My dad sent me a bunch of different heirloom tomatoes, including seeds of our family’s 100-year-old+ heirloom Hungarian tomato variety. I also have Hungarian Pink, Kazakhstan, Black Prince, and Mortgage Lifter tomatoes. In addition to the seeds, Dad made and sent me these awesome little stakes with the variety etched into them.
Tonight, I planted them so they will be ready to plant outside once it’s warm enough.
Last weekend I raked out the garden, pulled up the weeds, and basically got it set for planting. Once it warms up I’m going to be extending it to be about 3 feet wider which will give me more room for everything I’m planning to plant. I have some ambitious plans this year (which I’ve eluded to before and really will write about soon…) that will require lots of veggies.
Many of my walls are still bare in the house. It’s not that I’m lazy ( I may be, but that is not the reason here ) but rather that I’ve been waiting to find things I really love.
World Market sends me email every week or two. One of those messages contained a couple pictures that I liked, and I kept thinking about them. I stopped by World Market today to check them out in person and I really liked them. Extra bonus - they were on sale! For now, I have them in the living room. I like them here, but my initial reservation was that they were not as “structured” as the rest of the room; they are more organic. I’m going to keep them here for a while but if I find something better, these will work great in the dining room.
About a year ago I replaced the downspout in my backyard because it was clogged and contributed to some basement flooding. I hacked up a Frankenstein method of bracing that downspout and intended to stop at Home Depot the following week to get a proper bracket.
Now, a year later, I finally followed through. This is one of those little things that bugged me every time I looked at it, so I’m quite pleased to have it finished off.
I’m officially committed to the siding and windows project now. I went to Home Depot and ordered my windows. As my dad often says, “Good windows are not cheap. Cheap windows are not good.” So I got good windows - Anderson 400 Series Woodwright double hung wood windows. They have grilles to match the windows in the rest of the house and Low-E glass. It should make a big difference upstairs.
Interestingly, when I finished this several thousand dollar order, I had to check out and pay. I went through the self checkout just fine. I can’t imagine they get too many receipts that big in self checkout
They should be here in about a month, so soon I should have a date for the whole project to begin.
I picked up a couple other things while I was there - a replacement garden rake (my old one disappearaed last year, and it was all splintered anyway), another project I’ll discuss later, and a gardenia plant. It has one little flower right now, but already my living room smells great.
Just over a year ago, I said that my first big house project would be the siding. I still haven’t done anything about it except to grow more disgusted with its current state. This is how it looked a year ago and pretty much how it looks now.
Today, Contractor Sal came by to look at this so he could put together a quote for replacing it. I am going to do this in fiber-cement siding, even though it’s more expensive. Sal also pointed out that if they were doing the siding, I should replace the 6 remaining old windows. They are in pathetic condition. The glazing is peeling off, some don’t open well, others don’t stay open well, they are drafty, and they rattle when it’s windy. That expands the budget of the project a bit, but I think we can handle it.
Last year I said my tax refund was going to pay for this. I believe it actually went to paying off all the bills that came with moving and the other bills that piled up in January as I scraped together as much cash as possible for the massive closing costs and the down payment on the house. This year, though, I mean it. TurboTax and I spent some quality time together this weekend and I’m getting a pretty decent refund (horay for interest deductions!). That, plus what’s already sitting in my House Fund should take care of this big important project.
Quotes are coming all around in the next week. Updates then!
I’ve ordered a bunch of rugs and they all showed up at once. Three are from Orvis. I got one for the front door, one for the back, and one for outside the back door. They are these great water trapper mats that look great. Plus, you clean them by just hosing them down. I already have a personalized one of these that goes under the girls dishes and the new ones for the door will be a big help. There are muddy paw prints all over this house.
In the basement, I got a stripey cotton rug for by the washer and dryer.
I still need good lighting for down there, but I like how it looks with the rug. It’s starting to look acceptable.
One of the many benefits of living here in Silver Spring, just a mile from the border with DC, is that lots of cool stuff is available to us. Montgomery County is a wonderful place and is home to many prestigious people which bring the much-less-prestigious of us some great opportunities.
Today, after much waiting and watching of market conditions, we took up one of these opportunities. We switched 100% of our electricity to wind power through a company called Clean Currents. The removal of rate caps for the big power companies has led to significant increases in our normal electricity prices. Today when I checked, the cost of wind power was $0.117 per KWH vs. $0.112 on my last Pepco bill. Montgomery County has a special program encouraging green power that reduces the cost by $0.005 per KWH so basically I’m paying the same for the wind power as for the existing power (likely coal out here).
Our price is now fixed for 1 year. I don’t mind if we end up paying a bit more if energy prices from coal drop over the summer (though I don’t know how likely that is).
We are very excited about this change. It’s great to be supporting the green power industry.
Here is the quart of boiled down sap I had this morning. All the debris settled out.
Then, I filtered it with a coffee filter to make sure what I had was clear:
Here’s the clarified result:
Since it’s a beautiful day, we went outside so the girls could fetch, I could work, and the sap could boil down some more.
Just about a minute before it was done, we brought it inside to finish off the boiling:
And with that, after 12 days of gathering sap and boiling spread over three days, I ended up with 8 oz. of what appears to be Grade A Medium Amber maple syrup. Retail value: about $3.
More importantly, it tastes really good! I don’t know why, but I was honestly surprised that it was so good. I put it to good use for lunch:
I’ve been boiling and boiling, though not constantly since I started. I didn’t want to burn this so I had to stop for sleep and work. However, I got it mostly boiled down tonight. It’s now about 1am and I’m ready to start boiling inside and carefully watching. Really, I’m ready for bed and will finish this tomorrow.
Here’s what I have left from the 3 gallons. It is all churned up from being poured into this measuring cup, but really the cloudy parts settle out and will be filtered. What’s in here is very sweet and clearly approaching maple syrup status.
Perhaps at dinner time I’ll have pictures of my pancakes???
(I’m still boiling the sap. It looks like it might not get done until tomorrow since I don’t want to leave it going all day while I’m at work).
In case anyone was curious, I snapped a couple photos of Crazy Neighbor’s house.
Here’s the front. Other than being totally dilapidated, the house is really cute. It’s a cape cod like mine, but with really beautiful stone rather than brick. Click to see big versions.
However, let’s take a closer look at that roof.
Here’s the jungle of his front yard. You should see it in the summer.
And finally, a photo I took of the back of the house last summer.
