Cardboard Kitchen
Posted: January 9, 2013 Filed under: In the Kitchen, Permaculture & Home Renovation 2 Comments
In pregnancy week 28, late September by the calendar, we grabbed cardboard, an x-acto knife, some markers and headed over to the new house.
This was no art project. I wanted to mock-up the kitchen and walk through the layout of cabinets and the island. I wanted to see how it felt having several people in that space. Better to make changes before they would cost us money.
Scale drawings had been made but what looks good on paper can be deceiving. It paid off; we decided to increase by two inches the distance between the island and the range, and decrease slightly the width of the island – the island is planned at 37″ wide x 84″ long. The island will be comfortably large, but that added floor space will pay dividends on crowded holiday meals.
Our farmhouse has four windows along the south wall, and the only logical place for the kitchen was in the south-west corner. The window sills are 28″ above the floor while standard counter height is 36″. There was no way I would let the counters span in front of the windows (as the previous tenant had done), but that meant I would have to build custom cabinets.
As an act of denial, my initial plan was to use some 2x4s and plywood. Just toss them together and then later build lasting cabinets. But that short term thinking gave way and I ended up using cabinet grade 3/4″ plywood for the carcases. I still haven’t decided on, nor milled up, the face frames. That can wait.
For counter tops my preference would be concrete but there was no way we could afford that. I settled on clear spruce but the sawyer only had enough 8/4 (2″ thick) in stock for the sink counter. Just as well. My budget was getting strained.
I glued up the boards and then ran them through a wide belt sander at a local wood shop. They charged $60 per hour, but it didn’t take very long; an added expense, yes, but worth it to ensure the counter top is absolutely smooth – especially important when putting a bullnose on the edge.
For the cabinets flanking the gas range – the 28″ high cabinets – I resorted to pine boards left over from a tree fort I built as part of my day job. Chock full of knots, this wood is about two grades below #2 pine, but it was free and using it cleared up space in my shed.
For $30 I purchased a slab of white Italian marble from a local kitchen fabricator. They are happy to discount their scrap, but it has an unfinished edge. Not a problem for me. I like to bake and marble is a first rate surface for kneading doughs. Surprisingly, the lower cabinet height is easier on my back and shoulders when kneading.
Scrap evolved into a design theme of our kitchen. But if you look in the right places, scrap can be as good as gold. A pair a solid cherry shaker style cabinet doors came my way. A friend had discarded them, without the panels. By chance, at the big house I had some leftover 1/4″ cherry veneer plywood so I easily made the panels for the doors. I will apply linseed oil.
The doors were designed to go overhead – the curved rail would go at the top – but in my application, under the sink, I will mount them upside down so the pulls are at the top. What I am saving in cost and labor more than makes up for any oddity there.
To benefit from the full southern exposure of our windows, I cut two shelves from a leftover 1/4″ thick glass table top. I screwed a cleat into the jambs and set the shelf where the two sashes meet. It provides an ideal location for growing herbs and bulbs all winter long. The remaining table top glass will make a nice cold frame for our gardens.
Our one splurge in the kitchen would be the two pendant lights that hang over the island. In the back corner of the showroom at Fogg Lighting in Portland, I found a simple galvanized metal shade, part of the Milk-Man collection made by Hi-Lite Manufacturing. They are available at Lowes and other distributers on the web.
The splurge was not so much the light – these were, after all, the least expensive pendant on the showroom floor – but the cord. Black or white cord is free. I would have chosen black, but I was persuaded to find a third option.
My Uncle Donald was a furniture buyer and spent his career traveling the world buying art and antiques. For forty years he made an annual trek, circumnavigating the globe from east to west: Singapore was the best market for brass, Bombay for silks, Florence for furniture and art work, London for…just about anything. His trained eye and sage counsel was “Don’t make the cord the focal point. Black will stand out, white will distract the eye. See if they have cream.”
(We had several long conversations with Donald about room colors. His advice there: “Don’t paint the ceilings white. Add 2 tablespoons of the wall color into the ceiling paint. You won’t notice it, but it will tone down the ceilings just enough. It will soften the room. It will trick the eye. Now, at the paint store they will laugh and say you can’t do that. But tell them that is what you want to do.” In fact, the clerk at the paint store refused to add the paint. “Company regulations,” he said. I had to add the 2 Tbsp myself and only then would he shake the can. You do not notice the ceilings as tinted, but the room does look great. )
But cream, for the light cord, was not an option. They sell, at $6 per foot, a “grey mesh” cord, clear plastic with the silver wires visible. It is very nice, very subtle and harmonizes perfectly with the galvanized metal. $6 per foot is wicked exorbitant, but with ceilings only 7′ 9″ I needed three feet of wire.
I have heard the average kitchen remodel costs upwards of $40,000. Hard to imagine but easy to believe. Using scrap and creative re-use has put our costs far below that mark, but what we save in dollars we are paying for in time and patience. It is a load of work to build a kitchen. We are not done yet. Far from it: I need to build the island, mill the cabinet face frames and drawer faces (I will use barn wood), build several more drawers, make the drawer pulls using beach stones, do some tile work.
With a newborn the progress has slowed considerably. Rightfully so. But we are finding that going slowly allows us to incorporate design changes that reflect our actual patterns of use. Cardboard and patience turn out to be great planning tools.
Christmas Trees are for the Birds
Posted: January 8, 2013 Filed under: Art & Healing, Child Centered Activities, Chronicles of a First Time Parent, In the Kitchen 2 Comments
First year ever. We bought a Christmas Tree.
Out into the fields, Little Miss E and I went.
We toasted marshmallows, drank some hot chocolate then ran among the trees, E shouting, “This one! No, this one! No, no this one!!” In the fading light of a mid-December dusk I made a quick choice and cut rapidly with the saw. Oh, what a big event, and its momentum carried through the holidays.
And then last Sunday it was time to take down the tree. Along the roads now, balsams lie discarded, heaped upon the snow banks, so much trash waiting to be carted away. “Where do they go?” E asked, and I really don’t know. It got me wondering.
In our home, the threat of discarding the tree was too great. E had a meltdown. And I had an idea. I remembered my mother, an avid birder, telling me that our feathered friends love to take shelter in the boughs and branches of the trees – whether rooted or cut down does not matter – and so a plan was hatched. “Wait, we can help the birds!”
While Becca grabbed cranberries from the freezer, and a needle and thread, E and I hauled the tree outdoors, into the sunlight of the front yard. We stood the tree upright in the snow.
E was thrilled. Back into the house, she dashed to the art table and insisted “I can do it!” I showed her how to hold the needle and thread, how to position the fingers while pulling the needle through, and she was off. In her typical fashion, she shouted, “I can do it, I can do it. Give me space!”
And for good style, she donned rabbit ears. Who knows why. It was quite a look.
We transitioned from meltdown to excitement. She ate loads of raw berries, then danced as we hung them on the tree. Later, while stringing popcorn, she ate far more than she strung.
But we put together enough garland to encircle the tree several times. And so we answered her question about where our tree will go: at our house, it is for the birds.
Donuts done right!
Posted: December 30, 2012 Filed under: Child Centered Activities, In the Kitchen Leave a comment
Benham-Bishop Donuts
Posted: December 29, 2012 Filed under: In the Kitchen 2 Comments
In the quiet New England night, snow gently falls. 1920s jazz plays in our warm kitchen. A family tradition continues.
There seems to be something about donuts and New England. In Boston, in the late 1940s, two brothers-in-law, Harry Winouker and Bill Rosenberg, had a Donut-making partnership, then a falling out, and each went their separate ways: Harry to found Mister Donut and Bill to launch Dunkin Donuts.
Robert McCloskey, the Maine-based Caldecott Medal winning author of childrens’ books, wrote the famous stories of Homer Price and the unstoppable donut making machine.
I have known of families here who pass down between generations the grease used to fry the family donuts. It is the recipe, in our family, passed down, and even, as the story is told, the recipe once was sent by Western Union telegram. The tradition, you see, must be continued.
On a snowy night, while 1920s jazz played, I learned to make donuts on Forbes Avenue in Northhampton, Massachusetts. Helen Benham Bishop, my teacher, danced and swayed while adding a dash of nutmeg, 1 scant teaspoon of salt, some sugar, egg and shortening, and enough flour until the spoon stood straight. By feel she followed the recipe. And then let the dough rest, in a warm place, until the morning.
As a child, Helen spent summers on the Beach at Hawk’s Nest, Connecticut. She and her brother listened to jazz on a hand-crank Victrola carried out on the sand. In those days, her great aunts Emma, Irene and Estella would knead the dough and then let it rest, until the morning when the children would gather round, ready to fry and then feast upon fresh donuts, with a dash of nutmeg, rolled in powdered sugar.
I inherited that tradition. I pass it along to my nieces and children. My oath, that night – nine years ago on Forbes Avenue – was that I would safeguard the tradition.
My nieces are visiting for the holidays, and so it is time again. Tonight, in our warm snug home, the dough rests. Tomorrow morning we will gather and laugh, again shall carry on tradition.
Petrokus
Posted: December 15, 2012 Filed under: Chronicles of a First Time Parent, Farming off the Farm 2 CommentsPetrokus was our family’s pig. Well, half the pig was ours.
On a rainy saturday, one week ago, he was loaded into a trailer and I told my daughter E, “He is going to another farm.” That was true, by half. “Why?” she asked. “Well, he has gotten too big for Dan’s farm.” That was completely true. He had grown to almost 400 pounds.
He spent the weekend in that trailer, at the other farm, until Monday when he was taken to the slaughter-house. I wasn’t sure how to broach that topic with E so I had punted. But this morning, we made the long drive up to West Gardiner Beef. We loaded the car and headed back home. I felt it was time to talk about our payload.
Of all the “big” conversations I might have with my children, I would anticipate the topics of sex and drugs. The source of our family’s food, however, would hardly seem to belong on that list. But I was feeling pretty uneasy.
We are trying to live as close to the land as practical, and when friends offered to co-raise a grain-fed hog, that was a welcome opportunity. I love pork: braised, brined or roasted; pan seared or smoked “low & slow”; dry rub, salt cure, wet mop – whatever the manner, I love it all. My daughter does too. Becca is sure this gene was inherited from my side of the family.
We visited Petrokus during the summer. We talked about him when we purchased grain at the feed store. We touched upon the idea that Petrokus would provide our family with food. We want our children to know their food and its source. The issue of slaughtering may very well have been my own.
On the way to the slaughterhouse, I had told E that we were going to get some meat. Now I needed to add some details. I eased into the conversation.
“So, E…the meat that we are carrying is…from…Petrokus.”
I pondered that phrasing. Was it better, clearer to say “…is Petrokus” ? I distanced the animal and the act by inserting “from.” I continued, “He gave his life, gave us food.”
Silently, she looked out the window at the bare trees. I did not want to rush the conversation so I gave the silence plenty of time.
“Did the butcher…did the butcher…hurt him?”
The topic of “hurt” is commonplace in our conversations. She might ask if a pencil hurts paper when she makes marks, if it hurts a carrot when she takes a bite, if it hurts a tree when the winds blow. “Hurt” is her three-year-old variant of “Why?” So her question was not as loaded as it might seem.
I thought about Chuang Tzu’s zen tale of the butcher and the oxen. At first he “saw the Ox as one mass.” With experience comes insight and then “My whole being apprehends. My senses are idle. The spirit free to work without plan follows its own instinct, guided by natural line, by the secret opening, the hidden space, my cleaver finds its own way. I cut through no joint, chop no bone.”
What I said was, “The butcher did his job well. So it is okay.”
More silence.
“It is sacred,” I continued, “when an animal gives its life to feed us. We are thankful.”
Silence.
Her thoughts drifted to her new-born brother. “Will we be able to share this delicious meat with Milo?”
It must be in the genes! “Yes,” I said, not opening the question of how long before a newborn could be fed pork.
In silence, she looked out the car window.
Then finally, “Will we have another pig next year?”
So our conversation passed without trauma. Or perhaps this is just the first phase of a long ongoing conversation, with changing feelings, about the source of our food. Certainly she will have much to say on the topic.
For the record, here are some facts about the fattening of Petrokus:
– purchased the suckling pig on 1 May, approx 18 weeks old;
– consumed 1,100 pounds of Blue Seal “Pig & Sow” grain pellets and 650 pounds of Blue Seal “steamed flaked corn.”
wide pine floors
Posted: November 9, 2012 Filed under: Permaculture & Home Renovation 6 CommentsPregnancy weeks 33 and 34 have been wicked busy with flooring and finishes. We are on schedule and under budget, but running a deficit on sleep.
Everything now is driven by getting the radiators installed; in order of sequence, the walls and ceiling needed to be painted, the floor then installed and finished, the base molding cut, primed, painted and installed, and then the radiators hung. A different order of sequence would get heat in sooner, but it would be a much less clean install.
It is worth the effort and push, but the mild weather of October has passed quickly. Tonight we are having a Nor’easter and temperatures will drop down below freezing. The good news is that the flooring and finishes are complete.
Eastern White Pine floors fit our budget, and we love that look. The softest of woods, the boards will dent and ding over the years, but you know, these indigenous trees of the region have provided flooring for hundreds of years throughout thousands of New England homes. Cherry, Oak or Maple may be the vogue today but white pine floors have a long tradition and we chose to follow that path.
I sourced the boards from a mill in Mercer, Maine. I mean to say, that the wood came from trees felled in Somerset County. Our floor is local. I purchased 540 square feet of 3/4″ thick “tongue in groove” boards in widths up to 18″ and lengths up to 16 feet. This length assured that our floor as no joints. It is a beautiful floor. “It looks like a table top,” the tradesmen say.
I purchased “premium”, which is marketing talk for wood of a lesser grade – knots that is – but because the sawyer is retiring this month, he sent down clear “select” – boards without knots. One of the boards, 18″ wide and 16 feet long, has no knots and no sap. 18″ of heartwood!
“King Pine” they are called here. In Colonial times, by Royal decree, all white pine trees with a diameter more than 24″ belonged to King George I, to be used as masts for the ships of his Navy. But 18″ of heartwood without knots would only come from the center of a trunk much greater than 24″. It is easy to think that tree could have been 48″ in diameter with a height pushing upward of 150 feet. A massive tree. Regrettably felled, but now having a pride of place in the center of our dining room floor.
First we measured the diagonals to check that the room was square. Surprisingly it was only about 3/4″ off square. Then we laid red rosin paper over the subfloor to ensure the floors won’t creak. The paper acts as a barrier between the subfloor and top layer, so that the expansion of the boards moves freely.
We cleaned any dust or wood chips as we went along, careful here lest they get trapped under the boards and cause creaking.
It took us 38 hours – two days – to lay the floor. In a 180-year old house, the floors pitch and roll like a ride at Coney Island. In new construction you might be able to glue the boards in place, or use cut nails, but we needed the bite of screws. We toe-nailed the boards in place, and then screwed down the groove side using 2 1/4″ course thread square drive trim nails, placed approx every 24 inches. It is very clean.
Glen taught me to set the screws by “reverse drilling” (putting the driver in reverse, counter-clockwise) while pushing the screw down into the wood. It is counter intuitive, at the least, but it breaks the wood grain, so that – after turning the driver to forward (clockwise) rotation – the screw will cleanly enter rather than ripping the grain. Small details matter.
We set the screws approx 1/4′ deep into the boards, and later I filled the holes using Woodwise brand “Maple-Ash-Pine” wood putty. By setting the screws into the sapwood, the color match is closer.
It was a lot of work but we got the job done. All credit goes to Glen. The floor is beautiful! Every tradesman who enters the house stops and stares at it.
I thought long and hard about the finish – urethane or oil? I opted for Tung Oil – the traditional finish – which would penetrate the wood, rather than sit on top. Research lead me to the Waterlox Sealer-Finish, which will not show water stains. I heard that “Danish Oil” products will not safeguard against water stains and wanted to stay clear of that. But Waterlox requires four coats, plus 72 hours to hard-cure – at 65 degrees. I am working in an unheated Maine farmhouse, so easily the cure time could be double. And the cost was going to run upwards of $1 per square foot. I definitely had not the time, and preferred not to incur that cost.
Laying the floor took longer than I expected, pushing me deeper into the cold season. The mild October has moved into a Noreasterly November – cold and damp – and I decided that I could not hold out for the traditional finish. Also, Noah, my contractor, said that the tung oil would not block stains from grape juice, etc, which is likely given two little children. Tung oil was beginning to look less and less attractive.
I chose to use a water-based urethane finish from Vermont Natural Coatings. It is made from recycled whey protein of dairy farms. The product is low VOC, has neither odor nor dryers, but cures – in normal conditions – in one hour. In my cold house it has cured in approx three hours. The manufacturer suggests three coats but it seems that I will need four coats. Even requiring a fourth coat, I have happily solved the cure time issue.
Tonight I will apply the third coat. I will sand with 150 grit between each coat. Hopefully by the end of this weekend I will have the final finish on the wide pine floor.
Here is a photo of the floor after two coats. 
Diffusing the Mad
Posted: November 3, 2012 Filed under: Art & Healing, Child Centered Activities, Permaculture & Home Renovation 5 CommentsWell, I anticipated a bumpy Fall for our daughter starting Pre K, preparing for the arrival of a baby brother and gearing up to move into a new home. What I did not anticipate was the utter grief and confusion she would experience with her father’s frequent absences. David has been doing a good bit of the rehab himself and this combined with a full time job and preparing for another baby is enough for any adult to manage and try to cope with. To a 3 1/2 year old child, it’s enough to tilt her axis. I confess I have been less than my idea of a good mother through many of the melt-downs, and last night’s was epic. I sent her to her room following some acting out and anger directed at me. I told her to come down when she felt able to make different choices. She went upstairs and screamed and sobbed for “daddy”. I felt helpless. Quite honestly I feel as big as a boat and as tired as any 42 year old might be in the 3rd trimester. I’ve been at the wall with how to navigate through all of this.
I got out some paper and oil pastels and started making marks…marks to describe how I felt. Later, my daughter quieted and we had some cuddling and talked about things that make her feel better when she’s upset. She listed off things like rocking in her chair, listening to stories, and I asked if she would like to see the picture I started, showing the strong feelings that I was having. Soon she was adding to the picture with bold, frenzied, strong-armed marks and telling me how MAD they were. She seemed to walk back through that energy but in a more contained way with the marks on paper. It was something. I witnessed, I watched and I was greatly reassured that we will all get through this. Not around it, not over or under, but through.
It’s 9 at night as I write this. David’s task tonight is sanding the new pine boards in the kitchen/dining room. Our girl just yelled out for him and again, he’s not here. I went in to try and comfort her and surprisingly she didn’t refuse me. She asked why daddy wasn’t home yet. I explained what he was doing again and it FINALLY occurred to me to get her one of his shirts to sniff and cuddle with while she went to sleep. A big smile, two thumbs up and now, 20 minutes later it is quiet.
pressing apples
Posted: October 28, 2012 Filed under: Farming off the Farm, Permaculture & Home Renovation 4 Comments
Apples are a staple of New England and I took this afternoon off from the house project to press apples for cider.
At my day job, I tend an orchard of 100-year old apple trees, a mixture of Cortland, Macintosh, Golden Delicious and some unidentified astringent varieties. While not good for eating, the astringent are excellent in cider, adding a complexity to the flavor.
I pressed the apples over at my friend David Buchanan’s farm in Pownal Maine. David has recently had a book ‘TASTE Memory: Forgotten Foods, Lost Flavors, and Why They Matter” published by Chelsea Green Publishing in Vermont.
David is a serious cider enthusiast and has a first-rate operation. The first step is grinding the apples. In the photo below you can see the drop shoot, motor and receiving bucket of the grinder.
The mash is then placed into the water press. The press has a water bladder in the center of a round metal colander. The apple mash goes inside the colander and the valve is opened, filling the bladder with water. The pressure forces the apples against the metal colander, crushing them and extracting the juice.
The pomace – the mass left over after the juice has been extracted – was cleaned out and scattered in the woods for the deer. Nothing was wasted. We pressed 8 bushels and got 18+ gallons of juice. It is absolutely delicious!
Barn Beams…round 2
Posted: October 21, 2012 Filed under: Permaculture & Home Renovation 2 Comments
What remains of the barn now are planks stacked in the shed, or beams piled out front of the house, under a blue tarp. Quite a bit, actually.
My scavenging was compelled not by a plan to use the wood, but its untold poetry. Not that I ever will know its text. I just want to preserve the chance.
Our friend John, a farmer poet, shared thoughts recently, about an old barn from his family:
“…[in] the summer of 88, when my pop decided that the barn behind our house on the Gaspe coast (both built by my great great Irish grandpap) was ready to given up its ghosts and come down.
“He paid a man (who was infamous for having killed another in a fist fight) to dismantle it in exchange for the wood. Decades later, he’d finally admit that he’d come to regret the decision, wishing he’d kept at least enough to frame a small chalet behind the place.
“Economic necessity pressing (we had 5 kids supported by a teacher’s wage), he still contends that he had no choice. That said, I can feel the sadness in his voice when he talks about it.
“Our people were in those beams, their sweat soaked into the grain, the low moaning song of their lovely cows worked into the patina. It’s good to hear you’re keeping some of the bones of the space, honoring the makers, the maker and the dark forest from which those timbers were likely culled.”
gathering stones
Posted: October 18, 2012 Filed under: Permaculture & Home Renovation 1 Comment
For our kitchen cabinets, we are going to make pull knobs using beach stones. Today was a perfect mid-autumn day, and we went gathering along the cliff walk.
These photos capture the story, but not the majestic sound of the surf. We can only imagine how the awesome coast sounded to our little one inside Becca’s belly.
an Art Farm 