Well, it all paid off: we are the proud growers of an enormous "Cinderella" pumpkin!  And at least one good smaller one, and possibly two more if they ripen before we get a frost… 

That’s me trying to get back to the big pumpkin to cut it free – the garden, as you may recall, is incredibly overgrown.  The pumpkin vine basically took over everything, crawling up and over the tomatoes and out into the alley.  After the summer heat broke and we got some more rain, two new pumpkins started growing and they seem to be doing very well.  Just a race against time to get them ripened and picked.

Ta da!  Got the sucker picked and hauled out of there – amazingly, the pantyhose solution worked!  I had no idea how strong that stuff is, but it grew to over twice what I could stretch it by hand and still held the 45 pound pumpkin suspended.  That’s right, I said 45 pounds!!  No state fair winner, but damn big for our little garden…

The little guy is only 15 pounds.  It seems big until you see them together.  Now what are we going to do with them??  Probably cut and peel them and freeze them, either before or after boiling and mashing – I’ll read up and see.  They should keep for a while, it would be great to have home-grown pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving and even Christmas.  Yum…

It’s been a while… And we’ve been, of course, super busy. Today was the first sunny day all week and it was so nice I ditched the basement and hit some outdoor projects. Not really high on the list but something needing doing was dealing with the compost bin… It had been sort of full when we bought the house, but not really maintained at all, and there was some charcoal and various bits of non-compostible crap in it. Lacking the time last year we just started throwing scraps on top of what was there and turning it occasionally.

Finally it was almost 3/4 full and today I decided to get it cleaned up. I pulled a trash bin out of the garage and shovelled most of the yet-to-be-compost scraps into it. It was more than I planned on, nearly full… Then I grabbed some bits of lumber laying around and some 1/4 screen we had and built a makeshift sifting bin. It ended up being way more labor-intensive than I figured – I’d load up the bin and go shake it all around the lawn, then bring it back to another tub and work the remaining clumps by hand for a while, finally dumping the sticks and roots and debris that wouldn’t go through.

I ended up with two tubs pretty full of fantastic compost and nice small layer on most of the lawn. Sweet. Maybe a little fertilizer on there before winter and we should have a dog-proof lawn next spring… :) The rest of the compost will go on the garden and flower beds before winter, and the good news of the big push today is the compost bin is now reset back to our own scraps – everything we started with is out. Should be easier to keep the nearby plants from sending roots up into it…

As I start this post, I can hear the nightly fireworks going off from the State Fair – all the way from St. Paul! Whoa. The bad news is I think I’ve heard them every night of the fair so far, which means I’ve been up later than I want for too many nights, now that Karen’s getting up at 5:15 again…

But I’ve been up late working on the basement! Yesterday I hung the remaining pieces of drywall (after figuring out the spacing for the door) and started to mud it. Man, that sucks. I’ve done it before, long ago, but it wasn’t my project – I think it was a garage, or work area – and it didn’t have to be good. This one I want to be good. I’m taking my time, doing 3 or 4 layers in all, but tonight I wanted to just forget about it. It kept "chunking up" on me on certain corners (and it’s almost all corners!!) and I couldn’t figure out why. Ah well. I pressed through it (literally) and got it close enough, I figure I’ll clean it up with a sponge tomorrow morning. That was my day today, and probably for the next two: get up, sponge down the joint compound mistakes, go to work, run errands, come home, and put another layer on. The good news is the flat runs on the walls are looking good, and if anybody’s looking too hard in the corners the room has already failed!

Tonight I needed another project after mudding, so I picked up the hardware for the two doors I’m going to hang and tackled the first one. Yesterday I’d leveled and screwed in the interior pieces of the door frame, and today got the reward for the tedium: it hangs perfectly! No swing at all, it moves wonderfully, and falls right into the latch. Awesome. Only problem (which we’d anticipated, but thought we could work around) is that it doesn’t open all the way around before banging into the main house support beam. Ah well. I anticipated it so much I made sure to get hinges with a removable pin so we could just take the door out if needed. So good progress! My goal is to try to get the mudding done and at least prime the walls and hang the doors before the Chicago kids arrive for the State Fair. We’ll see how that goes…

Oh yeah, and I’ve got a million things fermenting in the basement. Sweeeeeet.

…don’t forget the dog! Much like the Princess and the Pea, drywall inspector Bruno can feel a defect under up to 7 sheets of drywall. Luckily this batch passed muster, and hanging is proceeding — THANKS, mom and dad! It’s looking great!

Friday afternoon I wired the newly-hung recessed lights, but left both circuits – sconces and downlights – just hanging near the final switch box. I finished just in time for Scott and I to go check out the St. Paul Irish Fair with Justin and Juliana, and a good time was had by all. Of course I knew that Saturday was going to be busy cleaning before my parents got to town, so I stayed up late after I got home and finished wiring things into the switch box, as well as installing a motion sensor switch for the laundry room. There’s no switch for that one upstairs and we somehow always manage to leave it on after feeding the dog, doing laundry, messing with homebrew, you name it. The sensor is awesome so far, you just walk in and presto! Light! Then after you leave: presto! Dark!

Yesterday, Sunday, we made it out to Home Depot for some lumber, and construction started in earnest on the basement wall. After much clever fussing with the location of the door into the new "storage room," my dad and I thought we had it solved so the door could swing all the way open to keep the corridor look of the pillars. Perfect. It took my mom all of about 2 seconds to point out it was moot anyway because of the adjustment corner we had just finished building in the wall! Ah well. It’s still the best solution for the space, just not what we thought we were getting.

With luck we’ll borrow Scott’s truck (other Scott ;) tomorrow to grab some drywall, a door and some hardware, although I imagine with all the family coming into town shortly it will just sit in the basement until after the North Shore retreat. Fine with me, the point is it’s getting done slowly but surely!

Bonus pic: Helpy McHelperson makes sure the lumber doesn’t go anywhere before we need it.

Well, finally. When Karen left I was full of plans for huge projects: I’m gonna paint the cupboards! I’m gonna cut down that stupid tree/bush in the backyard! I’m gonna put shelves in the office! I’m gonna redo the lighting in the whole house!!! … instead, I’ve been walking the dog a lot, dealing with stuff at work, and trying to singlehandedly cook and eat an amount of vegetables that makes the detox diet seem easy!

Until yesterday, that is, when I kicked off the long-anticipated Basement Project. First, some photos of what I’m going for, structurally:

Probably a bit hard to envision, but essentially instead of splitting the basement down the middle on that beam, I’m going to build a wall about three feet back. This leaves approximately 1/3 for storage, 2/3 for hanging out.

The pillars look great in the new space, and will look even better with … sconces!

I’d been planning all along to put recessed lights down there, but I’ve lately been worried that those would light the floor well and some of the walls, but reinforce the "cave" effect by leaving the ceiling dark. Sconces should spill up onto the ceiling a bit more and open things up.

The PITA part of installing sconces is pulling the electrical wire to them, since they’re on the wall. There’s some drywall patching in my future, but since there’s a board right there it’s really the only way to make the corner from the ceiling to the wall. I have to get some little metal shims to cover the wire before I close it back up, just so I don’t stick a nail in it when I put the crown molding up.

You can see the pulling process in action. Next I came in between the joists above with my fishing tape, found the end through the corner hole, and tied the cable to it. Twice I was too optimistic about the pressure and lost the cable by not taping it… Oops. Finally pulled the cable back out into the open channel where everything will be wired.

One down, three to go! Actually, by this morning, they’re all down and wired and I hooked them up to a dimmer just to see the effect. So. Cool. I can’t wait to get the downlights in place tonight or tomorrow and then finish the wiring so I can get started on the wall. The last big piece to solve: one door into the storage near the stairs, or two (one near and one far)? Bruno just loves running laps through the basement, I’m afraid the wall might be a big disappointment to him. With two doors he could still have a nice racetrack, but it would cost more and probably look less cool. (No, he doesn’t own the house, and no, he’s not the boss of me.)

So… We planted cucumbers way back when, and sure enough they grew and we got lots of cukes. Then our CSA veggie share started sending cukes our way. With Karen out of town and a million pounds of other veggies to get through, what’s a guy to do? Make pickles!

Once again, the internets saved the day. I had a vague idea of how this might work – is it just cucumbers and vinegar? – but no real definite plan. The first thing I found out was how to tell if your cucumbers are good for pickling or if they’re too ripe, and unfortunately most of ours were well over-ripe. Also probably not the best variety for pickling. But there were still plenty of cukes in good shape, including the CSA ones, so I got to cutting and soaking the slices in a salt water brine for most of the day.

Then this evening I cut up 2 onions and peeled a million cloves of garlic. Using my homebrewing know-how I skipped the pre-boiling of the jars and lids, and after a thorough cleaning just threw them into a sanitizing solution for a bit. Put the garlic and onions on the bottom along with rounded tablespoon of the "pickling spices" from our local co-op, and started shoving cucumber slices in the jars! I had read that for a crisper pickle you can heat to 180 and hold it for longer rather than boiling, so that’s what’s happening as I type.

As soon as I started hearing pings and creaks from the jars, I knew I had trouble on my hands – all the directions mention some magical device for removing the piping-hot jars from the water, and I of course had procured no such device. Hmm. But hey! I deal with piping-hot liquids all the time in the form of unfermented beer! I have heat-safe tubing! I’ll just siphon off the water from the pot and carry the whole thing downstairs gently to cool. Awesome.

So, a big adventure. I know how Karen loves her pickles, with any luck these won’t be terrible – I may crack a jar in a week to see how they’re doing, but everything I read said they’ll be much better in a few weeks to months. Maybe a little pickle party on the North Shore in a few weeks! (if she makes it… fingers crossed.)

Also a few projects in the "development" stage for the house – mostly lighting, and mostly around the basement. I’ll post more once there’s more to post!

PS – Bruno misses you, Karen.

The rain garden proved its worth today… (to me, anyway — I think Karen’s requirements have been met already) We’re in the middle of a moderate / severe drought, and it’s been super hot with alternating levels of humidity. Apparently today the jetstream is moving somewhere and it’s causing some ridiculous storms, like the one we had this afternoon. The rain garden, at left, was literally full to the brim with water!! And it looks like we guessed just right with the area and depth because it wasn’t overflowing that I could see, and I really can’t imagine ever getting any more rain over such a short period of time. If it can handle that, it can handle anything.

Why does that make me so happy? Because a few short months ago that water would have been lapping at our foundation and starting to work its way into the basement. As you can see at left – taken at the same time as the above shot – it’s wet but not even halfway up the sidewalk!! I can’t even begin to tell you what a big deal this is.

See, Karen’s all about filtering the runoff and getting it back into the groundwater system cleanly, etc, etc, and I’m very much in support of that, too. But it’s such a cost / benefit winner when it also happens to save so much potential water damage to your house. Sweet.

I should have bought stock in Ikea and Home Depot. Years ago.

Instead I just get to increase the wealth of their existing stockholders, but it still seems like a good deal when the results turn out this nice: (ignore Karen showing you how well she brushed her teeth)

Two smaller things of note in the bigger picture: in the very back is a new steel wire shelf with a wood top, a perfect space for our toaster, coffee maker, and various stuff underneath. This lets us clean up our main counter space for day-to-day use. Also, left of the sink (detail at left) is a new separate filtered water faucet! It’s so great to have a built-in faucet finally instead of the stupid ones that attach to the end of the existing faucet and always have a bad seal anyway. Total. Crap. This one feels nice and looks nice – it even matches the faucet I put in a while back!

So… I think that about wraps up the kitchen! (for now)

New motor: $85

Run capacitor and mounting hardware: $65

Learning enough about air conditioners that you can fix your own (up to a point): Priceless. Or, as the nice guy at Dey Appliance put it, "a new fan will get you through the heat, since nobody’s going to be able to come install a new unit until after you don’t need it." True that. And on the other hand, a new fan plus rock solid 1976 parts could last another 5 years easy. I do wonder about getting the system charged up and making a few other efficiency updates, but we’ll see…