Hot hot heat

Good God, it's hot, the kind of hot where your sweat glands simply surrender, open wide and let the sweat pour out like the breaking of Hoover dam. Yeah, that hot, but us folks in Eastern PA aren't the only one that seem to be feeling the heat. Lucky for me, I've got a project that involves shooting highly-pressurized water at things. Cool, luscious H2O. Actually it's not that glamorous. You see, we have a smokehouse -- alternately known as a summer kitchen -- that is in dire need of paint.

Smokehouse:

Paint issues:

So this weekend I pulled out the pressure washer and blasted the loose stuff from the siding:

It's not the best pressure washer on the face of the planet -- only 2200 PSI -- but it does a great job of removing the loosest paint and tackling at least half the job. Oh, and, uhh, yeah, I would advise against balance on a ladder while attempting this task. I did, but it could pretty quickly knock you straight off the ladder onto your ass or perhaps your head, especially if you happen to have a really powerful pressure-washer.

Don't be fooled: it still took a lot of elbow grease to scrape the remaining paint off the siding, and I'm still not done. This, however, is the roughest part -- we suckered, err, invited a bunch of people to come over on August 4 to help us with the overall painting task. It's amazing what you can do with the promise of drinks and pizza.

Oh, and the hat? That's my favorite protect-me-from-the-sun article of clothing, bought in 2005 at the surf shop in the North part of Long Beach Island. The best five bucks I ever spent. Oh, quit laughing. It's not that bad.

Beet it

The many outdoor projects planned for the month of July have been put on hold thanks to two constants: rain and grass. The rain, however, has been good for one thing other than the lawn: the garden. I'm worried about the tomatoes -- we've had others rot on the vine during periods of steady rain -- but the other goods have been doing just fine, including our beets. We're slightly late in harvesting them, but during my mowing tasks on Sunday Gina got to work and started pulling them.

I had planned to grill some sockeye salmon for dinner and decided the beets would make a perfect side. One of my favorite summer salads is beet with watercress and goat cheese. The sharpness of the goat cheese, the peppery watercress and the sweetness of the beets are a perfect combo.

Remove the stems, boil the beets for 30 minutes or until tender, then drop them in a bowl of ice water. Remove the skin, then cut the beets into 1/4" cubes. Toss them with some watercress and balsamic vinaigrette, and then top with crumbled goat cheese.

Also, I can't take credit for all the mowing around here. Gina's dad, Ken, borrowed an old John Deere and helped us tackle some of the meadow. Here he is working on the upper field:

I could really use an old tractor like that...

Glazing over

Over the past few weeks I've slowly started the process of reglazing the sashes in the old double-hung windows on the West and South side of the house. At some point most of the windows on the North and East had been replaced by vinyl replacements, but the rest were never touched and they show it. Several have broken glass – those I'm tackling first – but the rest just need to be scraped, reglazed and painted. I've only done three so far, but I figured I'll share the small amount I've learned from the endeavor.

Here's the start of sash number three with the glass removed. I recommend removing the sash from the frame if possible. It makes the project much easier.

It's absolutely essential to get all the old glazing out of the rabbit in order to get a good final product. I've found that a heat gun and a glazier's tool works wonders, but use caution: Heat will break the glass. If you are re-using the glass, you'll need to shield it with some old aluminum flashing or some aluminum foil. Likewise, if you're replacing one pane of a multi-pane window, you'll need to shield any adjoining, undamaged panes while you're removing the glazing. If you're simply replacing the glass, wrap the old pane in a cloth, tap it gently with a hammer and remove it prior to starting. It'll make life easier.

While you're scraping, make sure to remove all the old glazier's points from the wood. They should be located every six or eight inches around the perimeter of the glass. If you intend on reusing the glass, be careful removing the glazier's points – it's very tricky. My windows had simple flat triangles rather than the kind with vertical tabs and they were nearly impossible to grab. I've found that by taking the tip of the glazier's tool, laying it flat against the glass with the tip just behind the edge of the glazier's point and spinning it while pulling gently away from the sash I can get it removed.

After you've removed the glazing and points, scrape any old paint off the rest of the sash, sand it and give it a good coat of primer, including in the rabbit. I gave each sash two coats of primer before I started the glazing.

Next, fill the bottom of the rabbit with a ¼ inch or so of glazing. I prefer the glazing putty that comes in a tub. I used the stuff in a tube on the first window repair and I dislike it – it dries too quickly, is hard to tool and doesn't seem to make a great seal. To fill the rabbit I put some putty on a glazier's tool and simply push it along the rabbit. There's no need to be neat in this step. Once you have a good bead all around the sash, place the glass in the rabbit and gently push around the entire edge. This should give you a good seal with about 1/8 inch of putty. You'll scrape the excess up later.

Take your glazier's points, lay them on the glass, and using a putty knife carefully press them straight into the sash while applying a modest amount of downward pressure. On the first window I was a bit too heavy handed and ended up cracking the pane.

Take a golf-ball sized piece of putty and work it in your hands to soften it, then roll it out to form a rope – about 3/8 inch – and place it around the perimeter of the pane.

Once you've placed the putty, take a flexible 1 ½ inch putty knife, place it at a 45 degree angle between the sash and the pane, and draw it slowly and smoothly along the pane while applying even pressure. Make sure the putty has a good seal on both the pane and the sash. Carefully remove the excess putty once you've completed the side. Continue with the remaining sides, carefully smoothing the corners into a nice groove. I've found that by turning the putty knife out and up as I'm approaching the corner, I can create a nice groove.

The putty dries slow, so wait a week before painting the sash. I'm hardly an expert, so if anyone has any additional tips or corrections feel free to share.

Blueberry Jam

We have a few blueberry bushes on our property and although they've been neglected over the past few years, they've been kicking out the fruit this season. While I worked on reglazing some windows Gina decided to make use of the bountiful harvest. We even have a few more pints frozen!

Churn, baby, churn.

There's been a lot of dialogue recently about the current approach to eating: the importance of understanding where your food comes from and the pitfalls of industrial farming. It's good discussion to be having, and it really resonates with me now that we live on a farm. Over time we've gone further and further from our food source to the point that it's now something shrink-wrapped, pre-seasoned and stocked on a refrigerated shelf. We've completely lost our connection with the very things that provide us sustenance.

We have 20 acres, five of which are currently being farmed by a local farmer growing potatoes and wheat, among other things. Right across the street I can watch them dig up the potato field and then wander over and scrounge around for some of the tubers that were left behind. But each year a bit more of that farmland disappears, and small farmers – faced with low-prices because of competitive pressures from agribusiness (or shall we say large-scale, industrialized, vertically-integrated food producers) – are forced to sell out to developers with deeper pockets.

One of the things that I've been pondering since we moved to the country is how we can make use of the land that we now own. One of the reasons we bought the place was to save this small piece of land, to keep it out of the hands of developers. It's terribly idealistic – at some point we could probably add substantially to our retirement by selling off and subdividing the land – but it just wouldn't feel right. In fact, we're in the process of selling our development rights to make sure that doesn't happen.

So what's my point? Somehow it would feel really great to resurrect this land, make it our own, and help to connect people with the food that they eat. To make a working farm that provides great local produce or some really high-quality chèvre. All you have to do is read this article. This woman is my hero.

I'm pretty sure my wife thinks I'm nuts. Do you?

Photos

You'll notice a new link over there to your right, one that takes you to some photos of the property. Well, go on, take a look.