Basement Walls and Root Cellar

This morning, Jon and I worked on putting up boards for the basement walls.  The cement walls have insulation and studs up and rough planed boards will make up the final wall.  This corner of the basement will someday be my weaving studio (as well as home to a hot water heater).

The middle section of the basement will be root cellar/pantry.  This section will be walled off on three sides with insulation.  The left side has drawers and shelves and the right side has shelves floor to ceiling.  I am waiting on a quote for a countertop.  All of the extra kitchen supplies will be kept here and I am very excited to have a place to stock up on bulk items and keep canned goods.  The temperature stays steady and cool.

The last section will be closest to the door and will be Jon's workshop.  There is only one wall to go now, and the weather keeps getting warmer!

New house, old harvest Yarn and fiber for sale.

We are all moved into a nice two bedroom house in a quiet neighborhood of a large city.  It was a very long process involving lots of sorting, cleaning, moving things, and of course, lots of stress.  Hopefully this situation will be a good one, and so far, it mostly is.

There are lots of new shops and markets to discover.  A middle eastern grocery sells Halal chicken and extremely large bags of rice.

25 lbs of jasmine rice

 I might have to turn this into a tote bag.

There are two Russian grocery stores nearby.  At the smaller store, a very nice Russian lady with limited English has conversations with me about the need for each of us to practice our new languages.  She also helped us find the very best non-expensive kolbasa in the meat case.  I LOVE being able to find affordable Russian food again and hope to be able to discover new recipes while practicing my Russian.  They also have extremely large bags of flour.

How could I pass up 50 lbs of flour?

You can see a theme here.  Now that we have a whole house, why not start buying goods in bulk?  The local doughnut shop sells food-grade buckets.  We have a small chest freezer.  I am very much looking forward to a winter of plenty.

We are taking this opportunity to go out more, explore new shops, take walks...this is already becoming fun.  I don't know how long we can keep up eating 2-3 dozen doughnuts a week, though...

Because we moved again during harvest season, I have had to improvise food storage methods.

Sunflowers and onions hanging.  The sunflowers weren't ready when I cut them, so they are drying near a dehumidifier in the basement.

Carrots, green tomatoes, sugar beets, and rutabaga.

More green tomatoes, and Amish pie pumpkin, and some winter squash.

 Dried and canned goods

More dried goods and spice cabinet

Before and after the move, I have also been saucing apples, dehydrating apples, canning tomato sauce, sorting dried beans, and soon I will start making a molasses-type syrup from the sugar beets.

 I processed 60+ lbs of drops apples

 Glorious apple peeler and slicer.  I don't know what I would do without it.

 Just two batches of unsweetened applesauce.

Kidney and yin-yang dried beans.

The backyard is one giant retaining wall project, but after that is over, Jon and I will be making a small garden space.  I get to really think planting over and practice some French intensive space-saving methods.

I will also be selling yarn, fiber, and knit things on ebay.  Some are made by me, some are from a farm back home.  I am very happy to sell things outside of ebay, too.  I have lots of boxes to go though, but please comment here or send me a message if you're looking for something specific.  I can also knit custom items.  There will be niddy noddies and antique carders listed, too.  My ebay page is located here. *Page is now active and has several items listed.

Mother's Day Rhubarb Pie

It is hard to believe that we have only been here thirteen days.  Everything is unpacked, early seeds are planted, and I've gone grocery shopping twice.  Our little fridge (as tall as the counter!) is packed with lots of good things.  I am also back to translating.  Things are good.

As today is Mother's Day, I spent most of the day translating, then I visited my mother!  We went to a local food co-op and she picked out a few treats while I...did some grocery shopping.  Might as well save on gas!  We had lots of fun looking at all of the expensive packed foods and figuring out what some of them were.  Our real shopping came from the bulk section.  My mother was amazed at how little things cost in bulk!  I was able to restock my kitchen with:
a.p. flour
w.w. flour
brown rice
brown turbinado sugar
coffee
turtle beans
I also got some really nice looking spinach that was labeled as 'local'.  My mother got some high gluten flour, coffee, and Madagascar vanilla wafers to go with the violet jam that I gave her.  Back at the house, she loaded up my car with glass containers for storing bulk foods better than I have been, a house plant, and some vinegars (a few years ago I made a rosemary vinegar, then forgot about it), and some rhubarb!

I could barely contain my excitement when she said that I could have all that I wanted.  Saying that I love rhubarb does not come close to describing what I feel for the sour stalk of wonderfulness.  While strawberry rhubarb pie is my favorite, strawberries aren't out yet.  So I came home and made a rhubarb pie.  The recipe is from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book- basically a bunch of sliced rhubarb, sugar, flour, nutmeg, and a 9" pastry.  It just came out of the oven and the smell is eye-rollingly good.

It is great to have things back to normal.  I planted four rows in the garden on Friday, bought some tomato, eggplant, and pepper seedlings, and planted three trays of seeds in little paper pots.  I am waiting for the end of the month to plant the rest.  There are two or more shipments of seeds coming to me.  My mother said that I could sell whatever I wanted at their farmstand that they didn't already sell.  The summer better be long and normal!  There are also a TON of wild blueberry and strawberry plants in the woods!

My camera is still without batteries, so I took a few pictures with my webcam again.  Better than nothing!  Here is the new apartment, which I call "Barton Cottage" (the chimney make smoke and the hall may be pokey, but it feels like home).

 Massive kitchen!

 Bathroom storage and view

 Hallway

 'Greenhouse'

 Bedroom

 Welcome!

 Rhubarb pie

 My favorite part

 Living room

Kitchen storage, kitchen table on left

I am happy.