Neighbor's Dance Party

The Swinging Streaks. The band sets up in the corner of the living room.

About two or three times each year our neighbors throw a dance party at their house.  They always have a live band, usually the Swinging Steaks, The John Cate Band or Grand Theft Audio.  Last night it was the Swinging Steaks.  This is their favorite band and it;'s the 14th time they have played at their house.  Everyone bring a pot luck dish, there is sooo much food and alcohol it's ridiculous.


I was able to get pictures of the booze & deserts, but the food table was too crowded.

We eat for about an hour then the band plays and the real party and the dancing begins.

Click in the video to see the band in action.

There were over 60 people in attendance. We had a great time and are thankful that we have nice neighbors that love to throw these parties!  Next party is in April with The John Cate Band!

Set It & Forget It!

I never thought I would ever in a million years use this appliance that was always on TV. We are not very big on using electrical counter top gadgets, let alone those advertised on TV.. But since I got this one brand new in the box at the recycle center for free, you know "set it and forget it" Showtime Rotisserie, we find that we can't live without it.

 It makes the best rotisserie chicken with my homemade seasoning. Who knew?

Making Homemade Garlic Powder

A few years back when I built my chicken plucker, I bought the plans from Herrick Kimball from Whiz Bang Chicken Plucker.   At that time he was also selling his homemade garlic powder, so I bought some and it was great!  I guess now he also has a book on how to make garlic powder here  Make Great Garlic Powder.   I just found this link today and didn't know he had a book about garlic powder also.

This year our garlic crop was not that great due to the bad weather and lack of rain.  I has an excess of small bulbs and decided to try to make my own garlic powder.  Additionally, the dehydrator was already on the counter from making dried apple rings.

So I took a bunch of the small bulbs and took the skin off of the cloves.

Next, I used the garlic press and squished the cloves onto a dehydrator shelf.

Then I put the shelf into the dehydrator.

After a few hours in the dehydrator, the garlic was dry enough to put into a coffee grinder to grind it down to a powder. The powder is then sifted and the larger pieces reground until it all fits through the sifter.

We are left with a pile just garlic powder.

This is added to the other batch I made yesterday.  I don't think we will need to buy garlic powder for a while!

Load Noise - 30 Year Old Water Heater

Last month, Elly & I heard a loud clang noise that came from the kitchen/garage area of the house.  It sort of sounded like the garage door springs breaking.  We checked all over and found nothing that was broken or didn't work, so we didn't give it anymore thought.  Well, two weeks ago, I went to the basement to look for some paint and found that the metal jacket on our water heater had burst open.  No water on the floor, not leaking, just the jacket burst.

Water Heater split at the seam

 It's one of those "stone-lined" water heaters that we put in when we built the house over 30 years ago.  So I guess we got our monies worth. The Styrofoam lining was soaking up the water from a small leak somewhere and expanded, causing the metal jacket to open at the seam. After taking the heater apart, I think one of the fittings failed, not the tank itself.

So, off to the plumbing supplier to get a new water heater.  Two days later, after retro-fitting the outdoor boiler to the water heater, we once again have hot water!  This tank only has a 6 year warranty.  I guess it what keeps the economy moving!.

The new heater installed

More Tomato Sauce

This is our third batch of sauce.  Because of the crazy dry weather, there were not as many tomatoes as last year and they are ripening at different times, so we are picking them when they are ripe and making sauce in batches.  Last year we just picked all the tomatoes and made one big batch.

We are lucky that we planted 60 plants this year because the yield is nowhere near the yield from last year's 24 plants. We got 40 pounds of sauce from 24 plants last year.  My goal this year is 40 pounds from 60 plants!  Lack of rain and animals eating the tomatoes really has an effect on the yield.  I think initially we lost about 20-30 big tomatoes to the chipmunks & squirrels before I solved the issue.

The process is still the same. We wash them to remove the dirt in the sink and then cut them to fit in the juicer.  It doesn't matter if the stems stay on or not, they are removed in the juicer.

Champion Juicer, juice comes out the bottom; seeds, skins & stems come out the side.

 The process moves along quickly, the juicer is fast.  When the bowl fills with juice, I dump it in the pot.

Using the hand food mill with the juicer waste pulp

Pulp, seeds and skins (waste from juicer) is processed through the hand food mill to remove whatever the juicer didn't extract.

Pot of sauce boiling down

The sauce gets boiled down (reduced) until it is the right consistency, usually a little thinner than store bought puree.  After it cools, we put in zip lock bags, remove the air, then vacuum pack the zip lock bag in a vacuum bag for freezing.

The finished product ready for freezing

This batch was 12 1/2 pounds.  Total 32 1/2 pound this season.  Still shooting for 40 pound from the garden.

Evan's Buying A Condo!

They accepted Evan's offer on a condo in North Providence, RI.  It has everything he wanted: Garage, nice kitchen with granite counter tops and access to outdoors with a small deck.  So nice that he's buying his own home. 

 Going for inspection today.  Will post our own pictures later.

Making Tomato Sauce

After we solved our varmints eating our tomatoes, we finally started getting enough to start making tomato sauce.  Last we we made 40 pounds, I am hoping to duplicate that this year even tough we had more than 60 plants!  The critters do a number on the tomato yield this year.

We still use our 40 year old Champion Juicer to make the sauce. It's so quick!

Sauce reducing on the stove

The first batch about 10 1/2 pounds (1 1/2 gallons)

The second batch was about the same, so we now have over 20 pounds of sauce. Halfway to our goal!

Chipmunks Eating Our Tomatoes

At first we thought it was a groundhog that was eating our tomatoes, but we actually saw a chipmunk chowing down on one.  We have already have lost over 20 ripe tomatoes.  There are a lot of chipmunks.  I am going to try the Cayenne Pepper & Garlic spray to see if that works.  Good thing our plum tomatoes for sauce aren't ripe yet.  We really need those to have sauce for the entire year.

Today I also cleaned out the outdoor furnace to get it ready for the winter.  This is how we heat our house when we don't use oil.  Oil was so cheap last year, we didn't fire it up all winter.  But now I am getting it ready just in case we need it.  I also filled it with water and started to the pump to see if everything was operational.  It was!  Just have to buy the anti-corrosive agent & I will be all set to go.

Stove in operation back in Jan 2013

Tomatoes!

We are finally getting some red tomatoes on the vines.  All through this dry spell I have been hand watering the base of these plants.  Finally, the watering has paid off and we anr getting rip tomatoes.  I have 60 plats in this garden.  24 Plum tomatoes plants for sauce, 6 Cherokee Purple Heirloom, 6 Yellow Brandywine Beefsteak,  12 Celebrity (early) and 12 Jet Star (Early).

Our New Roof is being tested

The next day after the roof was finished, and for a few more days we got the much needed rain.  Good thing the roof was finished last week and not scheduled for this week!

Turkeys are Back

After all the springtime courting the turkey couples disappeared into the woods.  Just today two couples emerged with their babies in tow.

Roofing Day 4 - Done!

They started early today in order to get the job done before the rain comes tomorrow.  Project is complete!

Its so nice to have a new roof!

Roofing Day 3

The roofers showed up at 7:30 today.  Angel, the roofer that fell, is in serious condition with a concussion & brain swelling at the UMass Trauma Center.  Prayers are needed for his recovery.

Too many memories of when I fell off the ladder back in 2010 and the ordeal that I endured for the next few months recovering from 8 broken ribs, broken collar bone, broken shoulder blade, cracked vertebrae and punctured lung.  It was not fun.

They made progress by finishing the rear of the main house and the front of the laundry room.  Only the rear of the laundry room and the garage to go,

Roofing Day 2 - EMTs & Prayers

Today started out normal with the rear of the house stripped in about 2 hours.

After their 1st rest break, Elly heard a noise and saw their 13 year old helper running by.  Elly went outside and found that a worker had fallen off the ladder and was laying on the patio unconscious and bleeding.  Elly took the cell phone from the workers who had already dialed 911 to speak to the dispatcher and communicate the workers condition.  The other workers had all they could do to keep the fallen man still & not moving.  The Sterling EMTs arrived in less than 5 minutes, place the injured worker on the stretcher and had him on the way to the UMass Trauma Center in less than 3 minutes.  Our prayers are with him and his family.

 These EMTs are good!  I should know as this happened to me in 2010 and I and still alive and kicking.  Hope the roofers end result is similar to mine.


Needless to say, no more work was going to be done today! 

New Roof Week has Started! - Day 1

31 years on a 25 year roof, it's about time for a new one!  The north side  of the garage acutal was covered in moss and has little trees growing on it.

moss covered garage

The material arrived on Friday, Work began today.  These guys are wearing hoodies in the 95 degree heat.  It keeps them cool, by keeping the body moisture inside, like air conditioning.

Moving right along. Starting with putting on the weatherproofing & new shingles.

After the shingles were removed I went up into the attic.  It was sort of magical with the sun shing through the nail holes

By 4:30, the main front roof was complete and the Laundry-Mudroom area was strippped and started to be shingled.  Fast workers in this awful heat of 95 degrees.