Since we now own a wine cellar: Mead

This week in an effort to clean the inside of the house (yes, that is that ugly C-word again), we decided to muck out the wine cellar. Besides finding a vintage sink, ancient Stella glasses, and a bottle of holy water from Lourdes, we dug up a pretty nice space. And, since our been making stuff was already close we decided to give making mead a shot (don’t mind the mess in our kitchen, we’re still living out of boxes, do have a look at that ceiling – love it!). I found a recipe online that we followed:

1 package of Red Star "Premier Cuvee" yeast
4 pounds of clover honey = 1.82 kg
1 gallon of spring water = 3.79 l
8 ounces of Black berries - Frozen = 226 gr
1 whole clove
inch and a quarter ( 1 1/4 ) long section of a vanilla bean. Split length-wise.

First set your black berries out so that they have enough time to thaw. I try to pick out the darkest of the berries at this point. I use about half a pound for this recipe. This amount gives the mead a wonderful dark red colour and just enough taste of Blackberry to make it special. Once they have thawed crush them in a bowl and set aside.

Pour about one third of a gallon of spring water into a pot. Gently heat the water on the stove to about 90 degrees (= 30 Celsius) ( a candy thermometer is very helpful here ) and add your honey, being sure to keep stirring evenly so the honey doesn't get burned and the mixture becomes homogenous. Remove from the stove and stir for another minute, adding spring water until you have used about a half of your gallon jug. Let this sit to cool to room temperature.

Using a funnel, pour your honey and water from the pot into a 1 gallon carboy. Pour in enough of the remaining spring water so there is about an inch left until the gallon mark. Now you can add the yeast and the nutrient. Shake for about 4 minutes and add blackberries. Shake for at least another minute so that all of the ingredients are mixed and the batch has an even dark red colour.

Let this ferment for 2-3 weeks. Siphon into a clean 1 gallon carboy leaving behind as much sediment as you can.

Take your section of vanilla bean after it has been prepared and place it into a muslin tea bag. Steam the bag and place into the mead. After 4-5 days check the taste of the mead. If there is enough of a vanilla flavour remove the tea bag. Repeat this process with the clove. I like to leave it in until there is just a hint of clove. [from here]

In stead of blackberries we used a frozen ‘forest fruit’ mixture from the Colruyt. So far it’s bubbling away nicely in our wince cellar.. waiting for lots of other bubbling friends to join him.

DIY Hairy Buddha Bust

Remember the Medusa bust I posted about a couple of days ago? Using it as a source of inspiration, we decided to make them ourselves.

What you need:

• Hollow bust (we used a Buddha head)
• Stone drill bit
• Stone cutter
• Potting ground
• A ‘hairy’ plant
• Ear and eye protection (you’ll need it)

First of all we drilled a couple of holes in the bottom of the Buddha. Then we drew a very nip-and-tuck-ish cutting line through its hair. Tom used a stone saw to cut through the stone. I have to tell you, it really felt like preforming brain surgery on a Buddha! We then put potting ground in, and planted a pretty hairy plant. We’re so happy with the result.. it feels so zen!

Honestly, I have the bestest boyfriend ever!!

Around Divion, Nord-Pas-de-Calais

 

 

Divion, Domaine de la Biette (and site of our camping)

Lapugnoy, Bois de la Roquelaure

Diéval, small chapel

Bours, Donjon de Bours (for info and entry)

Bours, small chapel

Postal Chair – before & after

The Before & After!

Have a look here if you want to see the stripping apart.
And have a look here if you want to see how we built it up again.

Postal Chair–part 2

Sunday afternoon, time to get busy with the Postal Chair, we started on last weekend. You might be wondering we we’ve called it a ‘postal chair’. Ever since a Dutch fashion designer made jackets from old postal bags I’ve been fantasising about using them too. And a project like this is perfect for it! Before we started cutting and stapling, we filled some of the holes in the wood and gave it a good bees waxing.

In Utrecht we bought the fabric (8€ a meter), and new reupholstering nails and strips. Friday I bought new foam in Brussels (2.5 cm thick). So we’re ready to go!

We cut the fabric using the old fabric as a template (just to be sure we added a couple of centimetres on either side). The first part we stapled down was the back side of the back of the chair (makes sense right?).

Tom then stapled a piece of cardboard (or singleplex?) over it. If you look closely you can see the fabric of the back of the back sticking out underneath. We used spray glue to stick a layer of foam to the back and the seat. Over that we placed the fabric, pulled it tight, and stapled it down.

Because of the thickness of the foam we had some trouble pressing it down, folding the edges and pulling it tight. Luckily we found a method that worked for us. We would fold the fabric and pin it in position, then I would push down the foam with a strong metal strip, and Tom would have little trouble stapling it down in a straight line. Over the staples we hammered the nail strips.

In our next post we’ll show the Before & After!

Sunday Sewing

Saturday we got 11 meters of orange striped fabric back in Utrecht. So, since the weather was awful we spent the entire Sunday cutting, pinning and sewing an inner tent for our ‘vouwwagen’ (this) together. I can’t wait to find out if it fits on our next camping trip!!

Postal Chair–part 1

After buying what Tom calls an ‘atrocious chair’, we decided to give it a new look (to make it a little less atrocious in Tom’s eyes. This is the first time we’re trying a chair with nails, so don’t judge if we fail miserably.
We got the nails out with a screwdriver and a pair of pliers, but we didn’t manage to salvage a single nail! We’ll have to find a way to get them out a little more carefully. Anyway, we got the nails out, and the staples that were beneath the nails. We ended up with a pretty clean chair. Along the way it became clear that the chair had been reupholstered before, we think the original was a reed chair. You can see the reed holes in the last picture.
Now it’s off to the Lapjesmarkt in Utrecht to get some supplies!

Why I love my wopsie: strawberry surprise!

 

Around Ribemont

Windmills near Brissy-Hamégicourt 

Abbey of Saint-Nicolas-aux-Bois 

Source de Fontaine á la Goutte near Saint-Nicolas-aux-Bois 

240 year old oak tree at the site of three menhirs near Saint-Nicolas-aux-Bois 

La Chapelle de la Salette near Proix 

Saint-Nicolas-Aux-Bois Abbey

Last weekend when we were geocaching around Ribemont, we encountered the remnants of the abbey of Saint-Nicolas-aux-Bois. It used to be a Benedictine abbey, building was started around 1024. Today, parts of the buildings date from the 15th century, including the great tower with the two turrets and the (now caved in) main hall (source).

The abbey around 1660.

The abbey around1869.

Today the abbey looks rather different, the main hall has caved in and so has the chapel. Most of the exterior buildings are still in good shape and inhabited. I just think t is a great shame that the main building has not been restored, or kept in the first place.

Camping Weekend!

Now that my exams are over and some of the overall stress has subdued a bit we decided it was time to try out our new folding trailer (I don’t think it has a word in English, in Dutch it’s ‘vouwwagen’, in Flemmish ‘plooikar’). This is what I’m talking about:

It starts out looking like a normal trailer.. and if you open it and piece it together it looks pretty much like a small palace.

Doesn’t that look amazing? We were the only ones on the camping. We prefer camping places provided by a commune (Camping Municipal), they are usually cheap, clean, and children free (no pools or entertainment). This time we went to Ribemont in the north of France, a little village in the middle of the French countryside. In my next post (coming up soon I hope) I’ll show some pictures from the region.

This was the first time camping for little Amat, she did really well. Although she does not understand being on a leash at all, she does not mind it either. Just like she doesn’t mind geocaching, and making long walks.. although it is nice if the Big Human (aka Tom) carries you for a bit when you are very very very tired...

Measuring Tape Chair - part two

Amat still isn't very amused, but we love the end result!

Some time ago when I was at the Ikea buying fabric for some project I don't even remember, I also bought one of their measuring tapes. They were more rubbery than the ones my mum uses, and they got me thinking... They would make a great chair seat!! So, since then we've been on the look out for a chair to try it out. A couple of months ago we found one, and started sanding it down (see the post here).

After the sand down this chair got ages ago (it has been standing in our living room ever since), we painted it thrice (with a small sanding after two coats). The chair itself was looking great, now we had to start cracking on the seat.

We measured and cut the measuring tape and decided for an order to put them in (above). Next I pulled and Tom stapled them to the back of the seat (below).

Once we had done the horizontals (or the verticals) and Tom had nailed them down a little harder. We were on to the verticals (or horizontals). To be honest I was planning for a checker pattern, but because we were not thinking properly when we started stapling everything down we ended up with something else. So, if you want a checker pattern make all the horizontals one color, and all the verticals a different color. Lesson learned for next time.

When you are doing the horizontals make sure that you push them tightly to the next strip. The tighter the stronger your seat will be.

The inch-bottom.

Make sure that when you staple anything down it is (a) in place, (b) tight, (c) really stapled down! In the end trim off the edges and give those sticking out staples another whack with the hammer and you're more or less finished. 

Just to sum it all up, we used:

- 1 chair

- Sanding paper

- White primer (1 coat)

- White paint (2 coats)

- A tiny paint roller

- 8 meters of measuring tape (4 grey, 4 yellow - from Ikea)

- our sturdy little staplegun

- and the best and most enabling boyfriend ever!

Before     &       After

Q: How large is your butt? Measure it with a measuring-chair!