Pick Up The Pieces

 So I promised to show ya'll a few photos of some actual work I have done around here.  I was never really enthused about the idea of painting this bar wall, so when it hit me to sheath it in pallet wood I jumped on that. Allen had been scrounging pallets for me for months and I had stripped a lot of them down to usable wood where they were just waiting for finishing.  So, I finally bit the bullet and sanded, stained, painted, sanded again, and patched for two days to get enough planks to do these 2 walls.  I didn't make a lot of effort to hide any patches, dents, or bangs in the wood.  I mean, it's obviously pallet wood and obviously reclaimed, so there's the "charm".  Ha! Anyway, I thought it came out rather well.  The corners are done in 1 1/2" angle iron and these make helluva good corner guards..  The iron is just stuck on for now because I'll have to take it back off and cut to fit when I run the finish floor and baseboard.  In person it looks better.  The color is a bit washed out in this photo because, due to low light in the warm months in my house, I have a devil of a time getting decent photos.  I often have to use a flash and it just doesn't look right.

 This photo is a little better but it's a little washed out too.  Anyways....I finished this counter top and back splash and wanted to run a little of the glass tile just to see how that was going to look.  I'm very pleased with this but please note; the tile has not been grouted yet, so it will look a little different when finished.  This gives me a lot of motivation to keep going.  I'm very anxious to get the kitchen finished because I think it's really going to be awesome.

 However, I had to take a break from all that and take advantage of the fact we are in an extended drought.  I have needed to fix this basement wall for years after I discovered just how much rain floods down the mountainside during the winter rains.  If the rest of the house were built this area would remain dry but.....we all know that has not happened yet so....I have to treat this as if it is forever an exterior wall.  Which meant chopping the bottom 2 feet off of the wood framing, forming a 4 inch thick wall and pouring it in concrete.  Here you can see the girls inspecting my forms.  It came out real well.  I even played around and did a faux board formed look on the outside.  This 11 foot section is a little less than half of what I need to pour but it's the worst part of the problem.  I admit I should have done this to begin with..but I did not realize the amount of water etc. around here.  And I was under the supreme delusion that the rest of the house would come along soon enough. Ha!!
Anyways, this form has been dropped, the wall sheathed back, and also insulated and covered on the inside.  Snug as a bug!  I'm now running multiple shelves on the inside in an effort to better organize the basement and my studio there.  I'll rub the exterior of the concrete here, below grade, to produce a smoother finish, then waterproof heavily and backfill.  There is still no sign of any rain anywhere in our near future so I shouldn't have any issues finishing this in the dry.

I also thought I'd take advantage of the drought in other ways!  We have ample dried foliage, leaves, flowers, grass and any things else you can think of here, so I gathered up a armful of stuff, a couple handfuls of feathers via some molting chickens and threw together this autumnal wreath.  Not too shabby I guess.  Certainly was cost effective.  haha!

Honey Bee

 Not a lot to report on around here lately....other than I am still on the very low starch diet and so far I have not gone to jail.  It was looking kinda iffy there for a while but all I can say is thank God for chocolate and coffee, otherwise I'm not sure where we'd be.  This diet is a special kind of hell in case you're wondering or would like to get back at someone at some point.  The first few days I was sure I could, and possibly would, chew the siding off the house but things have calmed down now.  I guess it was just my body adjusting to getting part of it's energy somewhere else but for now at least, I am able to go for several hours without having to cram any non-starch food I can get my hands on into my face.
I have even been experimenting with baking with coconut flour!  and I managed to make some "biscuits" tonight that were.....not horrible.  With a little pat of butter they were actually fairly edible.  Chigger on the other hand, seems to really like coconut flour .....creations....errr....eggy things.  She also had to stop and poo about 3 times today on a 15 minute walk, so I guess maybe I should spread the "love" between her and the chickens a bit more.  So far I have not felt any particularly noticeable pain relief but they say it can take 3-4 weeks before you notice anything.  If it works...it will be totally worth it.  If it doesn't....well...I'm gonna be one pissed @#^%*&*(%&^$%!!.

 In some wonderful news though, the honeybees have been massive this year!!  There are just tons of them on my corn (which I can't !$%&*^*% eat now!) and on the catnip.  Yay!  Just hundreds of them it seems.

 I don't think I have seen this many honey bees the whole time I've lived here.  I know these pictures don't seem that impressive but I assure you, there are scads of them!  I missed getting a really good shot of about 6 on one tassel of corn when the battery in my camera went dead but I did manage to eek out these few on the catnip.  I wonder if somebody on the area has added or started hives?

 The little bitties are not bitties anymore..they are well on their way to young adult chickens.  This is Wingnut, one of the little pullets, enjoying some overgrown cucumbers from the garden.  She has one feather on each side, in exactly the same spot, that appears to grow wrong side out, so that's why I call her Wingnut.  That's what she looks like from the front.

 These three stick together like peanut butter and jelly.  I don't know why they were picking on this little dead tree in a pot but for some reason they found it interesting.

 I tried to get some new pics of the dragonflies but they were not in the mood.  I managed to get this one mediocre shot however.

The little Silkies are still doing fine and the broody one FINALLY got over herself and gave it up.  Now she goes outside everyday with the other one and they pal around together.  My big hens don't bully these two but the little silkies are still kinda scared of the big hens so they stay to themselves.  I don't know if you can see or not but here one had caught her a vole and was trying her best to eat it.  I think she finally gave up but I have seen the large hens eat a mouse in one big swallow.  I take them various treat during the day though, so the little girls get plenty of nice things to eat. 

Treasure Hunt

 Ever since I moved to this property and learned of foraging the wilds for food I have dreamed of a particular delicacy.  One that I wasn't even sure existed in this area.  I had heard rumors.  Seen photos, but yet the reality eluded me.  I hiked many a mile over my land searching and searching only to come home empty-handed.  I had come up empty so many times in fact, the idea had almost left me as something I would probably never experience.  Until today.  My normal morning walk with Chigger yielded far more this morning because I stumbled upon these.......

The holy grail of mushrooms.  True, delicious morels.  Culinary delights I had only ever heard of. 

I was stunned by how easily I happened upon these. They are truly hard to spot at first but once you see them they seem to just pop out everywhere.

  I was rather surprised that there were this large.

And yes, I checked them closely to make sure that they were true morels.  Hollow on the inside!!

It wasn't a huge haul but to find any at all was an incredible rush.  I can see now why people get so excited over these things.  I soaked them for about an hour in salty water to clean them and then drained them and covered with a damp paper towel until we were ready to cook them.

I had never had these before, and neither had Allen, so we figured we would saute half in butter and then fry the other half in a batter mix.  We also decided such a serendipitous event called for a real celebration so I took off to a decent grocery store to get us some extra goodies.

And a wondrous time was had by all!!  A wonderful feast to celebrate this beautiful spring and my first hunt!  We gorged ourselves on steak, potatoes, morels and wine!!  The morels were exquisite either way.  I think I liked them a little better battered and fried but it's hard to say.  I go hunting again tomorrow so maybe we will have the opportunity to do a little more taste testing.