Monday miscellany

in which our plucky heroine sees improvements...

Tomorrow appears to be very autumnal and cool temperatures forecast, and later in the week there will be rain! It has been feeling and smelling much less summery despite the heat, and there has been wasp activity that makes any eating outdoors subject to the Danger Bugs. The apples and plums will need to be picked in the cool of the early morning and dealt with.

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~ time for a change, at last ~

Helpful Badger handyfolk were here for about an hour this morning, removing the decaying porch boards*, replacing them with new treated lumber, and installing a new kitchen faucet. I am very glad that the porch is no longer dangerous, and plum delighted with the new faucet, which is a vast aesthetic improvement that has graceful visual form and is tactilely pleasant. It should be easier to keep clean as well. As I had suspected, the feeble water pressure was a function of the old faucet or lines being partially blocked; now with this new faucet water pours out much more quickly, which will improve all sink-related chores.

a reminder of the former kitchen faucet
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The enamel Pelican peerage medallion is finished, just needs final touches and will be ready to post tomorrow. I'd been worried the whole time that there might not be quite enough gas left to finish all the soldering, but thankfully it was not an issue. I'll next be finishing up the settings for (very patient) Ian Jameson's two small award medallions, and in addition find someone to give me a ride to get the propane refilled. 

The other finished project is the knit TabbyCat bandana cowl (as it is for me, and not a client) much less fraught and less timebound. It has been my handwork during online meetings project for almost two months. I'd been worried that there might not be enough of the dark brown yarn to complete the I-cord bind off, but there was more than enough! Winning at yarn chicken and at propane chicken!!

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Friday I defrosted my chest freezer. The actual defrost was pretty easy, only took about an hour, once I removed all the food. Putting all the food back took much longer, as I did my best to put like things together instead of just tossing them into the maw. Also, best to label each package of frozen cubes immediately. Many required tasting, scraping a bit off their edge to determine contents. Rather than make a digital inventory, which would have required time learning a new program, a map of location and general type of food was a quick way to notate what is in there. A more carefully detailed inventory can happen later on, my goal was to get all the food back in still solidly frozen. 

What I discovered was that in order to have any room at all for the plums that are now ripe on the tree, I need to use up at least some of the freezer contents. No need to cook for a while since there are many portion cubes of various home cooked things: soups, and stews and veggies. There are enough tomatoes and peppers to make a batch of awesome sauce and put it up in jars. There are 5 talenti tubs full of elderberries that need cooked and turned into immune tonic "juice" that can be put up into jars. I still have a fair amount of blueberries, and should continue eating those up as well. 

The good thing is no ancient surprises at the bottom of the freezer, though I had forgotten until this defrost the two large containers of bone broth from Heather (last year?). Those are still frozen solid, will get turned into soup later on. Not needing to cook meals for a while will save time for all the other current projects I want to do, as well as make space for plums.

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August SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	2 Talenti shelves	Talenti shelf up	greenwaste bin
2	acorncap earrings	2nd pot lid rack	recycle bin
3	teaspoon earrings	painted mailbox	greenwaste bin
4	glass button earrings	Strombecker lamp	recycle bin
5	poppy pod earrings	reglue earrings	greenwaste bin
6	red cube earrings	porch storage	greenwaste bin
7	Pelican enamel	painted grille	downspout tubes
8	x	defrosted freezer	x
9	x	2nd Talenti shelf	x
10	x	front porch	x
11	x	kitchen faucet	x

today's gratitudes-
- winning at yarn chicken
- winning at propane chicken
- 3 new porch floorboards
- new kitchen faucet

Time of Isolation - Day 2236

*it was really interesting to see underneath the porch decking, and how the floorboards were supported. The porch is on wooden joists and concrete foundation blocks, and the ramp is supported on the original front concrete walkway. Thankfully the underlying wooden structure was not decaying, so all that was needed was replacing the three 2x6 boards. The two long corrugated plastic tubes, unneeded since disconnecting the downspouts years ago, were also removed from under the porch.