Saturday, May 28, 2011

Can´t take the heat Part II

BTW - if you´re thinking about a new kitchen, you really must read the kitchen forum, and the finished kitchen blog from Gardenweb. In general, Gardenweb.com/Thathomesite.com is a great resource on all sorts of things. Check it out.

Yum - If you want to learn how to weave rush seats like this, or caning, check out Ian and Luis. I would love to know how to do that.


I think I love this floor.


What are these things called? Apothecary cabinets? And check out the farmhouse sink!


A little craftsman. Love the beadboard.


Does anyone have a woodburning ¨cocina Bilbaina¨? We´d like one both for cooking and a heatsource. From Little Emma


A little more Jane Austen-y from Plain English. Again - loving the sink, and the slate floor:


Friday, May 27, 2011

If you can´t take the heat Part I

We´ve been developing the plan of the house all week with the Architect. It took us 4 plans to distribute all the functions necessary - and this is a pretty straightforward house where the structure pretty much defines the spaces! We will have a main bedroom, a second office/guest room, living room, kitchen and bath. What gave the most trouble was the laundry room/half bath/pantry/bodega/mechanicals/utility/mudroom space. Now that I write all that, it´s a little clearer why it took so long to organize.

There are a staggering number of interior design blogs and blogs devoted to kitchens. I´ll share the ones I personally think are fun to scan. One of the things that strikes me now, living here, is how overdone American interior aesthetic is - at least to my eyes. First of all they´re Titanic in scale. These places must be measured in acreages. Secondly, they´re monumental in weight. Masses of wood compete with tile, marble, granite, giant banks of windows and doors, huge islands floating between the Scylla and Charybdis of restaurant ranges and multiple dishwashers flanking double-wide, stainless steel refrigerators.

These are some from the blogs I´ve been browsing (what a fabulous time sink!)

From an extensive design blog - Things that Inspire:




And from Design*Dump



Now these are good blogs and beautiful kitchens, both in execution and design. But who are these people? You could park a bus in some of these spaces. And the thing is - the more I looked at them, the more ¨normal¨ they looked. I remember loving the HGTV (Home and Garden TV) channel, mostly for the DIY shows, but you absolutely couldn´t get away from the house porn. And I suppose if you have a lifestyle that requires it - this is the answer.

I think of a kitchen as not just a work space, a lab, but a refuge. No expanses of polished granite, stainless steel or French Provincial cabinetry for me, if only because the space (and the budget) is too small. I want to feel free to stain, spill, scratch, cut, crack and generally inflict damage. I call the consequences ¨patina¨. I want to be at home in my kitchen.

I love unfitted kitchens. I like furniture in a kitchen instead of neatly regimented rows of boxed cabinets. I love plate racks. I love china cabinets, corner cabinets and whatever those things are called that have all the little drawers. I want a kitchen work table, not an island or a peninsula. Some people want a breakfast bar. I want a chair I can pull up to a woodstove.

These are some images I pulled together and sent to our architect to give him a feeling for what we are looking for in the house. They are almost entirely from old issues of Casa y Campo which I´ve been collecting for years, or our collection of bungalow and craftsman style books that we purchased when renovating in Chicago.




What´s the most important consideration in your (dream) kitchen?

More later.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Democracia Real YA!


Photo Cristobal Manuel - El Pais

In case you hadn´t heard, there´s something going on in the plazas of Spain. Disaffected youth, seniors, pensioners, unemployed and assorted others have decided to gather and say they´re fed up with incompetent, corrupt and out-of-touch politicians of all stripes. Who could have predicted?

V and I and some of the family wandered around the city center last night to check out what was going on (it was packed), see the signage, and end up at a terraza to reminisce about the demonstrations of their youth (theirs not mine, Spain was more exciting than Wisconsin). There are nieces and nephews sleeping in the plaza in solidarity. So much for apathy amongst the gen-whatevers these days.




The Indignant, M-15 (ref. to the demonstrations May 15th) and Democracia Real Ya (Real Democracy Already) are amongst the groups participating. Since they´re careful to refrain from supporting/critisizing any one party, it´s a little unclear what the whole movement is about. Part of the fun in the Puerta del Sol is the real-time, open-mic airing of grievances that´s going on. But to try to get a handle on what they were about, I went to their Proposals page and found the following:

1. ELIMINATION OF THE PRIVILEGES OF THE POLITICAL CLASS:

* Strict control of absenteeism in their respective elected positions. Specific penalties for dereliction of duties.
* Rescinding of current privileges in paying taxes, years of contribution and the amount of pensions. Compensation to equal the average Spanish wage with only the additional expenses necessary for the execution of their duties.
* Elimination of immunity associated with post. Eliminate the statute of limitations on crimes of corruption.
* Mandatory disclosure of the assets of all public office holders.
* Reduce discretionary personal appointments to public office.

2. AGAINST UNEMPLOYMENT:

* Redistribution of hours worked, promoting reduction of the workday and reconciliation of employment until structural unemployment is eliminated(i.e. until unemployment falls below 5%).
* Retirement at 65 and no increase in the retirement age until youth unemployment is eliminated.
* Bonuses for companies with less than 10% temporary employment contracts.
* Job security: the impossibility of mass layoffs in large companies while there are profits, controls on large firms to ensure that temporary workers are not used to cover permanent positions.
* Reinstatement of the 426 € stipend for all long-term unemployed.

3. RIGHT TO HOUSING:

* State expropriation of existing, unsold housing stock for placement on the market as subsidized rental housing.
* Rental assistance for young and low income people.
* Foreclosure of a home will cancel the outstanding mortgage.

4. QUALITY PUBLIC SERVICES:

* Removal of unnecessary expenditure in public administration and establishment of independent monitoring of budgets and expenditures.
* Recruitment of health personnel to eliminate waiting lists.
* Recruitment of teachers to ensure the ratio of students per classroom, team teaching groups and support groups.
* Reduced cost of tuition for any university education, post graduate to equal graduate tuition.
* Public funding of research to ensure its independence.
* Affordable, quality, environmentally sustainable public transport, and restoration of the original prices for trains being replaced by the AVE, cheaper bus passes, restricting private car traffic in city centers, construction of bicycle lanes.
* Local Social resources: effective implementation of the Dependency Act(in-home care), local municipal caregivers networks, local mediation and mentoring services.

5. CONTROL OF BANKS:

* Prohibition of any kind of bailout or capital injection to banks: those institutions in difficulty should either fail or be nationalized to form a public bank under public control.
* Raise taxes on the banks in direct proportion to necessary social spending created by the crisis due to their mismanagement.
* Return all capital already provided to banks to the public purse.
* Prohibition of investment in tax havens by Spanish banks.
* Regulating sanctions on speculation and banking malpractice.

6. TAXATION:

* Increase the tax rate on large fortunes and banks.
* Elimination of SICAV funds. (C - From Wikipedia: In Spain, a SICAV is a public limited company whose object is to invest in financial assets. Sicavs possess great tax advantages, paying just 1% to the Treasury in corporate income tax (corporation tax))
* Reinstitution of the wealth tax.
* Real and effective control of tax evasion and capital flight to tax havens.
* Promoting international adoption of a tax on international transactions (Tobin tax).

7. FREEDOM AND PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY:

* No Internet control. Abolition of the Sinde Act.
* Protection of freedom of information and for investigative journalism.
* Mandatory and binding Referendums on the wide-ranging issues that impact the lives of citizens.
* Mandatory Referendums for all measures introduced by the European Union.
* Amendment of the Electoral Act to ensure a truly representative and proportional system that does not discriminate against any political or social force, where the blank ballots and invalid ballots also have representation in the legislature.
* Independence of the Judiciary: Reform of the Prosecutors Office to ensure their independence, no appointment of members of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Judicial Council by the Executive branch.
* Establishment of effective mechanisms to ensure internal democracy in political parties.

8. REDUCTION IN MILITARY SPENDING

All translation errors are mine.

As we made our way to the metro later, there were even more people, the crowd was at 24,000 according to the nightly news.


It will be interesting to see how this all progresses through next year when general elections are scheduled for March.

For more see:

South of Watford Especially for background on the internet/infringement Sinde Act.

and

The European Tribune for an economic angle from ManfromMiddletown

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Baguettes

More attempts at bread.


I used this recipe. I, personally, would not call this a baguette. The crust is too soft and the texture isn´t as resiliant as what you buy as a baguette here. But on the other hand, I don´t have any kind of special stone or pan for baguettes, and I understand there are complicated applications of water required to get that crunchy crust.

It is perfectly acceptable bread. I am constitutionally unable to make bread using only white flour, so I used 1/3 a flour I got at Lidl - Sonnenblumen-kernbrot, whatever that means, with some kind of whole grain and seeds. I also used honey instead of white sugar. The dough is quite soft and sticky and the diagonal slashes allow the loaf to retain it´s shape better than a lengthwise slash - see the example on the left. I found this recipe less fiddley than others I´ve tried and easily made a double batch of 4 loaves on a Sunday morning. With the second batch I left off the egg wash, but I think I´ll go back to using it. And I´m mulling adding garlic, herbs or sun dried tomatoes or something.

V´s verdict is thumbs up!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Garden update

Growing season in full swing here. Bright, sunny weather, but still cooling off at night.

Tomatoes and nasturtiums - slow but steady. Basil seems to just sit there and the sage hasn´t done much either.

Roses were looking spectacular. But, believe it or not, we have slugs on our 5th floor terrace. Terrible attack of mildew as well. And the indefatigable aphids.


V is over the moon about the APPLES!


One more tip. For those of you who want to sprout sweet potatoes, try placing the potato in a plastic bag and leaving it behind the microwave for several weeks. Ask me how I know.


But now what do I do with it? Giant flower pot? Garbage can? Do I cut it up into separate pieces, or leave it whole?

Monday, May 16, 2011

Agrarian Nation and A Farm for the Future

Discovered a new blog - Agrarian Nation. Full of folksy quotes from historical sources on agriculture from the Northeastern US. A 1881 Canadian Farmers Creed:

“We believe in small farms and thorough cultivation; we believe that the soil lives to eat, as well as the owner, and ought, therefore, to be well manured; we believe in going to the bottom of things, and therefore deep ploughing, and enough of it, all the better if it be a subsoil plough; we believe in large crops which leave the land better than they found it, making both the farm and the farmer rich at once; we believe that every farm should own a good farmer; we believe that the best fertilizer of any soil is a spirit of industry, enterprise, and intelligence; without these, lime, gypsum and guano would be of little use; we believe in good fences, good farmhouses, good orchards, and good children enough to gather the fruit; we believe in a clean kitchen, a neat wife in it, a clean cupboard, a clean dairy, and a clean conscience; we believe that to ask a man’s advice is not stooping but of much benefit; we believe that to keep a place for everything, and everything in its place, saves many a step, and is pretty sure to lead to good tools and to keeping them in order; we believe that kindness to stock, like good shelter, is saving of fodder; we believe that it is a good thing to keep an eye on experiments, and note all, good and bad; we believe that it is a good rule to sell grain when it is ready; we believe in producing the best butter and cheese, and marketing it when it is ready.”
And also - check out the video feature. A BBC production of A Farm for the Future. It´s in 4 parts, total run time about an hour. Very interesting, if brief, overview of the challenges peak oil will present to ¨modern¨ agriculture. And the Devon landscape is just beautiful.



Now I want a forest garden, and a walled garden, and an herb garden, and a medieval garden. . .

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Progress Report

We´ve received the survey, and now have an Architect. Whoot!

After cogitating about the house, we sent off an initial plan, indicating our ideas of distributing the space.


We expect this to change, and unfortunately the drawing isn´t to scale (at all), but it seemed like a good starting off point.

So while strides are made with the interior, that leaves me obsessing about the exterior. I added what I think is the rest of the existing infrastructure (walls, the bread oven, the major trees we probably won´t be removing), and a covered patio we´ll hopefully be adding if the budget allows. To the west, on the other side of the creek, is a heavily wooded lot. To the east is an uninhabited property separated by a crumbling retaining wall and a difference of about 5 feet in soil height. There´s a chunk of wall west of the barn which used to have an horreo (Galician grain shed)on top. Original owner gave it away.


The highest point is the SE corner with the terrain gently sloping to the NW in general. This presents some drainage issues. I think we may have to implement some kind of terracing. By the time we´ve had a septic tank and drainfield dug out, I have to try to manage the topsoil so it can get safely re-used. I´m also thinking raised beds.

For now, I´ve identified 3 zones, the one closest to the house, the section northeast of the barn, and the big open area to the south. I´m figuring that we´ll deal first with the area around the house, then a potager/kitchen garden and fruit area and finally get around to the pasture.

At least initially, I think I want some kind of gravel for paths and the driveway. We still have to figure out where to put the car. I saw crushed mussel shells as an aggregate material online the other day, that might be interesting. Bet the chickens would love it.

Placement of fruit and nut trees needs to happen ASAP, since they can take 5 or more years to produce. Also thinking I will have to have a try with grapes. And hops, which will need a 10-15´ height accommodation. Maybe an arbor?

So more posts with garden and interior design porn will surely follow. Any advice or thoughts are welcome.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Spirulina soap

Scented with lime and sage. Unfortunately, now tan. Yeah peaks and layers!