PINEAPPLE DOORSTOP TRASH TO TREASURE

Regular readers know that I have a favorite place to look for bargains...our downstairs trash area!  Our building has trash chutes on every floor, and they feed into a separate room, but for boxes and other things that people can't put in the chute, there is an area (indoor) near the loading dock where people can put the things they don't want.  I've found quite a few cool items over the last few years.

Saw this partially in a box in the trash and knew exactly what it was.  I brought it upstairs.

A doorstop!  (at least we still think it's a doorstop, ha).  It's made of a heavy cast iron and is a dark brown/bronze color.  It worked great to keep this door open (one that tends to slowly close on its own).

Nice detail of a pineapple which of course is a symbol of hospitality, welcome and good luck.  It will be the perfect thing to use on a door at the new house!

An early housewarming gift! 😊

ANTIQUE PHILCO RADIO

Years ago, twenty to be exact, I bought this for 2nd Man for our fifth anniversary.

The traditional gift for five years is wood and this is wood!  Yeah, I tend to think out side the box, ha. 

It's a Philco 37-630T tabletop radio.  I did some research, and it is from 1937, so it is almost NINETY years old.  We love the art deco styling and super cool retro design with the beautiful wood.

It still worked the last time we plugged it in (a couple of years ago).  It takes a little time to warm up, but when it does, it works great, and it even picks up short wave stations.  It probably needs a full restoration but when I bought it all those years ago, it had already been cleaned and made to be in working condition.

We haven't had it at the apartment due to space limitations, but we can't wait to find the right spot for it at the new house.  We really like the idea of filling the house with both the latest in high tech and then old school vintage or antique tech.  It'll be a nice combination of new and old.

Anyway, thought we'd share!

NEW HOUSE UPDATE

House build update:

With all the driveway issues, we forgot to share these pictuers and updates.  They came out and filled the forms with dirt and sand in preparation for the next step (setting plumbing).

Here is the front corner, from master bedroom closet looking across the house toward Barnabas.

Here is the back corner, master bedroom corner, where my desk will be, ha, looking toward the front yard.

This is the other back corner, where the garage and grilling/cooking porch will be.  Speaking of...

...here's a great view of what I'll see while I'm grilling or canning.  I think I can live with this view!  Ha!  The neighbors have a new horse (at least one, could be more elsewhere) and some cattle.

It still looks so different with our clearing and then the clearing the neighbors did.  We love it.

This week, the new driveway project will begin. The construction supervisor said it should take about 3-5 days so it could be done by the weekend.  Either way, I'll have to go out this weekend to return the plants to their proper (temporary) spot now that Winter is over.

Stay tuned!

GOOD FOOD AND HOBART SUNDAY

 Still cold, today is gray and overcast (yesterday it rained all day) and it's 49 degrees.  But warmer and drier days are coming, so they say.

Recently, 2nd Man made a large pot of Pozole Verde...it's a Mexican style stew, made with lean pork, hominy, tomatillos, poblanos, etc.  It makes a big batch so we eat on it for several days.  So good.

When you serve it, you add cabbage, avocados, fresh white onions, cilantro and lime.  Also usually add radishes sliced up but we didn't have any.  It is so good, so filling and warm and satisfying.

Hobart was sitting on the other couch, on his fuzzy blue blanket, and he looked over and I thought it was a cute picture with him looking at us saying hello!  Then he finally curled up and slept.  Because...

#notspoiled

IT IS COLD

It's been a cold week (well, cold relative to our "usual" cold weather, ha).

In fact, it was colder this time around than during our snowstorm of a month or so ago.

This was Wednesday around noon at the farm...25 degrees with a feels like of 13 degrees.

But not to be outdone...

At 7:16am Thursday morning, it was 19 degrees with a feels like of SEVEN!  Single digits!  It was, as they say, dangerously cold for people, pets, pipes and...plants.

Speaking of, never fear...

...our well travelled mini-orchard is safe and sound in the parking garage at the apartment. Bananas, avocados, cherries, goji berries, an olive tree and two muscadine grapevines.

This was sent to us by a dear friend and it made us laugh.  Sorry Punxsutawney Phil, we'll take you seriously next year!

Stay warm!

BIQUINHO PEPPERS NEW EXPERIENCE

Not too long ago, I was grocery shopping and saw these.  Red Peruvian peppers.  They intrigued me and so I figured I'd pick some up.

It's the little self-serve section, so I got some in a container and brought them home.

They are oddly shaped (have a nickname of "little beak peppers") and are called Biquinho peppers.  They have a wonderfully unique flavor profile.  Smokey in a way, sweet and not at all hot, they are on the very low end of the Scoville heat scale, coming in at 500-1000 (considered a rare mild pepper). By comparison, jalapenos come in at 2000-8000.  These originate in Brazil (not sure why they called these Peruvian at the store) but they have a delightful flavor more like the flavor of a roasted red bell pepper with floral and citrusy notes as they say.

I could just eat them like this, just finger food out of the package (and did, ha). They have a pop as you eat them which is kind of a fun burst of flavor.

 ...but we put them into our salads and we love them.  They are a unique addition to a salad.  Best of all, they can also be pickled/canned...and so with that in mind...

...I went online and found some quality seeds and ordered some!

They are supposed to be easy to grow and we figured it would be fun to grow at the new house!  From what we've read, many families in South America grow them in containers on their porch and harvest lots of little peppers.  It'll be fun to at least try to grow some and heck, we might be the only people in our whole area growing Brazilian/Peruvian/Little Beak/Biquinho peppers in their garden!🤣

OUR FIRST HURDLE

Well, it as bound to happen, just didn't know it would happen this fast, ha.  Our home build has been put on a temporary hold while they addressed and figured out a situation that had arisen.

So, they got the forms set just before the snow.  You saw that post HERE.  The next step was to put in the fill soil.  That is when they bring in a dozen full dump trucks of soil and fill and pack the foundation.

The trucks are large and weigh 30,000 lbs each.

Our driveway was inspected, several times over the course of the process, and it was deemed ok.  Alas, that was the not the case.

Here is one direction looking toward the build site.

We aren't land/driveway engineers so we they told us it was fine we were like, ok, great.  I mean, this is the driveway we will use to access the house and it's been fine for all these years.  But, the super heavy weight of that many trucks and the wet ground after the rain and snow melt was just too much and the underlayment collapsed and the trucks had trouble getting down the driveway and pretty much destroyed it.

And here is the other direction from the same spot in the first picture.

I couldn't get any further down than where I parked (this was a couple of weekends ago).  It's the entire length of the driveway from where it starts at our part of the property.

You can also see one of the dump trucks, the last one they brought in actually, in this photo.

For a close-up, this is the truck after it tilted into the ground when the subsurface collapsed and it was stuck.  They did finally get it out.

This is from this weekend.  They have smoothed it out for us and it was better, for cars anyway.  When it's not wet, it makes it OK to drive on. In fact, grass is even filling in as you can see.  

Still, it left a mess that needed be addressed.  The builder put the project on hold to a) let the driveway dry out of course and b) to figure out a solution.  There was some negotiation, but in the end, we have to fund a new driveway.  That was NOT in our plans or our budget but it is what it is.  They are going to build a new driveway for us, the way it should be, that will last us for years.  We are meeting them in the middle for the price.  We pay the bulk of it because they are going to be doing it at cost and they will maintain it without any additional expenses to us, throughout the build.

It has to come out of savings and some of our contingency, not happy about that but it was pretty fair in the end.

It will look something like this (not sure of the color yet).  They will grade it flat and then build up layers on top of that, ending with crushed gravel and will raise it about 6 inches and put a culvert down the side to help with drainage.  Once they start, about 3-5 days to complete then work on the house can continue.  It's about 600' long, but in the end, we'll have a good, solid, driveway that should last us for years to come.

GOOD FOOD AND HOBART RACEDAY SUNDAY

 What a temperature change.  Yesterday, when I was at the farm bringing back the plants (for our upcoming hard freeze) it was 80 degrees.  Right now it's 42.

Last weekend we had meatloaf (our healthier version made without ground beef, using ground turkey, ground chicken and Italian sausage, and lots of minced vegetables.  A side of green beans and a salad to start, it was delicious.  Today, we're having pozole verde and homemade corn tortillas.  Warm and comforting. 

Hobart is gearing up for the Daytona 500 by doing what he does best, dozing off.  Here he is on one of his warm blankets because...

#notspoiled

Regular readers know that we are fans of racing, NASCAR in particular.  And today is opening of the season with the Daytona 500.  The weather is sketchy at best, so we're not sure if it will even happen or make it to the halfway point (the point at which they can call the race with whoever is in the lead).  In years past, it had been postponed to Monday due to weather.

We shall see.

HERE WE GO AGAIN

Another freeze is coming...

...and a hard one at that.  The farm will be in the low 20's possibly upper teens.  So, as this posts, I'll be heading to the farm to get the plants one more time and bring them back, hopefully for the last time ever.  A high of 80 today and then tomorrow we'll wake up to upper 30's.  Nothing like a 40-50 degree temp change.  

Go figure.

There has been some drama with the build, more on that Monday (all good now, just one of those unforeseen things that come up).

When I get back, we're going to head out for a belated Valentine's dinner.  And then of course tomorrow is...

...race day!  Normally we have our ribs on that day but since today is our Valentine's special dinner and tomorrow the cold weather comes, we'll have something warming and filling.

Hope your weekend is off to a good start!

THREE TIERED BASKET TRASH TO TREASURE

Regular readers know that I have a favorite place to look for bargains...our downstairs trash area!  Our building has trash chutes on every floor, and they feed into a separate room, but for boxes and other things that people can't put in the chute, there is an area (indoor) near the loading dock where people can put the things they don't want.  I've found quite a few cool items over the last few years.

Went downstairs and saw this a few nights back.  I figured if it was in good shape, it might be fun to use, so I grabbed it and took it to the downstairs storage unit to get a closer look.

It's in perfect shape and looks almost new.  It's a good solid metal, not rickety or anything like that and it's tall, almost 30" high. We're not sure how to use it, we were thinking fruits? Or maybe veggies like onions or garlic in the coming pantry? Again, we are never sure why someone gets rid of something but hey, we'll use it for something, and it does scream FARM doesn't it?

And we'd be remiss if we didn't also say...

...you all are OUR Valentine's gifts, we appreciate you all.  Sending love from us to you!

PUTTING UP CHICKEN STOCK

 We save our chicken carcasses when we get some rotisserie chicken or when we roast our own and toss them in the freezer.  Then, we get them out and boil them.  2nd Man did this the other day but I wasn't there to get before photos.

He puts them in a stock pot and covers with water and boils for about 3 hours, on low.

Then he pours it into a container, covers with plastic wrap and puts it in the refrigerator overnight. This lets the fat congeal on the top. Then we take it out and, as you can see above, it's easy to take out the fat.

Look at this wonderful, almost jelly like, chicken stock.

Then it's time for me to put it up.  I ladle in about 2 cups per baggie.  Here, I'm using my cool bag stand given to me by a coworker.  You extend it to the size of your bag and then clip it and it holds it open so you can easily put/pour things into a bag.

We ended up with about six bags of a little over 2 cups each.  I didn't used the vacuum sealer because it's easier to just push out the air.  Popped these in the freezer and we're good to go whenever we need some really good homemade chicken stock.

NO FREEZE WORRIES

 We had our first freeze of the season about a month ago (see below) and then...

A couple of weeks after that, we had a record snowfall.

This is a satellite photo of actual snow on the ground after the snowfall.  As they said, this is something we might never see again in our lifetime here in the South (or heck, it could happen again next year, ha). Still, it's a cool picture for sure.

As usual, they were reminding people to prepare for freezing temps and protect people, pets, pipes, plants.

There have been many posts from us over the years about our freezes, going back and forth to leave water running, turning on and off heaters, covering plants, crawling under the house to wrap pipes...

...worrying from afar in the city while obsessively checking the temps at the farm with our weather apps and then dealing with, unfortunately, a few burst pipes (above from a couple years ago) and plants and trees that did not make it.

That's when we realized, we won't have to do ANY of that this year and perhaps ever again.

No crawling under the house to wrap pipes, no driving out at lunch before the cold front hits to start dripping water, no worrying during the week while we're in town and wondering what we'll find when we drive out.

We took steps to make sure the new house is also as Winter protected as it can be for NEXT year and onward, when we are living out there.

The new house will be on a slab, so no elevation to have to worry about cold air underneath and no crawling underneath the house.  It's also thicker than normal.

Also, all pipes in the house will be PEX.  Much safer in freezing weather than regular PVC.

Being a Texas builder, the company also builds them to be as resistant as possible to freezing temps. That being said, they keep the majority of the pipes on inside walls and not in the attic.  We're moving our water heater to the garage so it's not up there and that means no water pipes moving through the attic space.  We are also having any pipes in outside walls to be double insulated.  They also use spray foam throughout that has one of the highest R factor ratings (keep the heat out in the Summer and the cold out in the Winter).

Here is another thing we changed: we asked them to install special hose bibs on the outside that are freeze proof.  They are from a company called Aquor.  It's like having a water hydrant on your house.  You attach a special connector to the end of your hose and then when you need to connect, you just flip it up and twist it in or out.  When nothing is connected, the water stays inside of your house with nothing on the outside.  They market them as "freeze proof", so we shall see.  We figured it was one more extra layer of freeze protection that we could do.

For the plants, well, we'll be there to cover them as needed and of course there will be heated spaces we can bring them into.  We'll also have a garage and a barn where we can plug in a small heater as needed.  But we're working on other plans for them as well...*greenhouse*. 😉

Of course, the biggest difference is that the house will have heat!  We haven't had that at the farm in quite a while.  "J" from 2nd Family has a new home (as of a few years ago) and she's got full central heat and has never had an issue in any of these recent freezes, so that's a good sign.

That being said, we are going to figure out a backup plan for those extended power outages (winter freeze or summer storm).  We are thinking ahead to that potentiality in the future by having a transfer switch installed for a whole house generator.  Not sure what type of generator we'll get, but we're researching that.

But for THIS Winter anyway...zero worries.  It's kind of refreshing for a change, ha.