String of Days

Yes, an unexpected string of days off in my schedule. 

Time to catch up on things, including sleep and really getting better from being sick. 

How nice. And to indulge in things Farm. Or things Rabbitry.

Here are a few endeavours:

Tractor cushion... Looks like a jean skirt but was made from a pair of jeans. Honestly. 

Sewing is not like knitting. It's difficult!

Metal seats are cold or hot. So, cushion required. 

The Rabbitry: 

The floor had a few vermin holes which I suspect could allow sneaking predators inside, 

so they needed to be filled, as did low spots. 

The temperatures here aren't kindly to concrete, and who knows? 

The chicken coop is likely more than half a century old! 

Original floor, with a few repairs, plus our new wet parts.

Pouring a thin layer of concrete on top of an old layer isn't ideal, 

especially in cold weather but with the holes to be filled and the nature of the undulations 

and the fact it's not a high traffic, load bearing area, (rabbit cages will hang from the ceiling) 

it seems a decent choice based on the exorbitant cost of Sand-Crete. 

Without proper delineation I was worried both about tightly closing the doors and floor clearance, 

so I made and added a threshold on our inside door and a lower part on the outer door. 

I'm not going to call the job levelling - more smoothing - 

increasing in valleys and an overall height gain. 

Jordan kindly mixed ALL the concrete for me, by hand. What a love. 

Open and...

... tightly closed. 

I am the slowest carpenter. Ever! Lol. An all day carpenter. 

If doing this again I'd have filled the holes first, then done the expanse all at once. Seaming isn't really effective without the stress-crack tools. Speaking of tools, I probably could have gone out and bought a few, but because this isn't meant to be expensive, I only used a grouting trowel I already owned. That considered, it's not a bad job. Still, I should have organized to do it all at once.

I'll seal the floor and hopefully it'll be quite clean and washable and the seams, well seamless.

 Alas, nothing happens overnight! 

*****

My bathroom, though lacking a shower 

(we got a shower attachment though, and that is much better) 

and requiring hair washing to be done upside down - good thing I'm flexible - 

is an old fashioned and lovely place. 

I'll expand on that shortly. For now I'm back to my orange and gold toes. 

Oh how I love that tilework! Hoping to get some artwork from the same time period. 

Art Deco and cats and bubbles? Yes. Yes, please. 

On the cooking front, I was quite focused on my new cast iron skillet. 

I had some trouble initially even though it was meant to be pre-seasoned. 

That's not something you should believe, because it's just not true. 

So after a few irritating experiences, I started over and 

seasoned on the stove top twice and then once again in the oven. 

It seemed effective and was then proven so when I made tortillas:

They were a sort of enchilada casserole when they were eaten. They were delicious! 

To the point we've now probably become store-bought tortilla snobs. 

We, as in us and Eric. It was a sort of room mate reunion. Not like FRIENDS per say, 

but if we win the Powerball lottery we might be in the same financial category.

Check out the recipe and tutorial from Pioneer Woman here. 

I'm sure you don't need a cast iron skillet, but I'm sure you need these tortillas. 

What ARE you waiting for? Oh and I didn't have lard on hand, so I used butter. 

Seems that was fine. So you definitely have no excuses. 

But next time I'll be more prepared. 

I made bread, but that is not unusual, but felt we were due for cinnamon buns. 

The key is cream cheese icing. 

I used a regular white dough recipe, about 1/2 a cup of butter melted with a cup of 

brown sugar and cinnamon to taste. I like cinnamon! And nutmeg is tasty, too.

And add raisins if you like that extra moisture. I certainly do! 

Bake your rolls in a parchment lined pan or dish, 

because this makes lifting them out a cinch and cleaning is easier. 

Also if you have use a metal pan like I do, they won't get a metallic taste from cooling in the pan. 

Then make Sweetaploita's cream cheese icing. If you want to eat the picture below, that is. 

Yah baby, yah. Mmmmmm

I finally cleaned up from Christmas. That left the house kind of bare... We will have to work on that. For now the living room is on safari: yellows, browns, charcoal, cream, orange and red.

The charcoal is a good addition to those colours. Gives an anchor. And feeling. 

We will acquire more bits and pieces over time as collecting is fun, 

and here is a wee sentiment from Northern Ireland. A lovely little painting from my friend Kim. 

I made up the frame from some reclaimed wood from a big pile of rubbish. 

(Rubbish is great!) Speaking of rubbish, if you are of the ilk that someone's trash might be someone else's treasure, you should listen to this song. One Man's Gold. 

Oh, and part of liking country music, is about liking the story in a song. 

Just in case you needed one more reason to love country music. 

Yee-ha!