Summer Garden Developments and Henrik Gets a New Truck

Stargazer lilies are in full bloom in the summer sunshine.

The cinnamon scented rose continues to make lovely flowers.

Rowdy orange crocosmia are trying to take over the garden. The ones outside of the electric fence have been consumed by the roving band of ruminants.

They do make a fabulous and long lasting orange contribution to the garden.

Statice in yellow and purple....

Everlasting statice are perfectly showing their colours. This weekend they will be cut and hung to dry so that we have flowers all winter long.

After 20 years with the old blue truck, a 'new' fellow has come to stay with us for a while.  Hopefully he will turn out to be as trusty a steed as the old blue fellow was. 

As far as we got with kitchen installation

Cabinets added to the walls. The blue protective covering on the roll up cabinets will come off once installation is finished.

Note worker hiding in corner cabinet.

The addition of cabinet doors and drawers took a long time. 

As far as we got on the 2 week vacation.  Next steps will be installation of the dishwasher and sink, electrical work to allow installation of the wall oven, cooktops and pop up vent hoods and then finally the countertop and all the finishing details....

Kitchen Developments

We only have one corner and it's not square.  In fact, it's not even close to square.

By the time you travel the distance over the entire wall, it's out by 2 inches.

Lots of planning is required before hanging any cabinets.  Chalk lines around the entire kitchen and, while you cannot see them here, the wall is covered in pencil drawings that show where the cabinets go.

The giant shims required to make the wall square.  The top rail for hanging the wall cabinets is in place, attached firmly to the wall studs.

The first cabinets go on the walls.

Not to be left out of the fun, Frodo has to get into the cabinet.  She had a bit of a tumble getting back out again. 

The base cabinets are in their places, just not attached to the walls yet until we figure out the dishwasher placement and drain pipe issues.

The wall oven finally comes out of its cardboard box after 5 years of waiting.  

The stack of boxes has shrunk considerably since we started. 

Senior Citizen Cat

It's not easy being 22, but Frodo makes it look quite comfortable.

Kitchen Work Starts

IKEA boxes arrive - all 154 packages.

Henrik just loves the stick pictures with no text.

Just what are you looking at?  HK gets right into the kitchen building job!

Roll front cabinets ready to be installed.

Upper cabinets await installation also....

along with the wall oven and one base cabinet...only 10 more boxes to build. Then doors, shelves, drawer slides, handles, counter top, butcher block, cook top, dishwasher.......etc...

AO building cabinets on the floor.

Frodo sleeps through most of the commotion.  Being deaf has some benefits.

Deck Painting Completion and Garden

The deck has been painted and is waiting for furniture and flowers to make it complete.

And then of course we need someone to sit still long enough to enjoy it!  After the kitchen work has been completed that shouldn't be a problem.

The garden is in bloom.  A little messy as the gardeners have been pre-occupied with other tasks, but none-the-less the garden looks very pretty. 

AOs Assignment Progress

At an hour or two per day the wood pile has nearly been completed. The fir had already been on the ground for 6 months, so a few months in the summer heat in the woodshed, will give us good hot fires next winter. 

AOs assignment

Ah...summer vacation and 2 cords of firewood need to be split and stacked....nothing like relaxing fun in the July heat.

HK stops to read a book with a friend.

HK actually stopped to read a book.  There was a little tree frog on the bricks behind him.  

Tree frog on the wall.  He stayed in the same spot all day.

Garden Production

The loganberries are producing quite a lot this year.  I have harvested about 4 lbs of fruit and expect at least that much more in the coming weeks. 

The red currants were hit hard by the birds and the harvest was smaller than usual this year. Unfortunately, I don't think there is enough fruit to make jelly.

A few lovely peas in the sunshine. 

Yummy!!

Everything extra has been blanched and frozen for next winter.

We'll have these for
Christmas dinner!

More Deck Work

The spaces between all the boards had to be sanded prior to painting. HK manufactured a deck scraping tool for the job.

And then started sanding....

and sanding....and sanding....a lot!

Next came the first coat of paint.

It has taken a few days to get it painted.  Hopefully it will be finished this week.