Achieving loads

G'day, and here's another exciting installment on my blog. Aren't you lucky people that I spend an hour or so every day (often more) tippy tappying and sharing my happenings. I know you love it very much.

Just picked lettuce

I'm going to open this blog with a brief excursion back to yesterday evening; the salad which we had included so many locally grown elements that I wanted to highlight this. We had the Red Orach (very tasty), lettuce from the windowsill, home grown tomatoes and cucumber from the Little Lady. It's great to be able to enjoy food grown so close. Indeed I think the radish and olives were the only things in there not grown here and both of those things are planned for production here.

Early morning sky from bed

After eating we were both tired so it was not long before bed called and I slept pretty well until I woke at 5am and then I could not get back to sleep. I lay in bed trying to sleep, snapping a couple of pictures as the sun rose. until just before the alarm and when I gave up, went to make a brew and took the coffee through for A while she was still in bed.

Sun rise

I was doing the washing up utilising the barest trickle of hot water that was squeezing out of the boiler (the water pressure this morning was even lower; great) when A came through and after I finished the washing up I went onto the balcony to capture the stunning sun rise.

Sorting the wood pile

As soon as my first brew was drunk I went out the back and set to with the wood pile; A was going to get the men this morning to give me the best possible opportunity to get as much of this cleared before the day got too hot. I set to at a steady pace and the only time I paused was when the Little Lady appeared about five minutes before A got back with some eggy toast for our breakfast. A did the feeding of the boys (Ralf was in big trouble as he ran off, so was left locked in after feeding and barked until a few minutes after she left, and then was still left in when she got back) and then headed off to get the men as I said. I worked at this for 1.5 hours and was really pleased with the progress made. I reckon with a repetition tomorrow I will get this completed and then there is just another pile a bit further along to sort. And the wood to be moved to storage. And the burning wood to be cut up. There is so much to do hah.

He just stole this off Rambo

When A got back she made a brew and I finished stacking the last of the extracted wood and went in to enjoy that, and eat the breakfast the Little Lady had provided; they are lovely the eggy bread type things she makes and surprisingly filling. After eating I went down to let Ralf out and he proceeded to steal Rambo's stick and run off with it; he is a really cheeky chappy.

Vines growing well

The Honeydew Melons are growing like crazy

I was on with doing the watering mostly while outside and the free water was running well so I used the hose to do the bits within reach, and then filled a watering can and worked my way around the fenced garden, up past the accidental tomato plant, and on across the top to do the magnolias and zinnias. I ran out of water at this point and dropped back down to refill the can for the silver birches and this is good as it meant they got loads of water.

Harvest for today

Having finished the watering I came back inside and grabbed my man-bag and some little plastic freezer bags. I had come up with an idea of how to best do the harvest as going round and getting one fruit and then going again to get another was a waste of time and not as efficient as I need. I decided to trial having a plastic bag for each fruit and carrying them in the man bag. A very enjoyable hour later I returned with three freezer bags containing rose hips, blackberries and blueberries. The new method was very much proven, and I had been able to really scour the land and I found another couple of blackberry thickets, blueberry bushes and more rosehips than I expected as well.

Loads of Quince

While on the rounds I had seen there were loads and loads of quince ready for harvest however I chose to leave those on the tree and go back out. We worked together on this and, with the use of a ladder at one point, ended up with 6.5kg of fruit leaving quite a lot out of reach still on the trees. What a wonderful thing this land is.

The Daddies Sauce bottle burns

We had a brew and then decided to do two things. First of these was to get a burn going to clear all the rubbish piled by the back door from the tidying in the guest room, and generally gathered in kitchen waste. It took a few matches to get it going as the wind was starting to get up and they kept just blowing straight out but eventually a bit of plastic caught and pretty soon there was an established fire. I kept popping out during the morning to feed the fire and all of the burning stuff is now burned.

Whole lotta scraping going on

The second task was fully A who decided after all the fun she had had doing the scraping in the guest room to carry on down the stairs taking off the loose purple paint on the bottom half of the walls. She did this on and off all day and at the end swept it all out and it looks great. This is a good task to fill in breaks in work and she says she'll probably pick it up on and off for the remainder of our time here.

The big fluffy bummed Sassy

Early this morning, when I went to the toilet, Sassy had heard me coming and dashed round and round her room about four times, raising clouds of dust and causing me to laugh a lot. I wish I'd had my camera with me to video her but at that time I could barely stand up. I went in to say hello to her as she was sat on top of her cage and she allowed me to snap two pictures. I need to make a run for her so her stay at S and S doesn't result in the destruction of their property.

Bekir fixing the angled support

I hadn't even been on the roof up til this time, having been so busy with everything out and about. I went up there to find that Sally was making good progress and really close to finishing the brickying, while Bekir was up a ladder with one of the axe/hammer tools trimming away one of the main ridge beams. They are so dexterous with those tools.Later I went up and found the purpose of this trimming; a diagonal strengthening support had been inserted there. Clever.

A metal band support

All morning I had been hearing the grinder in use and hadn't been sure what they were doing; I noticed during a visit just before lunch that the major joints of the wood had been reinforced with strips of metal. This is another example of just how focused on giving a really solid roof to me these wonderful men are.

Sally finishes his bricklaying

Sally was approaching the completion of his task; to build the retaining wall all around the edge of this last section of roof. Both Bekir and Orhan had finished their work (Mahmet won't return to my employ til Monday apparently) and were standing watching me watching Sally and laughing. I wanted a picture just as he finished and I got it.

Wood glue and clamps

A few weeks ago the easel had fallen over as the bottom few inches of one of the legs gave way. Finally the other day at the little builders merchant I had found a couple of wood clamps for gluing wood and snapped them up; today I made use of them and the wood glue and  have fixed the easel. I may get a few more of these clamps as well as gluing things together, maybe for the rabbit cage, may be a more efficient method of construction than nails or screws.

Chopping 3.5kg of Quince

With the men on their lunch break I set myself to chopping the quince. Now I thought this would be a simple task, particularly as the recipe required they just be chopping and then pulped, with no peeling or coring. Unfortunately the completely organically grown fruit were riddled with worms and I had to go really carefully, scraping all the eggs and not a few worms into the waste bucket, and then also having to cut some bad sections out. I chose to just do 3.5kg of fruit, and leave the final 3kg for another concoction tomorrow and it was a good thing I did. The amount of fruit, even after discarding all the bad bits, ended up nearly filling my cooking pot and when I put enough water in to float the fruit (from the free supply as the paid for was so pathetic by this time) I really couldn't have fitted much more in.

Wood delivery

In the hour it took me to do this chopping the men had their doze and were back to it. I caught them as they were carrying the stained decorative wood up from where it had been resting in (what will be) the kitchen. Bekir thought it was so funny me following him and snapping pictures.

Ralf on his self imposed naughty step

It was now time for our lunch (I had treated myself to a second breakfast when I came in from the harvest as the single slice of eggy bread had been good but not enough) and I had some of the chicken from the spare BBQ leg from last night, with plum and mint chutney and it was super tasty. Ralf kept begging around the food however so after telling him off many times he was put on a short lead. He is a very strange dog when you do this and climbs on the woodpile, and gets in the coal bucket. Strange creature. After we had eaten we let him back off and he went fully back to normal.

Quince nice and soft now

All this time the Quince had been bubbling away on the hob and after about an hour or so I was happy that it had been pulped enough. At this stage I didn't think of using the masher to finish it off and this was suggested later by A and it really made a difference.

Forcing the soft Quince through the strainer

At this time I just poured the soft fruit into the sieve and set to with the spoon forcing it through. I stirred and pressed and squashed and mashed and scooped and poured and pressed some more and after about an hour of doing this I was starting to get tired as all the wood moving of first thing hadn't made me at all. That will teach me for processing quite so much fruit to make into Quince Jelly.

Gloop, and sugary gloop

After about an hour and a quarter I finally pressed the last pulp out of the boiled fruit and added it back into the initial pan after managing to wash that out using the trickle now issuing from the tap. I had 2.5 litres of juice. This meant that I had to use all of the sugar in the house so now we have no sugar. That 10kg of sugar I bought weeks ago lasted pretty well; I think I'll get another four or five kg tomorrow.

Fitting the side boards

While the jelly was getting up to boiling temperature I headed onto the roof to see what was happening (the banging and crashing from up there had been pretty impressive since lunch had finished) and they were well down the first side of the roof putting the surround on. They work so hard and so fast.

Lots and lots of Quince jelly

The jelly was boiling for about an hour, about twenty minutes in I realised I had the heat too high and it was burning so I stood there stirring it without a break for the final forty minutes, holding my kindle in one hand and the wooden spoon in the other. I am reading about Abraham Lincoln at the moment and the civil war has just started so it is hard to put that book down. With the jelly at a consistency I was happy with we worked together to pour it into the jam jars and after eleven were filled we finally completed the task.

And the metalwork gets fitted

All afternoon the building had resounded with hammering and sawing as the men worked super hard. I was exhausted after my day and took myself to bed to read and then doze for a bit. I was woken up by Ralf wanting to go out for the loo. While we were out the ball was being thrown for Rambo and Ralf was good for one throw but then really went for Rambo on the second and so was in lots of trouble and was told off again. It was near time for the men to go and A had agreed to take them as I was so tired. They were still working away right up until 6pm.

End of the day

When she took them I snapped a progress picture, finding that they had brought the guttering to the corner of the roof, and the cladding along above what will be the living room, and then set the potatoes and chicken in to roast for our dinner. I was actually feeling a lot better after my doze so I cracked on well with this blog, pausing to eat the lovely meal which included an interesting mushroom based sauce to moisten the chicken.

Oppressive clouds blowing past

The weather today has been much cooler; this morning the sun was out and lovely and warm but it was accompanied by the breeze which was quite chill and took the sting out of the sun. During the afternoon clouds had blown over  While we were sat eating I noticed the cloud which had blown across during the afternoon was hanging around across the valley looking super ominous and I had to get a picture. I am English still, I love weather.

As I wrap this blog post up before heading to bed there are a couple more things to tell you. Firstly I booked the ferry for returning to England, and coming back next year, today. Sad times. Also, Rambo and Ralf are confirmed in their winter accommodations and Ken is very excited to look after them. Finally, while harvesting the Quince by the front gate, we found some more random tomato plants. Awesome. Night.