First batch of seedlings planted

Today I planted my first seeds. I did tomatoes (cherry, regular, and some yellow with pink and red stripes variety that I accidentally bought last year) on the top shelf, herbs (cilantro, basil, oregano) on the middle shelf, and on the bottom shelf I put some of my mesclun mix in a pot and am hoping they will get big enough to eat indoors. And I put a glass plate on top of the pot to make a little green house which I thought was a brilliant idea. I also had my first go of harvesting compost out of my new worm house. It was pretty easy but there were still a few silly worms down at the bottom with the compost. But still WAY better than before.

And while I was in the plant area I noticed some new growth on the top of my mango plant that I thought was slowly dying!


And I also noticed a hole big cluster of buds ready to flower on my lemon tree. We had two flowers open at the same time earlier this week and so I bought a little paint brush and tried to pollinate but one of the flowers fell off as I was doing it so I guess if it was the male that's ok but if it was the female then it was no good... if that's how it works. But when this cluster gets going I'm bound to have some successful pollination.

Finished my baby sweater

I finished my baby sweater. I love it. Now I need a baby to put in it.

Balaclava

I finally finished knitting my balaclava last night. I love it but... if I had to make it all over again I could make it so much better. Just a bit longer and the face hole a bit smaller so it covers my chin better and comes down farther on my forehead. Oh well.

New Home for the Worms!

I finished (well I might still paint/stain and try to fix the wobble) my new worm home/composter. It is extra exciting because it is my first project that I have made in my home workshop with my new vise and saws.
I followed this instructable

This is mine:

I'm not sure about keeping it in the kitchen but maybe if I stain it I will think it looks nice enough.

I got them a year ago and this is where they used to live in a closet in a spare bedroom. It was really cool to open them up this time. I hadn't given them any food for over a month and so when I opened it it was actually all compost well except for th potatoes which are what you see growing. I guess they don't like potatoes - maybe because they grow instead of decomposing. Before I could always tell that they had "eaten" some of the stuff I gave them but it's cooler to see it all turned into compost.


This is them in their new home.


And I gave them some more food including some of the tons of tea bags we went through this weekend when my Mum was here. I made sure to give them a variety now that I know they can be picky.

Family Day

The four of us went on a lovely walk in RIM Park for a family day activity.

Sushi Dinner

Today Mummy and Eliza came over. Eliza brought over her sushi making supplies and we made sushi for dinner. We made them with cucumber, avocado, and carrot. And we had miso soup and green tea too.

Valentine's Dinner

For Valentine's Day dinner we made the most expensive pizza we could think of. We went to Vincenzo's to buy porcini mushrooms. We put the mushrooms on the pizza with sun dried tomatoes. We liked it but both preferred our regular pizza that we put eggplant and caramelized onions on.
And for dessert we had pumpkin pie.

Window!

The big news today is we finally got our mini window. There used to be an air conditioner in that hole in the wall. And even though everyone told us we should just drywall it up we think the window is awesome and it looks better from the outside too. And since we plan on living in this house till the day we die we figure awesomeness counts. Now I have a house I can't imagine being one of those people that is planning on reselling their house sometime in the near-ish future and have to base every single house decision on that. Sounds like hell. For one I wouldn't have done any of the work I've done to turn our backyard into a big beautiful vegetable garden.

Amy and Kevin's Homemade Lamp

Look at our lamp!! My bedside lamp has been mostly broken for months and completely broken for weeks. So I bought a new wire and lightbulb holder thing to fix it but the standard lamp wires with switch attached weren't long enough for that lamp. So finally we decided to make our own. The base is a plate I bought last year but couldn't use because I couldn't get the sticky-ness off from the sticker. The neck is some plumbing thing I bought just for the lamp. And the chade is a tin can from chick peas. It was fun to make together and we both think it's quite lovely.

Woodworking

I finally finished some actual projects at Carpentry School. Here is my picture frame. The segment on the left I made completely with hand tools - chisels, handsaws, planes. And the segment on the right I made with power tools - table saw, router. I stained it and added the hinges at home.

And here is my ping pong paddle that I made.

Curry and Roti

Today I experimented with making carribean style curry and roti. I didn't have garam masala so I threw in some of all these spices to get something similar. It didn't taste quite like the roti and curry we're used to but it was pretty good. We'll just have to keep going to the Kitchener Market when we want roti.