Well another door is made. What we mostly did today was make a new shed door. Because the old one was not wide enough.. when it’s wider we can move everything out of the cool room shed, which we now need to store apples, jams, wine etc, as we were storing it in the old fridge shed, but that now has freezers in it..
…so really this is part of the big freezer plan. And I suddenly realised the apples were ready to be picked, and we need to preserve and store a lot more things in jars etc, due to the freezer space crisis.
So we went from this
to this
I know ..it doesn’t look exciting.. but we are proud. We made a proper frame out of 3×2 timber (that’s threebeetoo in Devonspeak) , with diagonals to stop it warping, then clad it out of materials that we dragged out of the old fridge shed, when we gutted that. We recycled the big old hinges, and the bolt. It could do with a lick of paint.. might get one one day.
The stunning thing is that it fits.. properly and everything.
So after that we barbecued some lamb chops and had them with a mountain of runner beans and garlic dressing.. It’s our latest thing.. vinaigrette dressing (with lots of garlic) poured over cooked runners – yum. And raspberry crumble after that.
Then we went apple picking, made slightly humourous for me, as I had had two glasses of my apple and elderberry wine.. strong stuff…
Poor apple yield this year, a late frost meant not many set, and lots were split after the constant rain of July, still we got four boxes, now stashed in the cool room shed.
Its going to be great when we have the cool room sorted – it’s a shed behind a north wall, next to our back door so easy access. Stone walls, lime washed (could do with more) only about 2 square meters of floor space, but that enough, and we can put in shelves etc. We really do need to preserve more without the use of freezer.. if we are to raise a lot of our own meat..
Then we picked a couple of kilos of french beans – the new variety I am trying this year – Limka, is doing great.. producing loads of flat long silky smooth pods. So yet more romantic evening time spent slicing and blanching, and freezing, then I turned half a kilo of beans into pickled garlic beans – working on the principal that we love the beans and dressing combo, a preserve made with this flavours is likely to be nice. I’ll report back on that one when it’s had time to mature for a bit.
And now its late, and I’m tired., but it’s been a good productive day.
