Winter 2016-17

Forgive me Father... it has been six months since my last confession...
Can't believe it took me that long to finish the kitchen.  Lots of interruptions, of course, including three weeks in Europe, and what's time in the land of Siempre Sabado?

 

The lower cabinets all have pull-out shelves, including this deep one for pans

The spices are in alphabetical order of course!

And my favorite place in the kitchen: the espresso bar.

It's Winter

Since my primary heater is the wood stove, firewood is a big concern.  Luckily (or not, depending on how you look at it) there are a couple of dead oak trees on my property, so the other day I had one cut down and split up into stove wood.

Didn't want to just pile the wood up on the ground, so while they were cutting and splitting, I was building a little wood shed.  It holds about a cord and a half.

The tree produced more than the shed can hold, so some is piled in front.

Painted and shingled to match the house

Another Little Winter Project: Cupcakes

Bought 9 pounds of wax from Michaels and got a couple
fat candles from Lee.

I have since gotten smart and started using a double boiler.

One thing I have plenty of is sawdust, so filled a bunch of cupcake cups...

...and saturated the sawdust with melted wax.

These little guys give off a good flame for 10 or 15 minutes, and do a good job of starting a fire.

I'm also trying something else.  In my scrap wood bin I collect a lot of tiny pieces, impractical for kindling, but I've put a handful into a paper sack, thrown in a handful of sawdust, then poured in a bit of wax.  Twisted them shut and dipped the twist in wax for easy lighting.

You can see some of these bag bombs in the wax-pouring photo above.

So I'll be warming my tootsies by the fire.  Hope you're staying warm where you are.

See you next time!

PS: Google Satellite View has been updated and now shows my buildings!