Winter projects

I feel very much like a hibernating animal just coming out of its burrow. And rejoicing that it is SPRING! I all ready have 11 varietes of seeds starting inside and another 4 to be directed sowed hopefully this weekend. But that is another post.

This post is meant to catch you up on some projects I did over this thankfully mild winter. Two of the projects were making lamps out of repurposed and salvaged materials and the other was a repurposed organizing thing-y. (Just as an aside, is there a better term than repurposed? Re-do? Recycled?)

So, the first one was a lamp we did. We made the lampshade out of a piece of wood veneer salvaged from the wood some friend's roof tiles were wrapped in. We made the base from an old pepper grinder that no longer worked. And the working bits were cannibalized from some old lights we had found at the dump. A repurposed light at all levels. And a nice hygge (cozy) atmosphere it gives. It's a bit hard to tell in the photo but the cracks actually have these fine strands between them as you can see in the shadow.

And then we also finished another lamp, this time a pendant lightshade. We've been thinking about this lamp for ages (like 18 months maybe) and have tried variations with different wood veneers, different widths, different forms etc. For this actual light, we used the salvaged wood veneer although the red cord is new. For the steaming we used the shower and hot water and various buckets to form curves. It was best to curve them while still wet so there was a lot of drilling in the bathroom. There was also a lot of  wrestling or assembling which took ages to get it into this form. Oh and then dicovering once we had a form we liked that we had to take it apart to do the sanding. Sigh. But further wrestling after the sanding and veneering did make a lightshade we really are quite happy with.

And finally, a quick little organizer. Our rag stash and plastic bag stash were housed under the sink in the utility room. Of course this meant that when putting away rather than reach under the sink and put the rag or bag into the bag, they were just thrown into the cupboard. So the cupboard was a teeming mess of rags, bags, and cleaning supplies. In a typical fit one evening, I felt it needed sorting. And here is how we sorted it:

We used an old sham pillowcase (a pillow case with the opening in the middle rather than at an end) and sewed down the middle to create two sides. A little careful cutting to create a top of the bag, a little sewing on stress points, the sham (fringe) bit cut open, some cute labels sewn on, and then we mounted it on some old bamboo we had. The process of doing this did make us sort through the rag stash and since the new system provides less space than the old cupboard system, we had to decide what to keep. One thing we did was go through the old underwear which had been thrown into the cupboard and cut any good elastic off (especially the wider stuff from the men's underwear) and save it for sewing projects. (And cut and throw out the gussets but that is probably too much information!). We also cut into more manageable pieces the bigger scraps like shirts. Hopefully this will keep us a little tidier!
 What were you up to this winter?

pressing cider

this weekend, we sent the child up the old apple tree in our back yard to get those hard-to-reach apples. it's a very old tree and so the apples weren't as plentiful as we would have liked, but there were enough for a first run of our cider press.

eventually husband went up the tree too and they managed to shake down all of the apples. in all, there were 50-60 some. they are a bit on the small side, but delicious, crisp and juicy.

we'll prune back the tree significantly this autumn and hope it encourages better apple growth next year. it's quite a charming little old tree, so we're definitely not cutting it down all together, as it gives atmosphere to the back yard.

the next step was to send them through the chopper. we learned that the chopper has an awful lot of vibration, so it's a good thing husband sunk those legs of the bench 50cm or more into the ground.

we also realized that the little grinder's engine isn't going to be up to the task of many more apples than we processed. each apple we fed in slowed it down significantly and we had to pause in between to let it get up to speed. it also threw apple chunks around quite a bit (hence the towel over the top of it).

this is a shot of the clean plastic ikea container where most of the chopped apples end up, below the chopper. that worked pretty well.

the 50-odd apples resulted in this much chopped. we didn't weigh it, but i suppose it was about 5 kilos.

we readied the press. the oak grate in the bottom took quite some rinsing before it stopped giving off an oak-color to the water. we wanted our cider to get its color from the apples, not from the oak! after many rinses, also with boiling water from the kettle, the water ran pretty clear from the oak.

the next step was to make the "cheese." we put in the frame and then laid in a polyester netting cloth (we're going to experiment with different kinds of cloth, but tried this to start with, as it's what many of the sources we've read recommend). the cloth was 150cm wide by about 150cm in length.

next, we filled it with our chopped apples. the entire bucket of chopped apples fit in one cheese, tho' the press can take more than one at at time.

next step is to fold the cloth over the chopped apples. we folded each side over and then the ends, to carefully enclose all of the apples.

it's a great activity for kids. sabin was so happy to help with it. she actually did a lot of the work.

once it was folded carefully, husband lifted out the frame (you can see the little nail "handle" there underneath his right hand. the cheese stood well on its own.

next, we placed an oak grate on top of the cheese and then, since we only had one, three large pieces of 4x4 and then the jack. husband has made a little frame for the jack to stand in, so it doesn't shift out of place during use.

then we began pressing (or rather, we used child labor to do the the pressing), the cider running out into a large bowl underneath the sink's drain. we pressed until sabin couldn't pull the jack handle down again, even by hanging her whole weight on it.

our 5 kilos of apples resulted in approximately one whole liter of cider (these are 750ml bottles). it's sweet and delicious and we're hoarding it a bit until we get our hands on some of the apples promised by a few neighbors.

we fed the apple remains to the chickens, but with the next batch, i'm going to make cider vinegar. apparently it's pretty easy - you just take these apple remains, put them in a big crock with some water and let them ferment for a month or so, until the vinegar is the strength you want. sounds pretty easy to me.  i just washed up the cloth and it's ready for the next go.

we learned several things:

~ it takes a LOT of apples to make not very much cider.
~ the engine of our chopper isn't powerful enough.
~ the oak is a bit difficult, since it wants to contribute its color to the batch (how do they keep chardonnay golden in oak barrels?)
~ i thought husband's cider press was a bit over-dimensioned, but it needs that strength to withstand the pressure from the jack and stay together. it did this with flying colors.
~ the repurposed sink makes a great receptacle for the juice.

we've managed to pick up 4 beautiful old-fashioned glass wine balloons here and there over the past week or so and we're ready to fill them and make hard cider, as soon as we get some more apples.

if you have any questions about any of this, just ask in the comments!

~ julochka

waiting for the apples

over the past week or so, husband has been hard at work building an apple cider press.  he searched online, watched a couple of youtube videos and then went to work. we've got grand plans for hard cider and regular cider production and tho' we only just planted our apple orchard this year (and 4 of the 10 trees we ordered died), husband thinks it's never too early to get started.

we had an old sink from the old house and he cleaned it up and repurposed it for the press. what's great is you can take advantage of the drain and drain the cider into a clean bucket as it's pressed. the construction is very sturdy, as you can see, but the jack that places the pressure on the apples (which are wrapped in lengths of clean, unbleached fabric), will put a lot of pressure on the frame.

husband loves french screws (that's his name for them - in my opinion, they look like bolts), so he used plenty of those. we don't have apples that are ready yet, so i can't show you the press in use, but as soon as we do (we've arranged to get a bunch from a neighbor since our baby trees aren't producing yet), i'll be back with more pictures and more about how we're going about this.

last friday, husband had a little encounter with this big, mean table saw, but it didn't stop him for long and he got to work making a little machine that will chop up the apples so that we can get more cider out of them and i won't have to stand with a big dangerous knife and chop them up, likely necessitating another trip to the emergency room.

husband loves to work with wood, so he created this little chopper, repurposing an old bench grinder for the bit that does the chopping.  you can catch a little glimpse of his bandaged left thumb here.

he placed screws at regular intervals on the wooden drum inside and so they chop up the apples as you feed them through.

we're not sure if this little engine is actually going to prove too wussy in actual practice - we've fed a handful of apples through and it was up to the task, but we don't really know it will handle a major apple chopping job.

husband built a bench out of an old pallet to fix it to, as it's got quite a lot of vibration.

the chopped apples come out below and fall into these plastic ikea tubs. the chopped apples will be enclosed in big squares of fabric and then pressed. ultimately, we'll put the cider into those wine balloons so it can ferment into hard cider. but more about that process when we actually get to it in a few weeks.  this project has actually made me excited that autumn is in the air!

i just wanted to share this project as it goes along, mostly because of how creatively husband has repurposed items  - the sink, the car jack (not pictured) that will provide the pressure, the pallet, the old grinder. now that's what i call living sustainably!  you never know what you might be able to build with things you already have around the house! it's easier on the environment and much more economical. even if it is, at times, hard on your thumb.