Quick Check In

We have been working on miscellaneous indoor projects over the past couple of weeks.  Mainly I am trying to finish the chair so I can clear that out of the workshop and set up for seed starting.   

One project we completed was adding two narrow shelves to our blank bedroom wall.  This is for some of my horse related collectibles.  We've been talking about doing it for several years now.  The board is the last long plank left from a tree cutting project over 35 years ago.  It came from a red oak tree my husband had to cut when he built the house next door in 1988 where he lived when we met.  The rest of the lumber has been used in many projects over the years, most notably the face frames of the kitchen cabinets in this house in 2004.  It had to be sanded and cut to length and sealed.  This wall was once the outside wall of the house before someone added the bedrooms on in the 19teens or so.  It is one inch thick Hemlock tongue and groove and even after it was pre-drilled it was rock hard and impervious to screws.  

These shelves are amazing.  You could do chin-ups on them and nothing jiggles when you walk by unlike nearly every other display surface in this house.  I was surprised to find, when we had to remove one screw and try again, that ancient Hemlock is still sappy and smells of fresh pine.  My husband's grandparents purchased this house over 100 years ago and these bedrooms were already added on at that point.  Now all of my dustable shelf sitters are in a state of flux as I try to optimize my space and get collections grouped together.

I have created a craft station in the corner of our dining room.  This was a result of the egg ornament project.  I hate having projects spread out all over the dining room table and this little side table tends to be a catchall of things that need dealing with.  So I set everything up over here trying to have both spaces more purposeful.  

Most of my supplies fit in the drawer and the ornament tools and the sewing machine tools fit in the little toolbox which I decorated with Singer Featherweight Sewing Machine decals.  I have been buying trim and jewelry pieces and trying out ornament designs for new Push Pin Ornament creations.  

I will start on an idea then realize I need something else so I shop and those new arrivals spark additional new ideas.  I am about at the point of storing these away until next fall when the Christmas decorating spirit strikes again.  I would like to add a work station self like you use to raise a computer monitor along the back of this table.  That will probably be another wood working project so it fits the available space correctly.

And finally there is the $1 chair project.  I am one step away from being done.  I need a block of at least two hours to put the binding around the edge because once you start that you can't stop and I only have enough cane to do it once with no istakes.  I will write a blog about the chair, but in the mean time, here is a sneak peak.

Grapes

I would guess that the number one reason why people start a vegetable garden would be to have access to food that tastes like they remember growing up .  Second to that would be to guarantee that the food has more nutrition and less chemicals than the ones available at the grocery store.  The number one home grown vegetable in America is the tomato .  To quote Andy Rooney "The federal government has sponsored research that has produced a tomato that is perfect in every respect, except that you can't eat it".  Therefore Americans long ago realized that they would have to grow their own slicing tomatoes if they wanted a decent BLT.  I too began gardening so that I could have the same tomatoes that I grew up eating.  That soon expanded to peas and beans and apples and has rounded out with strawberries, corn on the cob and cantaloupes.  Next up are grapes and blackberries.

Vitis Himrod White Seedless Grape

We live in New York state and New York is the third largest producer of grapes in the US.  My grandmother used to go into grape country every autumn and along with Concord and Niagara grapes she would bring back some amber colored seedless grapes that were so sweet.  I am not sure what variety they were or even that they were always the same, but they were a type of grape you will never see in the grocery store and rarely see at farmstands. 

Tickled Pink

 For years I have contemplated where I could grow some grapes.  I need a trellis, and I need to have them protected from all of our destructive and sticky fingered critters.  I finally decided that I should just go ahead and put them in one of my raised beds.  I don't need a whole vineyard, I just need enough space for a couple of vines.  When I started gardening in these raised beds, I shared them with the next door neighbors and for years was perfectly happy growing in six of the twelve beds available.  A couple of years ago I turned one bed over to more permanent biennial herbs and flowers for the pollinators and I haven't missed having the space for annual crops.  

To support grape vines I will need to put up three 4x4s and run cables between them.  Above is the sort of setup that I have been watching Garden Answer grow grapes on for a few years now.  Its nothing fancy, and I can grow two vines in a raised bed.  If, once the vines are established, it turns out the I need or want something more substantial, I can always sink posts at each corner and build an overhead trellis.  But this will be a good start.

I ordered two different kinds of grapes.  The first is the Vitis Himrod White Seedless Grape which is a New York grown variety and should do well in our climate and the second is Tickled Pink, an Arkansas grown red seedless table grape.  Last fall I also got a jump on growing some blackberries, and planted two Triple Crown Thornless Blackberry plants.  I made that decision right after the racoons found the bountiful canes full of berries that I had carefully supported and covered.  The little bugger climbed right up the canes under the cover and ate every last berry.  That couldn't have been comfortable with all of those wicked thorns which just proves the lengths that they will go to steal food.  If I want any berries for myself I will have to have a electric fence to keep the coons (and deer and bears) out and a floating row cover to keep the birds out.

  I have chosen the two west end beds which are the most difficult to water because the water hose just barely reaches to the far end of each bed.  Having a couple of permanent plants in each bed will be the best use of the space because I won't have to be watering dozens of seedling transplants three times a day.  So now all I have to do is wait for winter to be over.  I love looking forward to live plants coming in the mail.  It will mean that spring is finally coming.  It is a balmy 4F here today with a wind chill of -8F.

The Reappearance of the $1 Chair

 It has been two years since I finished caning the seats on our dining room chairs.  All this time, the remaining chair, that doesn't match our set exactly, has been sitting in the workshop gathering dust.  I have just about enough cane left over to finish it.  You watch, I will come up a few pieces short.  I finally found some ambition to get it done.  This chair has had the seat replaced before I think.  The sides are woven wrong and I doubt that a factory caner would have made those mistakes.  The chair is at least a hundred years old and that is enough time for it to have been fixed at least once already.  Whomever fixed the seat then oversprayed the entire chair with some sort of varnish.  That made the seat very brittle.

And when I tried to pull the cane off it was all stuck down to the rim.  What a mess.  It was nearly impossible to get an awl in under the binding.  It took me over an hour to break all of the old cane out and pick it out of the holes and then another hour to sand the fibers out of the varnish and get back to clean wood.

I taped off the section I didn't want to sand into and took it out to the garage.

I used a die grinder and some fine sand paper to not only remove the fibers, but round off the inner edge of the seat.  There were some sharp edges and these can cut into the cane as the seat sags.

This chair is definitely black walnut and not cherry.  A little Old English Scratch Cover and the chair look as good as new.

Caning is just like riding a bike.  Once you get the hang of it you know how to do it for life.  Today I spent two hours laying in the first three layers.  The fourth layer is my least favorite so I always start fresh on that.  The diagonals are the fun part.

My original plan, since this chair doesn't match the others perfectly, was to try weaving a Daisy Chain pattern.  It is not as strong a seat but... it would take less cane.