Vardo, Part Five

Hey, after, what? nearly two years?  I've finally started up work again on the Gypsy Vardo.  Well, to be fair to myself, I had started sewing the curtains some time between then and now, but I hit a snag and, true to form, got discouraged and put it on the back burner.

I'm back in full force now.  I finished all of the curtains and installed them.  Now the sun is not beaming in like crazy and fading everything in sight.  Hanging curtains before the walls are done is really not the proper way to go about a redo, but it was something that I could accomplish (once I got past my snafu and solved the problem on how to hang the curtains) and I needed to see some progress so that I could feed off it and get going on another part.

I've started the kitchen backsplash.  The one thing that was holding me back on that was the indecision about putting up the backer board for the tile.  I thought I was going to have to take down the paneling and expose the studs, but I thought to consult builder Nephew and he said, "don't take it down".  Yay!  Just what I wanted to hear.  His suggestion was to pull off the wallpaper and use Liquid Nails to glue the backer board onto the wall.

I watched a tutorial on how to cut backer board (or hardy board).  On the simple straight cuts, I just scored it, then snapped it apart.  On the trickier cuts, I used a jigsaw.  I'm kind of afraid of power saws, but I bravely overcame it and got all my pieces cut out.  Nephew showed me how to glue the pieces to the wall and put a few screws to hold it in place while it dried.  I finished it up this morning and am now ready to work on my tile design.

Other posts on the trailer-to-vardo transformation are here

Vardo, Part One

Vardo, Part Two

Vardo, Part Three

Vardo, Part Four

Are Hyacinth Beans Edible?

Since I didn't have much growing in the garden this year, I put a few Hyacinth Bean seeds in the ground just to see how they'd do.  I grew the vine at our last house and I loved it because it was always so lush and beautiful.  But, since we've moved out here, I've tried to get it to grow on a trellis and the fence, but it hasn't done well.

It really took off in the garden plot and is producing beautiful, shiny, purple pods like crazy.  I've always wondered if they were edible, but was afraid to try them because I thought they might turn my mouth purple, or worse, kill me.

So, I did some searching on the internet and was assured that if you eat the fresh pods, they are perfectly harmless, although, eating the dried bean is a different story.  When the beans are mature and the pod dries up, the bean contains a toxin.  They can still be eaten, but they have to be cooked twice, changing the water in between cooking so that the toxin can be released, boiled, and poured away.

I finally got up the nerve to try them, and, ugh.  NOT GOOD!

They are this nice beautiful purple color when they start out.  I thought they'd look so pretty on the plate with my baked salmon and herbed rice.  But, when I steamed them, they lost their color and turned into an icky greenish-grey color.

I was determined to answer the question for myself of whether or not they were edible, so I went ahead and served them up.

The answer is, YES, they are edible...if you mean by "edible" that "they won't kill you".  Tom and I both ate them and suffered no ill effects.  But, aside from the creepy color, they did not taste good.  I was expecting the taste and texture of a snow pea pod (which is one of my favorite veggies), but it was nothing like that.  Only the smallest, flattest ones were tender.  The taste wasn't putrid, but it wasn't good.  The texture was the worst, although Tom didn't notice it.  But, I'm more of a food texture person than he is.  Anyway, they had a fuzzy texture.  Almost like a peach fuzz texture, except not in a good peachy way.

So, yeah, you can eat Hyacinth Beans....if you're starving.

More Flooding

Remember the flooding we had in the spring that washed away the pond spillway?  Remember the installation of the culverts that was supposed to prevent another such incident?  Well, so much for that.  This is our pond spillway now.

The water went through, around, and over the culverts, washing away the soil and the new grass that had sprouted.  Tom tried, futilely, to brace it up with sandbags.  Some of them were just tossed downstream like driftwood.

It started raining Friday morning and hasn't stopped.  It's now 10:30 Saturday morning and we've gotten about 16 inches of rain so far.  It's supposed to rain until Sunday morning.

Those two things that look like logs are the culverts that were covered with soil and new grass.  Since Tom took this video, the soil has eroded away all the way to the front of the culverts.  They're just useless pipes lying there now.

Chicken Coop Remodel, or How Not to Build a Chicken Coop (2)

To read day one of the chicken coop remodel, go here.

The chickens were completely freaked out by the changes to their home.  The first night, many of them wouldn't even go in the coop.  They tried roosting in the mower shed and on top of the coop yard fence.  I had to catch them and put them in the coop for the night.

In the morning, the chickens are usually out of the coop and clamoring around the gate waiting to be let out.  But after the first night of the remodel, I went to open up the coop to get started on the walls and all of the chickens were just sitting on the roost, apparently afraid to jump down onto the new floor.  I finally coaxed and shooed them out the door.

On day two, we put the linoleum on the floor and put the ceiling up and started on the walls.  On day three, we finished all of the walls.  I didn't take pictures of any of that because, frankly, I was too exhausted to care about pictures.

On day four, Tom had to go out of town and I spent the day painting the walls and ceiling.

I bought some mis-tinted paint at a local surplus store, exterior latex.  The first coat was a very light lavender.  I covered that up with a second coat of white.  I left the corner support poles unpainted because they're old creosoted telephone poles.  I hung a couple of cup hooks on the wall to store some cleaning supplies. Little whisk broom for sweeping away cobwebs and such.  My hope is to do a little regular maintenance so that the filth doesn't build up to an unmanageable level like before.

It won't win any beauty contests, but I think this set up is going to make life a bit easier for us.  The neat freak in me wants to caulk every seam and corner, but chicken coops need plenty of ventilation, so I don't want to seal it all up and make it airtight.  We left a big space in the ceiling open so the air can circulate up through the rafters.  We're going to cover that space with half inch hardware cloth so that it's snake proof, but will still allow airflow.  Still to come...a new, easier to clean roost and sand on the floor instead of the hay that we've been using as litter.  (Do a google or Pinterest search on using sand.  There are a lot of positive things about it, so we're going to give it a try).

Chicken Coop Remodel, or How Not To Build a Chicken Coop

Remember when we first moved to the farm?  Oh, how bright-eyed and naive we were.  Remember the Chicken Palace?  Well, it's not so palace-y anymore.  We built our chicken coop before the days of Pinterest and endless pictures and tutorials about chickens and beautiful, functional coops.  And, we pretty much didn't know what we were doing.  These days, this is what our coop looks like on the inside.

Poop and filth in every nook and cranny.  This is so hard to clean.  At the time, it seemed like such a good idea to use the R-panel tin for the walls.  And, yes, it has served us well since 2009.  But, ugh, it is almost impossible to clean.

The tile floor that I originally laid (using the saltillo tile that we took out of the house) has held up well in the middle, but all around the edges, the smaller pieces of tile have been dislodged by gophers or moles digging tunnels underneath and the chickens scratching around for bugs and such.

I don't know if that's a rat nest of a bird nest, but I know that I don't want it there.  And spiders...eek, the spider webs are everywhere.

Snakes have such easy access that this one felt at home enough to take it's coat off and stay a while.  There are lots of crevices where they can hide and even if we can find them, sometimes we can't reach them to get them out.

Tom was usually the one to clean the coop, but it's such an onerous task that it wasn't done nearly enough.  Even so, he was reluctant to go along with my plan to remodel the coop.  I finally talked him into it and went to buy supplies.  My plan was to put in a proper floor that we could cover with linoleum and put in proper walls to seal off all the hidey holes.

Floor joists, first.

This was a hard project.  Not only did we have a sloping roof that we had to cut the plywood to fit at the proper angel, we had these corner poles that we had to fit the floor around.  It was a challenge. 

But, with Tom's mad trigonometry skills, we managed to get through it with few errors.

Although, the circles were the worst.  

Almost fits.

This one we cut far too big.  Tom filled in the gap with the pieces we cut off.

The fourth time's a charm. 

We finished the floor on the first day.

Coop Remodel Day 2

Cream Separator

Well, I got scared of being out of butter some time in the future.  And, even though it is possible (maybe even preferable) to make butter without a cream separator, I decided to get one anyway.  I've read that it's not really worth the effort to separate goat milk with a cream separator, but I pretty much never listen to that kind of advice and I had to try it myself.

Not only did I buy a cream separator, but I bought a vintage cream separator.  And, not only did I buy a vintage cream separator, I bought a hand crank vintage cream separator.  Am I a glutton for punishment or what?

There were several to choose from, as the shop owner had bought someone's collection.  I had chosen a particular one because the crank worked smoothly as opposed to another one whose crank wouldn't turn.  But, Tom went with me to pick it up and asked to look at the "cones", which were rusted.  I thought, "big deal, who cares if the cones are rusted?" because I didn't know what the cones were for.  Quite frankly, I hadn't a clue how a cream separator worked.

Nobody told me that the innards of a cream separator look like this!  And, nobody told me that those cones are actually what separates the cream.  I thought they were just for weight to make the thingy spin. *color me pink*

Tom talked me into getting this Viking model, whose crank wouldn't turn, but the cones weren't rusted.  He assured me that he could fix the crank.  So we came home with the Viking, and indeed, he fixed the crank right up.  And I proceeded to clean all the little parts, all 21 of them.

So, for those as unfamiliar with a cream separator as I am, this is the part that all those cones fit onto and this is what spins when the crank is turned.

These are the cones.  They are keyed so that they fit on correctly.  We still don't know if they go on in a certain order, so I was very careful to put them back on in the order that they came off.  I guess I'll find out if this is right when I try to use it.

After I scrubbed all the years of crud off of the pieces, I fitted the cones back on the cone holder (I'm sure these have more technical names, but I don't have a clue).

All of them on.

Then the cover fits down over the cones.

This ring screws down over the top to hold it all together.

No, it does not emit bubbles.  My camera flash caused a reflection off the glass tiles.

Then the cone spinner thing fits down in the separator base.

All nestled in and ready to spin.

Then two trays with spouts fit on.  This is a magical machine and apparently, while cranking and spinning, cream comes out of one spout and the skimmed milk out the other.

The bowl sits on top of the spout things.

This gadget...

fits down in this hole in the center of the bowl/milk receptacle.

See how it has holes in it?  Those holes line up with the holes in the gadget.  To control the flow of milk going into the spinner, the gadget is turned so that milk flows through the holes.

This is Tinkerbell's bell (see, I told you it was magic).  It rings if you aren't cranking fast enough.  "Ring, ring, ring, crank faster, crank faster!"

Gadget in hole.

Assembled and awaiting milk and cranker.

I can't wait to try it.  But, I am not looking forward to cleaning it again and again.

Hose Hangers

Hoses are a big part of farm life.  Huge.  We have lots of them and use them everywhere.  There's no easy way to store them or tote them, at least, for me there's not.  They're heavy and unwieldy.  We have all kinds of hoses and all kinds of holders and hangers.

We have a couple of these freestanding ones that stake into the ground.  They're OK, but tend to lean forward after a while because of the weight of the hose.

We have this horrible, horrible contraption.  It seems like it would be a good idea...

but, the hose doesn't unwind easily and you never know what kind of wasp nest is going to be up under the lid when you lift it.

We have a few of these.  They pretty much ensure a tangled mess.

Here's one free of it's hose, which is stretched out across the field on stand-by for watering the orchard at the moment.

This one is moderately useful.  It takes a lot of strength to roll it up and drag it around, but at least it has wheels which make transporting it from one spot to another a little easier than carrying the hose.  

This is Tom's compressor hose in the garage.  This hanger is a pretty good design.  

It has a little door in the front that opens up a compartment where he keeps extra nozzles.  Kudos to this hose hanger designer.  Tom has it installed too high for it to be of any use to me.

So, here's the latest and greatest.  I bought them at the flea market, but you can find them on-line.  They're called GeckoToes.  They make them for water hoses, compressor hoses and extension cords.

This is my compressor hose.  I used to keep it in a big plastic bag that zips closed because I want to keep it clean since I drag it through the house for my upholstery projects.  But it's very long and hard to wind up.  It's nice because it hangs pretty flat against the wall and the hanger keeps the hose from getting tangled.  Theoretically, you're supposed to be able to just pop as much length out of the "toes" as you need.  If I find that it gets too dirty hanging there exposed, I'll have to make some sort of cover for it.

I also got one to try out for one of the water hoses.  You can mount them on brick, but it makes me a little squeamish to drill into brick or mortar, especially since our brick is the Antique Chicago brick and has a tendency to crumble.  I just mounted this one on the fence near a spigot.

So far, so good.

The Spillway

Tom finally got the time to repair the spillway on our pond dam.  Our ever helpful neighbor came over with his big equipment and they buried two big pipes (or culverts) and rebuilt the area that was washed out in the big flood this past spring.

Since it had been washed out, Tom hasn't been able to get the tractor over to the other side of the pond to mow, so it is completely taken over with weeds.  As you can see, the water has receded significantly.  It will probably be quite a while before the water is high enough to go through those pipes.

Tom needed to put concrete around the ends of the pipes to keep the the soil from being washed away the next time we have a gully washer.  He was faced with mixing 24 80 lb. bags of concrete by hand in a wheel barrow.  Thankfully, a friend loaned Tom his tractor with a cement mixer on the back.  So, he was able to mix the concrete right on the site using the water from the pond.  It was still backbreaking work to lift all of those bags of concrete and pour them into the mixer.

This doesn't look like 1,920 pounds worth of concrete!

Hopefully, some grass will grow over that bare spot to hold the soil in place.