This Summer I will need a lot of gravel and crushed stone for home remodeling tasks, mainly for foundation sealing works.Some time ago (while digging a pond), I negotiated a few cubic meters of gravel from neighbor, who was sealing surface of the road meanwhile, it turned out that neighbors' gravel was not ideal for foundation as it consisted from clay particles, and we decided re-use clay/gravel for rock garden instead. I had no…
Here comes another post on food blogger series, and again I must admit I'm not the original creator of following sponge cake, my better part is.
Sponge cake with wild berries
Really cool cake, here is photos and cooking directions:
Biscuit dough:
4 eggs, 4 tbs. flour, 4 tbs. sugar
Cooking directions:
Separate egg white form the egg yolk. Whip egg white to hard foam. Separately whip yolks with 4 tablespoons…
Here comes another update on building a bathroom from scratch series in project home remodeling. The thing is - the house we got didn't pamper us a lot, and so for example I had to install new supporting beams, not to speak about changing a roof, prior to before ever dreaming about having a bathroom. OK, I had a vision about a bathroom once we replaced roof last year, but to actually feature bathroom, we have to build many new things, among them…
This Summer I excelled in concreting works, the major concreting works involves concreting stone wall inside our rural country house and concreting house foundation (more on that in upcoming posts from home remodeling series)In spare time from major home reconstruction works this Summer we decided to build a cool and fancy garden pizza oven, connected with a water supply (sink) and electricity - making a cool outdoor kitchen with a lot of space…
A few days ago I reported a photo story with a harvest of mushrooms from our backyard, then we gathered fungus called Slippery Jack, in today's Piece of Life series - a harvest from deepest woods of Courland (Latvia), meet Penny Bun & Red-Capped Scaber Stalk.
And again, those mushrooms were actually gathered by my better part and not me. I was actually drilling holes in a stone wall meanwhile:
Penny Buns and Red-Capped Scaber Stalk
Red…
The never ending story with my adventures on home remodeling and building a bathroom continues. In todays part 3 I will tell you a brief photo story how I strengthened a beam on the stone wall.See part 1 and learn more how I actually concreted this stone wall, while in part 2 see how we actually installed first bearing beams above bathroom ceiling. I'm of course talking not only about bathroom, but about a stronger and stable house as well (as…
The other day my aunt visited us at our country house, we spent some lovely time together, and while somewhere in the woods near Akmenrags lighthouse we hunted for chanterelle fungi, should I mention we found just enough to make a barely pan of sauce?
The day my aunt left, my better part went for mushrooms again, this time at our backyard:
Our backyard
Yes, the veggie garden in the boxes and skew barn as well. Wait, there is a rock…
Akmenrags Lighthouse (Latvian: Akmeņraga bāka) - a lighthouse on the Latvian coast of the Baltic Sea, located to the south of the resort town of Pāvilosta.I first visited Akmensrags Lighthouse in the mid Summer of 2016 together with my aunt - we made a lovely excursion with her around Courland. Akmensrags lighthouse is located some 11 km south of the Pāvilosta, the road is not in the best shape (Breakstone…
It seems I have a new tradition - for the second year in the row I have captured beautiful morning mist in our country house backyard.
Alright, previous year my beloved did the shooting while I was dreaming about roof works. This time I couldn't sleep (as I was thinking of upcoming bathroom remodeling works), and I noticed - a mist. In our backyard. See it for yourself:
Mist over our pond and neighbors meadow
Few things have changed this…
Recently I featured a post about how we built a rock garden in the front of our country house. I reported a lovely sunset just shortly. In today's Piece of Life series - little creatures who enjoys the most of our new rock garden. Meet our lovely cats Tiger and Richard.Cat on the rockA nice observation place for planing an attack on...birds? Or at least a try.Cats on the rocksDouble attack?Cat on the rockAre you shooting me?
This Summer spoiled us with a lovely sunsets, but one of the most empathic had been observed in front of our house at rock garden.
Red/Orange Sunset at Rock Garden
See how we built this rock garden a few days ago.
Country house during sunset
There is still a lot of to do, and it will require a huge investment to completely remodel/rebuild this house, but evenings like this breaks it even.
Sunset over pond
Yup, we dug…
The other day I did perform a minor upgrade from Drupal 7.43 to Drupal 7.50, and was a bit scarred when noticed a huge warning page, at first I thought there are some problems with my files and folders or I have done something terribly wrong.
Thus I learnt that this is a new feature, implemented starting Drupal 7.50 version
Drupal user warning
User warning: The following module is missing from the file system:Module Name. In order to fix…
Here comes another update on home remodeling works - building a bathroom from scratch. After I successfully concreted stone wall it was time to install new beams. For this side of house we did not had any beams installed (ok, they were, but they were rotted, as the roof was leaky, see how we changed a roof)A while ago I ordered beams at local sawmill (beams are 20cm X 20cm) and about 4 meter long. Today I called to the father and …
For the second year in the row we have one small and lovely neighbor - baby fox. Once we met him at the bus stop, looked amazing - fox going to the city, the other morning bad farmers had mowed crop fields and baby fox seemed very disappointed.
Today we met our friend, just wandering on the road.
baby fox on the road
I wish I had a telephoto lens attached, to capture a lovely portrait, as the fox didn't seemed scared or so, just…
In our garden we have a lot of rhubarbs, one thing you can make out of them is a rhubarb cake, but turns out there is at least one more thing you can do with rhubarbs - you can try to make a wine. In today's Do It yourself series - my (our )attempt of making a rhubarb wine - I'm calling this an attempt - because we actually didn't make any wine this year. But if you are looking for a receipt on how to make a rhubarb wine, here is one: …
The other day I first met with one of our closet neighbors, he approached me and told me, that in couple of days he will cover road (we are sharing together) with a gravel. I already mentioned it in my previous post about pond works. I asked what kind of gravel does he is using for road surface, and decided it would be a good idea to have a little bit gravel for upcoming home foundation works (concreting). We agreed that he will give me a…
Today we made a rock garden from scratch, well almost. The thing is - idea to have a rock garden have always been in our minds, but we hadn't yet figured out how to solve the biggest question - rocks.We had already idea of place were rock garden will be situated (in front of house, were use to had been a dump - see: The Big Spring Territory Cleanup )Luckily after pond works were done, pond guy told he could help us with his New Holland…
Idea to have a nice garden pizza oven were sit first already last year, together with the works we started shaping a form of our rural house, we recently inherited. Thus we had to wait for more than a year, before actually proceeding.
The other day, while the pond guys were finishing digging pond, I dug some soil, to lay in the foundation for garden brick.
Laying foundation for garden oven
With the help of a shovel, I will dug…
This morning started with a surprise, I was still sleeping, when my partner awakened me and told - pond guys are digging. I was surprised, because I didn't heard a sound. Maybe I was too tired from yesterday's pond draining or as it turned latter - the modern excavators are quiet.
Anyway, I was not surprised at all - because when pond guys started, they didn't even informed me, see how it started in part 1.
I made (more correct, my…
Today I had a chance to excel in pond works - I was left with no choice but to drain the pond. Luckily the pond guys brought an electric pump to make my life much easier.
If you are new to home remodeling series, make sure you check out an article on how it all started about a year ago. And of course check out first part on pond digging, when we discovered that pond have been dug without our presence. Surprise pond digging in the middle…
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