some precooked rice for volume.  Serve hot.  Top with chopped tomato, diced avocado and some dollops of sour cream.

This was delicious and well worth repeating.  The ingredients could vary with what ever is available.

Here's what is in the oven right now:

I had bought two medium sized sweet potatoes at the end of last week.  The first one went into the Kale Plus.  Tonight I peeled and sliced the other sweet potato and added some cut up fresh pineapple, some broken pecans and some real Maple Syrup.  I'm figuring about 45 minutes at 350º should do it.

The rest of dinner: steamed cauliflower and grilled pork medallions.  I hope it turns out well!

P.S.  I usually have some cooked rice in the freezer for a quick dish.  See Alton Brown's Baked Brown Rice.

LOTS TO DO

We're having a cold, rainy summer here.  Once in a while we get a nice, warm, sunshiny start to the day, as we did today, so I dress for summer in shorts and shirtsleeved shirt.  Then I go outside and find it's really quite cold and windy.

This morning the fences we're renting to keep the deer out of the vegetable garden arrived.  S. and her husband brought them on a flat bed trailer, as they are 6 feet high and 10 feet long.  We got them set up and I'm confident they will do the job of keeping out the deer.  There are showers just now, so I'll take a picture tomorrow and show you how neat and effective they are.  Rental is just $.50 per linear foot per month.  That's pretty doable.

Over the weekend I did another of the "Snowman" panel quilts.  This one is for IDA, for use in The Fabric Nook to help create interest in this really cute panel.

This one has a different border, a directional fabric showing cardinals and top hats, made to coordinate with the panel.  Because it's directional I needed a pretty long piece of the border fabric, but it's pretty cute.  I added a wider than usual binding to make a statement that relates to the inner border of red.  That worked well.

The snowman actually has a triple layer of polyester batting, cut to size to "puff" him up.  The rest of the quilt has just one layer of that batting.  The machine quilting on the snowman and his hat, etc. was done with threads the same as the backgrounds: red, brown, black and white.  The quilting on the background was all done with an invisible (dark) thread.  It looks really cute and The Fabric Nook was delighted with it.  Now I need to make up a hand-out sheet of useful tips on creating this cute quilt