LouAnn called last night.  My sunset quilt got People’s Choice at the fair.  I don’t know which day it got it but it’s really nice to have it recognized.

Both quilts come home today.  <smile>

Jungle hooch

Wadly sits in the kitchen in the morning, drinking his coffee and gazing out over his domain.  This morning he said “our cabin by the lake is now a hooch in the jungle.”  It made me laugh.   The reed has gotten to be a fairly impressive size.

The first picture is what we see when we walk out the door.  The second is what Wadly sees sitting in the kitchen.  You can see why he’s calling it a hooch in the jungle.

Wadly on his beloved John Deere moving the plant wall

In the last couple weeks we’ve made a number of changes to our aquarium/plant wall setup.  We moved our plant wall outside for the summer and swapped our original 28 gallon aquarium for a larger 50 gallon one.

Yesterday I swapped our fairly large plecostomus for a scaled down model too small to eat new hatchlings and sleeping fish.  I also got two more catfish and five neon tetra about the size of the tetra babies we already had.  I think that brings our tetra count to 10.  Wadly will have to buy some more guppies to round out the pack.

I’ve still got a lot to do to the new aquarium.  I need new air hose for one of my stones, I still need to find/build a sump and I need to run plumbing through the wall to connect the plant wall to the new tank.

When we moved the plant wall out we hung it on the horizontal beam on the east end of the sun porch.  To leave it outside and still connect it to the aquarium inside the living room it was necessary to move it to the north wall.  Rather than remove the gutter and disturb all the plants again, we fastened a 2×4 to the back of the plant wall and moved it with the tractor.  It was a little time consuming but very easy nothing damaged in the move.

There’s no way to get it back into the house using the tractor but I wish we could.  This last move was incredibly easy.

Limp and snoring

It’s been two and a half years since Chuck came to live with us.  When he first arrived I had to chase him down and corner him to touch him.

Through the months we went through many stages of acceptance and trust.  He came to accepted we would touch him but I couldn’t reach for him with both hands.  Then I couldn’t touch him if we were outside.  Then I could touch him outside but with only one hand.

Just recently he’s started rolling over on his back to have his tummy rubbed.  This is a 180° shift from the dog who slept with one eye open with all legs tucked under him prepared to bolt to safety.

As his trust and confidence grew he changed from a scared little mite who would bolt in a heartbeat to a regular guy, confident enough to follow me around the hardware store among strange people.

The picture on the left is Chuck, version 2.5, sound asleep, upside down and snoring.  It’s not very dignified but it makes me smile.

You’ve come a long way, baby.

LouAnn has been entering her quilting and canning in our local fair for years.   I’m fortunate that she drags my quilts along for the ride.

This year I have three quilts entered in the fair.  LouAnn called yesterday to tell me they had all received blue ribbons.  While that’s nice, it was even more exciting to hear her grape quilt had been considered for the grand poo-bah prize.  That’s pretty awesome!

Note:  LouAnn called to tell me Sunset on the Farm got people’s choice at the fair.  How nice!

I’m planning the changes I want to make to our aquaponic system when the wall comes back indoors.

This time I want the water level in the aquarium to be fixed, so I’m planning to install a sump.  In reading up on sumps I ran into a good tutorial on one of the salt water aquarium sites.  What I found delightful, beyond how clear and informative the information was the author’s style.  “I once had a zebra goby that, despite my lectures, would make the trip several times a week before I finally managed to find an effective way to enforce the height restrictions on the ride.“  Part 3, sump tutorial

Wadly’s changing to a bigger tank.  The new tank is the same depth front to back but is 4″ taller and 18″ longer.  That’s a fairly significant increase in water volume.  The addition of a sump bumps the volume even further.  I will be able to have the tank heater and small circulator pump in the sump along with the larger pump required for feeding the wall.  Moving the pump and heater out of the tank will really clean up the inside which will make Wadly even happier.

Wadly’s current tank has been very successful.  Having it attached to the wall keeps the tank’s inhabitants fairly healthy and clean with little work on our part.  The tank’s health and stability are supported by the baby catfish, baby guppies and, most surprising of all, baby neon tetras we’ve had since the tank was established.  The baby tetras were jousting last night.  They’re so flashy it’s easy to see their antics from across the room.

Lorr (our son) has discovered wholesale rot under the window and into the floor and floor supports where his 60 gallon aquarium housing Carlos the turtle, two gigantic plecos and a couple really fat goldfish.  Moving the tank is a must so it looks like Carlos is coming to stay.  The big concern is keeping Carlos comfortable.  The goldies can join mine in my 100 gallon tank outside and the plecos can go to the aquarium store.

Wadly’s next day off is Tue.  We’ll drag the big aquarium out of the loft, clean and set it up for all Wadly’s fish.  We’ll leave the smaller aquarium set up to accommodate Carlos temporarily while we get is larger tank set up and up to temp.

To keep both tanks using the wall, I’m going to have to install a sump.  I haven’t done that before.  It should be a learning experience.

Wall hanging in the sun porch.

I’ve moved the plant wall into the sun porch for the next two months.  Terry wants to change his tank to a larger one and I need to solve my recurring aphid problem, so the wall’s out!

When I move the plant wall back in I’m going to make a couple changes.  I am going to mount the gutter on the room’s wall instead of attaching it to the plant wall.  Moving the plant wall with the gutter attached was not a productive act.  The way I’d built it, the gutter couldn’t be removed from the plant wall without taking the plant wall off the room wall.    The only way to set the wall down was on the gutter.  Yeah, it was ugly.  There was no permanent damage done but it was beyond messy.

The mounting system is a success.  The plant wall was easy to lift off the mounting bracket.  I’d definitely recommend using that scheme.  To hang the plant wall in the sun porch Terry used deck screws to fasten a beveled 2×4 to the horizontal support beam in the sun porch.  The wall slipped right on it with no fuss.

I’m using a temporary gutter right now made out of billboard vinyl.  It’s not bad!  The hydroton is light and takes up enough room so when the gutter is full of water it isn’t too heavy for the quick and dirty support assembly I build using 2 sticks screwed to the ends of the wall frame holding up a metal rod taped and rolled into the vinyl at the front.  The vinyl trough ends are folded up and stapled to the wall frame.  It doesn’t leak and it doesn’t add to the weight of the wall.  It’s not a permanent solution but it is a quick and dirty temporary one that works.  The drain is a threaded bulkhead fitting with a piece of plastic water pipe inserted in the top.  The water pipe has holes drilled to allow the water to drain.  The closer to the top of the pipe, the more holes I drilled.  It’s just enough to let the gutter flood to the right depth and slowly drain when the pump shuts off.

I’ve got the pipe for the new gutter ready to cut and mount but I’ll wait until the new aquarium is in so I know where to place my drain hole.  The new aquarium is 18″ longer so I have some good options.  I won’t be able to use a hard plastic threaded bulkhead because of the curve of the pipe but I have some Uniseal bulkhead fittings.  If I don’t have the right size I’ll order some more.

To keep the fish in the aquarium happy and healthy, I’m doing the water changes via buckets.  I siphon 5 gallons of water out of the 25 gallon wall receptacle and I siphon 5 gallons of water out of the aquarium.  Then I dump the aquarium water into the plant wall receptacle and the plant wall water into the aquarium.  It doesn’t take long, isn’t messy and isn’t very tedious so I’ll continue to do that twice a week until Terry gets the tanks swapped and I can move my plant wall back in.  We’ve got lots of baby fish right now and the catfish has just laid eggs again so I don’t know how he’s going to manage the swap without disturbing everyone.

We have a lovely local market that carries all sorts of not-so-mainstream foods as well as having a lovely selection of bulk foods.  I shop there not only because of the selection but because I’m supporting a local store.  They just increased their bulk food selection and they carry a really good range of gluten free products which is an additional plus.  They are my go-to-first food shopping place.  I shop at Safeway only after I’m done all my shopping at Shop-n-Kart.

Yesterday I was collecting bits and pieces for another batch of bouillabaisse inspired base for the clam chowder I make.  I make a big batch and store it in portions in the freezer and use that to add liquid/fish to my chowder.  It is SO much better than just adding water.  It takes the chowder from “oh, we’re having chowder” to “Oooo!  Chowder!”  It really makes that much difference to me.

Shop-n-Kart has a really good selection of head and tail on fish which is just what is needed for bouillabaisse.  Note to self, put in a request for orange roughy.  So I’m browsing away adding stuff to my cart as whim strikes me.  That’s the beauty of bouillabaisse.  I always check over the beef section (they carry family and restaurant packs of meat which are usually quite a bit less than what Safeway carries and can be packaged into the freezer so I can shop less often) to see if there’s a really good buy on rib steaks (my favorite), t-bone (okay but not nearly as good) or New York strip (what I usually end up with) and I noticed they have started carrying bison.  How cool is that?!  I picked out a lovely 7-bone chuck roast to barbeque.

I don’t know if you can call what I do with 7-bone chuck “barbeque.”  I smoke/bake it on a charcoal grill with all the coals pushed out to the outside edge.  It takes more coals (1½ to 2 times as many) but the result is fabulous.  Okay, I guess that’s barbeque.

I dried off the roast and rubbed both sides with finely grated elephant garlic, rosemary, thyme and cracked black pepper.  The elephant garlic grates into a paste that pretty much disappears into the meat when you rub it in.  Then I add the pepper, rosemary and thyme, rubbing it in.

I placed the roast in the center of the grill well away from the charcoal and close the lid.  The goal is to cook it to juicy tenderness, not charcoal the outside leaving the inside raw.

The first side cooks for about 20-25 minutes depending on thickness, the second side for 10-15.  It’s important to not overcook it.  The key to timing the turn and removal is in the appearance of the surface of the meat.  When the top of the roast’s outside edges starts to get shiny from rising moisture, turn the roast over.  You want to pull it off the grill just as moisture starts to pool on the top.  If you wait to long, the heat will drive all the moisture out and you’ll end up with a dry roast.

When you pull the roast off the grill, let it rest for five minutes before you cut into it so the juices have time to redistribute.

Our bison roast was beyond awesome, tender, juicy and flavorful.

I have used this same technique to smoke a rolled turkey roast for Thanksgiving.  Soak flavorful hardwood chips (I use apple or cherry) overnight.  Just before placing the roast on the grill, cover the charcoal with the soaked wood chips.  They will flavor the roast as it cooks and you’ll have delicious juicy turkey ham.

Vendor's Choice and a first place in the "Other" category Wreath of Life hanging in Karen's booth

The quilt show is over and two of my quilts did really well.

The Sunset quilt got People’s Choice the second day and second in the pieced category.

The Ichthy Bog Coat got a Vendor’s Choice ribbon and a first in the “Other” category.

Even better, LouAnn’s grape quilt got People’s Choice the very first day!  That rocks!  And Karen‘s been asked to teach the Square Dance (block used as the border on the bog coat) at two different location!  That really rocks!

LouAnn’s Wreath of Life quilt hung in Karen’s booth and many asked for the pattern.  We all agree the quilt would have been pretty without the pieced background, but the large Dance block in pastels behind the appliqué really added to the depth and richness of the quilt.

Simple yet elegant

We had a lovely dinner with our kids last weekend.  Patty was wearing sandals from Payless Shoes.  The strap design was simple and elegant, just two loops.  I’ll have to make a pair of these.  I’ve got some red goat hide that would be perfect!

Sunset at the farm Nested stars Confetti Stars aka "The Wood Quilt" insert

My three quilts are almost home.  They hung at the Pe Ell Quilt Show over the July 4th weekend but they still have two more stops to make before I get to sleep under them.

In two weeks they hang again at the RDQG Quilt Show, then a month later they hang at the SWW Fair.

Confetti Stars got best comfort sized quilt at the Pe Ell show.  That’s nice!

I have no idea where these buildings are located.

A friend sent a digital slide show of aerial photographs by Yann Arthus-Bertrand.  Included in the slide show was a wonderful picture of rooftop gardens.  The slide had no designation for where the photo was taken and a search of the internet got me no closer to finding it.

I’ll take the penthouse, please.

Terry and Lorr on the range

Our son and his SO came over yesterday.  After an afternoon on the range, we all went to dinner at a local restaurant specializing in slow cooked smoked meats.  I had blackened prime rib which came with a baked potato topped with a scoop of premixed butter, sour cream, chives and cracked black pepper.  It was AWESOME.  Whoever thought of mixing those together and serving it all in a scoop is a genius!  The ratio of butter to sour cream to chives to pepper was perfect!

Starting to look like a quilt . . .

I’ve got the majority of the body put together.  I need to cut blocks to fill in the edges.  I need to get baby quilt (non-flammable) rayon batting and some pretty pink and green or purple and green flannel for the back.  I won’t add borders.  This is supposed to be a drag around quilt as she gets older so there’s no point in getting fancy or “heirloomy”.

Confetti stars

Here’s Confetti Stars, all pretty and quilted.  I’m really happy with this pattern.

I think I need to make one of these big enough for our bed.  I like it!

Spreading moss

The two clinging vines are doing great, slowly spreading over the wall.  Now that I’m inspecting the wall more closely I’m seeing more moss.

Eva's Confetti Stars

I have had to find a new vendor for template cutting and in the process of getting templates cut I’ve had to retest some of the templates.  Because the Confetti Stars is cut from strip sets, and because I hate to waste material, I’ve elected to take the testing down a productive path.  Baby quilt!

I saw my friend Rachel at Safeway Thursday.  She’s got a new baby girl she and Travis have named Eva.  If I can get this finished and quilted little Eva will be able to sleep under the stars!

Spagnum moss

It’s aphid season again.  I’m keeping a close eye on my wall as I’m already spraying it when I see aphids.  Fortunately they gravitate to some plants more than others and I check those plants daily to make sure they’re free of aphids.

In my close study of the wall I found it had gained sphagnum moss!  How cool is that?!  I’ll keep an eye on it to see how fast it spreads.  This is pretty exciting!

Fish and nacent water lilly pads.

We have water lilly pads surfacing.  That must mean it’s spring . . . or something like it.

Crewel needle chucked into the drill press. Crewel needle

I have a short hand awl I like to use for opening holes for hand stitching.  It’s got a nice slender shaft and the hole is ample for accepting needles carrying 7-strand waxed linen.  The problem with using it is the amount of time the process takes.  Punch three holes, sew three holes, punch three holes, sew three holes.  The left foot took me two days as my neck would wear out from fighting the awl out of the hole once I managed to get it into the leather to make the hole.

Some really bright guy on the Crispin Colloquy (shoemakers list) used a drill press to punch leather. The drill press wasn’t running, it was used as a press (leverage).  Insert the tool into the chuck (he was using a three gang chisel punch) and pull the lever.  Instant hole. I thought it was such an exceptional idea I just had to try it.

It took less than five minutes to punch all the holes I needed for stitching the shaper to the midsole for the right shoe.  There’s no way I could have done the job that easily or quickly with my hand awl.  I had previously marked all the holes so jumping from one to the next was a breeze.

The crewel needle I used held up really well to being chucked in the press.  I didn’t turn the drill press on to see if I’d managed to chuck it completely straight.  I don’t know how much the difference in symmetry was an issue.  It worked and that’s what I needed to happen.

Angel Wing and Napolane or Snow Man Spotted Angel Wing

I got my new begonias in the wall yesterday.  They arrived in rough shape, which I think is to be expected when live plants are shipped.  The box was a bit smooshed.

In the wall I’ve got two angel wing, two that are pale silver (Napoline and Snow man) and a couple that have curly leaf edges (Curly Annie and Curly Eyelash). There are even two that are a combination of all the above . . . okay, maybe not the Angel Wing bit, but a pretty green spotted or ringed in silver. I’ve also put two small plants that broke off from the parent in the gutter to hold them over for LouAnn’s wall.

I didn’t put all the new begonias in the wall.  Of the dozen I received I still have four in pots.  I’ll put those in LouAnn’s wall as well.

Warming up after an outdoors foray.

I think I’ve finally got a solution for keeping Chuck relatively comfortable.  Fleas have been driving him nuts.  I had a flea collar on him for a while and that did nothing noticeable, even when  I sprayed him with Cedarcide each time he came in.  The Cedarcide helped, but it only kills the fleas that are on him and does nothing to discourage more from jumping on.

The combo that appears to be relatively effective (I hope) is a combination of Ortho’s Home Defense sprayed on the rugs (one application lasts for ~12 months), Zodiac Flea and Tick Spray on Chuck (good for ~2 months) and a quick once-over with Cedarcide when he comes in from outside.  No, I am not going to try and treat our property for fleas.  I have free range chickens and we have 12 acres.  Between the chickens and the property size, treating the outdoors for fleas is not a reasonable idea.

There remains a very small amount of scarring on Chuck’s right eye which doesn’t significantly impede his vision.  I think the surface of the eye has healed as much as it’s going to.

Updated overflow

I updated the overflow drain on the larger bog filter tank.  I’m still using electrical conduit elbow, but it’s 1½”, not 1″.  The outlet pipe is also resized for an 1½” tee-less connector.  I enlarged the hole in the piece of perforated drain which keeps the roots from plugging the conduit.

I’ve been finding more uses for inner tube.  This plumbing change includes a piece of bicycle inner tube for connecting the two pieces of pipe together.

The only thing I wish I’d done before assembly was to paint the conduit black, but once the water hyacinth is added to the tank the leaves will hide the gray.

Willows in pea gravel filled pots

I couldn’t leave the corkscrew willows in the upper biofilter tank.  The hydroton grow medium is not heavy enough to keep the willows upright and in the tank when the wind blew.  I knew putting them there was a temporary solution.  Yesterday I implemented a more permanent fix.  The willows are only in the water for this summer.

The half-gallon pots have recycled window screen in the bottom to keep the gravel from migrating out the drain holes.  The willow trunks are held in place against the side of the tank frame by truck inner tube pieces and staples.  The pots are held up against the side of the tank by cord hangers over hex head screws.  Everything can be easily removed when it comes time to plant the willows out after they go dormant this fall.

Glory and litter

Now that all the other plants have been moved out for the summer, I can get a good picture of the gutter begonia in all its glory and litter.  This is the dichotomy of prolifically flowering plants indoors.  The litter is non-stop but so is the beauty.  Click the image for the full impact.

Two stalks showing and many more in the works. Another plant showing a blossom stalk

The Cape Primrose has started it’s continuously blossoming cycle.  After the initial single blossom stalk, each new leaf will produce at least two stalks with two blossoms per stalk all the way through the summer.  Unlike begonias whose blooming period comes and goes, the Cape Primrose will just keep producing gorgeous blossoms.

The plant showing the single blossom is one of two or three.  If you click on the second image you will see a new stalk starting on another plant.  If you look closely you can see the base of the blossom stalk comes out of the base of the leaf.

The wall has gloxinia in it as well.  I don’t know if or when it will bloom.  The fun is in watching to see what happens.

I've lost one spider plant at the top. I have others in the gutter I can put in its place, I just need to do it. The hoya is finally showing gwoth. The small leaf is new.

The wall is doing really well.  The gutter begonia is ridiculous and the floor is littered with discarded pink petals.  The flowers are appearing in a slow wave from the bottom of the cascading growth to the top.

The avocado all have multiple roots, though no stalk has appeared.  I am expecting to see that feature shortly.

The hoya has finally started to grow.  This is a very promising sign.

I got an email from Keith at Rex Begonias.  My plants should be here today or tomorrow.

I’ll be filling in some of the empty spots in the next couple days.

Our local market had pork ribs on sale.  I had just picked up my stainless Presto pressure cooker from Walmart and was primed for a meal I could cook in my new toy.  Barbequed pork ribs sounded perfect.

The book that came with my pressure cooker had a recipe for barbequed pork, but I didn’t have all the ingredients AND some of the recipe ingredients are things I can’t eat so recipe ad lib was required.  The result was FABULOUS.

Here’s what I did.

I added one cup of water and 3 pounds of pork ribs to the pressure cooker and cooked it for five minutes.  That’s misleading.  If you’ve ever used a pressure cooker, you know it takes a bit of time to get up to temperature/pressure.  You start timing from that point, not from the point where you stick it on the stove.

After five minutes I set the pressure cooker in the sink and ran cold water over it until the pressure released.  I drained off the liquid (saved it for our dogs’ dinner tonight) and added 1-10 oz can of Safeway brand Southwest Style Diced Tomatoes with Green Chiles, 1/4 diced onion, 1/2 cup red wine vinegar, 1/4 cup xylitol (birch sugar safe for diabetics), 2 tbsp maple syrup and 3 roughly chopped roma tomatoes.

After the pressure cooker came up to temperature/pressure, cook time was 10 minutes.  At this point you have to turn off the heat and let the temperature/pressure drop without any quick cooling.

After the pressure released, I pulled the pork out and reduced the sauce, stirring occasionally with my whisk.  The pork was served cubed with the sauce on top.  OMG.

With this I served oven fries.  Wadly cut two potatoes in wedges.  Ideally, 1 potato per person and 8 wedges per potato is good but go with what works for you.  Put the wedges in a bowl and toss in freshly ground pepper, sea salt, basil and olive oil.  Toss this combination and lay them skin side down on an aluminum foil lined cookie sheet.  Cook at 400° to the done-ness you prefer.  I like them golden brown ~30 minutes.

This was easily the best meal we’ve had in a while.   It was awesome!

To this I will add . . . this recipe produces a fairly chunky barbeque sauce.  If you want a smoother sauce, puree the ingredients before adding them to the pressure cooker.