Fancy New Winders...

I have to start this post by wondering what people are thinking. Let me clarify, how could a house be 50+ years old and there be no insulation? Or new windows, or new electrical? I guess I'm the kind of person that tries to make some improvements when I live somewhere. Even if it's just one thing a year.

So now that I'm off my soap box, I did not want to go through another winter without new windows. Here's how things look to start off with.


New Windows Part 1 from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

Ok, I need to get back on my soap box for a minute. The genius that designed the ol' farm house put two EXTERIOR storm windows back to back to cobble together the window in the kitchen. Seriously? How do things like that even happen?


New Windows 2 from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

I think there was one room that had windows from the 1970's, and it was actually in worse shape than the original windows.


New Windows 3 from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

Lucky for me, I just signed a deal to work with Champion Windows here in the Puget Sound. I went down and met the guys. It's a really impressive company. They are one of the few that actually have a factory that manufactures the windows.

The install guys started by ripping out the old front picture window. It wasn't insulated, and it was not able to be opened in the summer. The new window will actually be a slider on the bottom and a picture window on top... nice!


Windows 4 from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

I thought there would be a sophisticated way to pull out the old windows. I figured that they would have some custom tool that would work like a charm. Not so...


Windows part 5 from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

He just broke the glass and pulled it out piece by piece.

While the foreman was working on the big window, the other guys on the crew were making quick work of the more standard bedroom windows.


New Windows Part 6 from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

Just to show how much of an improvement the new windows are, check this out. There was a slight measurement error on one of the bedroom windows. So they are making a new one for that opening. But here's a side by side comparison... amazing!


New Windows Part 7 from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

And here's the dramatic reveal, as they say on Extreme Home Makeover...


Windows part 8 from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

Let's just say it's an understatement to say I'm thrilled with the results. Not just in terms of looks, but also I've noticed a big difference with our heat bill.

So basically, I'm on course to replace this entire house piece by piece.

This Makes It Worth All The Effort...

As the top of my blog says, "What Happens When A City Boy Buys Some Land And Moves To The Country..." To be honest, a lot of the time, the city boy wishes he was back in the city going to breakfast in Freemont or cruising downtown to go shopping or to the library. I can't lie, I'm not a huge fan of chores, never have been. My mom spoiled me by mowing the lawn when I was a kid.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not allergic to hard work. I knew living in the country would be a lot of hard work, but I guess I didn't know how much hard work there would be.

But as many times as I wake up in the morning and would give anything just to stay in bed for 20 more minutes rather than muck the horse stalls, there are moments that make it all worth while.


Horses In Pasture from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

I'll take that view over living 10 feet from a neighbor almost every time.

See You Next Time...

Hard Cider? Proves to be TOO hard... for me.

We've got four apple trees in the back yard. Last year we were so busy getting the property horse ready, that most of the apples just fell to the ground. So this year I thought I'd try to make some hard apple cider.

I borrowed a grape press from my buddy Charles, of blackberry liqueur fame. I had everything all set. My amateur wine making kit, all the supplies, and my champagne yeast ready to go. A few friends from work even came out to see how it was done - Libby and Jane.

This first part we actually did right. I made a 10% meta solution in a spray bottle to clean all the gear. Meta is available at all wine making stores.

Cleaning The Cider Gear from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

Now here's where we made the fatal mistake. We just cut the apples into chunks, when what we really needed to do was to grind them into a pulp. Evidently, there is a special piece of gear for this that looks like a big sausage grinder.

Cutting Apples from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

I'll put our results up so you can see what not to do. After the fact, some people told me that if I had made a pulp, we probably would have got at least 5 gallons of juice.

Filling The Press from ron upshaw on Vimeo.



Pressing The Apples from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

We were very excited at this point, thinking the juice would just flow out. Um, not so much.

Did We Get Any? from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

So we just added some more apples thinking we just needed more pressure for the juice to pop out.

Apple Pressing - Take 2 from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

I will say that the actual set up and operation of the press was done correctly. Just use pulp or grapes, and you'll get tons of juice.

I did get a cool tool out of the deal. I got this fruit picker at Home Depot. It works great.

Harveting The Apples from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

We did end up with enough juice for a great pork loin that Jane made later. And we had a few glasses of cider left over to drink. But over all, very disappointing.

Fail to make cider from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

Live and learn I guess. Next year, we can try again, but make sure we have the grinder.

We did have a great time after with some food and a bonfire.












See You Next Time...

Trenching + Rain = Mud

Well, it's been a while since I posted a blog. I've been super busy with some extra hours at work. I haven't blogged, but that doesn't mean there's been no chores.

One of the really big projects that's been on the list is to get water and power out to the horse shelter that I built last year. We found that one of the major drags about winter chores was when the water hose would freeze.


Pre-Dig Power Line from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

Lucky for us, the Cowgirl's dad is an electrician. He ran the electrical wires out to the horse shelter and had one of his guys wire the place. He did a nice job and put in a sub breaker box and new light fixtures. It makes a huge difference to have lights all the way around the shelter. He also brought out a trencher that he rented to make things go faster.

One thing we had to figure out is where the water line came into the house. So I was nominated to crawl under the house.



How'd I get This Job? from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

Theoretically, it should be a pretty straight forward job: make a trench, put the pipe and wires in, then fill it back up with the dirt you took out. We, however, subscribe to the "let's make things more difficult" school of thought. We dug our trench over a stone walkway, our water line, our septic line, and a fence. Nice work Cletus.


So here's how the trencher works.


The rain finally let up for a while, and after a trip to a few hardware stores, we had the plastic water pipe, and frost free water spigot to put by the horse shelter.


Trench project from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

At this point I stopped shooting video because I became entirely covered in mud. We had to dig a little tunnel under the septic line to accept the water pipe, and let's just say, it was a Mud-a-polooza.

I did this stuff about a week later...

Trenching, when will I be done? from ron upshaw on Vimeo.


Trenching - Fill from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

We had a to wait a week or so to get all the parts we needed, and The Cowgirl's dad had to bring out his pipe threader, but we finally got it done. Just need to bring in some more fill dirt, and button up the ground. It's not pretty now, but it works great. I'll put some grass seed down next spring in the trench scar, and I'm sure in a year or so, you'll never know the difference.


Worst Project... EVER! from ron upshaw on Vimeo.

See you next time

Adam & Steve Update - Time To Capture and Fix

We've been trying to capture these feral cats for a while, and we weren't able to get them into a carrier. A co-worker of mine and his wife run a cat rescue charity. He brought me a couple of live animal traps. If you're in the Puget Sound Area, it's called Whisker City up in Shoreline.

Here how things went.



The next day, I was trying to capture Steve, and this is what I found.



Steve has learned his lesson, he will not go into the trap. So we're going to wait a while and bring back his family.

See You Next Time

Adam and Steve Update - The Cat Hunter....

After a few weeks of training Adam and Steve, our feral cats, to go into the carrier to eat, we thought it was time to attempt a capture. Then it would be off to get them fixed so we don't have 27 feral cats next year. Things did not go entirely as planned.



So next up I'm going to try and get some live animal cages for the guys, and see if that works.
See you next time.

When life hands you crappy cherry wine....

Make Cherry Wine Vinegar!

So I tried my hand at taking the thousands of cherries on the tree in my backyard and turning it into delicious Cherry Wine. Cherry Wine - yes... delicious - not so much. So I was left with a decision: either drink this very tart wine, throw it out, or figure out something else to do with it.

So I decided to make most of it into Cherry Wine Vinegar, and some of it into a Cherry Wine glaze for BBQ.

First the Cherry Wine. I needed to measure one gallon of the Cherry Wine to be made into vinegar, and the rest I was going to reduce into the glaze.


So here's a gallon measured off. It's pretty simple stuff here. Pour the cherry wine into a 3 gallon car boy (glass container.) I guess the Mother of Vinegar needs a lot of air to do it's thing. I got the mother of vinegar online. It was about $10.


It takes 3 months for the conversion to happen. So I just mixed the Mother with 8oz of water and poured it in. Watch towards the end of the video, you can see the "Mother" slide into the funnel. She will float around in there and convert the alcohol into vinegar.


Then I put some cheese cloth over the top of the car boy to keep any bugs out. Again, it needs a lot of air. The directions call for 80-90 degrees, but fall is in the air up here. I put it in a closet closest to the furnace, and we'll see if it works.


The BBQ Glaze is super simple. Just put in the Cherry Wine, about a cup of sugar, and reduce it by at least half.
















Here's how the glaze looks when it's done. Now just find some pork or chicken, and put it on near the end so it doesn't burn. Yum.
See You Next Time!

Adam & Steve

Ever since we've moved out to the ranch, we've had a feral cat that has been roaming around. This spring, she gave birth to 4 kittens under our deck. Two of them are gone, I don't know what happened to them. But I started putting food out for the other two when they were really little. They are not even close to being tame. We can't pet them or touch them, but they're a bit less spooked by me since I bring them food every day.

We are currently trying to capture them so we can get them spay/neutered. So I usually put their food in the crate, so I can rig it up here soon to close the door on them and take them to the vet.

We've decided to name them Adam & Steve.



When it comes time to capture them, I'll make sure I video it.

See you next time...

My World Famous Blackberry Jam...

Last year I made some blackberry jam, and it was a major hit with everyone I gave it to.
So as the berries ripened, I thought I'd blog about how easy it is to make.



One of the biggest pointers I can give is to get everything, and I mean everything ready before you put heat to your berries. I pretty much take over our entire kitchen. Lay out all your stuff - berries, sugar, pectin, spoon, clean jars and lids, and anything else you think you might need. I also put a piece of tin foil down wherever jam might fall. Makes for easy clean up.



Next up I pulse the berries for a few seconds. No need to completely macerate the berries. The heat will do a great job later.



My very precise recipe is that I just wing it. One colander of berries (about 3-4 pounds) about 5 cups of sugar, and one packet of pectin. Wait till it comes to a boil before adding the pectin. The high temp activates the thickening power of the pectin.



When it comes to a boil, it will expand tremendously.



Last year my jam was a bit thin, so I boiled it for about 4-5 minutes this time to see if would be a bit thicker.



Now I just pour it into a measuring cup, then transfer to my clean jars.


This year I got 9 jars out of this batch.


My "poor mans water bath" method of preserving did not work so well. Some of the jars had a vacuum, and some didn't. I give most of this stuff away. So it gets used quickly, but next time, I'm going to try the immersion method of preserving so when I want to preserve something else, I've got it down.

See you next time...

Ron Saves The Porch From Falling In...

This was a repair that I really needed to do before winter. Especially since we had quite a bit of snow last year. The posts holding up the porch
were just about completely rotted out.

Luckily for me, my buddy Doug has a sawmill, and he milled me up 3 posts from some fir logs that he had.







We build some bracing around the center post, and built some 12" squares as forms for the cement pours. I decided on the outside post to put the new cement right next to the old posts. I also raised it up a few inches. The old posts sat right down at dirt level. That's probably why it wicked up water and rotted. Lifted up a few inches, the new posts should last a lot longer.







First off, we had to grind out the old metal strapping that was on the old rotted post.


Here's the new post out in the shop. I wanted to plane the posts down to remove the saw marks from the mill, but the planer only goes to 6". The post is about 6 1/4". So it was time to hand sand them.


I used a forstner bit to put a hole in the bottom of the post to go over the stainless bolt we set in the cement. Then to prevent water from wicking up the post and rotting it out, I put two layers of metal flashing tape on the bottom.


Here's the tape.


I had to flip the post over and run it under the chop saw on all 4 sides to make the cut. It worked ok. It was a bit uneven, but nothing too bad. I little sanding and it was all good.


I had to remove one side of the brace that we made to lean the post in there. I just banged on it with a piece of scrap wood and a hammer. A bit of tweaking, and I finally got it plumb and level.


I was able to get two out of three of the posts done today. I couldn't do the third because I had to re-pour one of the footings. It wasn't deep enough. So once that it set up, I'll do the 3rd post.

I also need to buy a piece of fir to make a moulding detail around the top and bottom of the posts.

Check another thing off the never ending list.
See You Next Time...