More of the Same...

The weather continues good, and the kitchen is coming on at a snail's pace - we did rent a tile saw and cut all of the granite tile for the countertop and backsplash, on Saturday. Carpenter is supposed to be in to fit the doors - and more importantly, cut the hole for the sink so we can get on with gluing down the tiles - today.
In the interim I've done a bit of work on the plaster, as there have been electrical plugs relocated, some wall damage was done removing the old cabinets, and there's more wall showing than there was before. Because this was a schoolhouse, the original carpenters didn't seam-fill the gyproc at the bottom of the walls, as they were originally covered by Douglas-fir wainscotting. So that was for me to do.
I hope the plastering is finished now, so I can sand and then paint up to the new cabinets with the dark green wall colour.

On Sunday I actually got out into the garden, briefly - I dug a few of the leeks, and then sank the strawberries - in their pots - into the former leek bed, and covered them with a layer of hay. The idea, or the pious hope, I suppose, is that they will survive the winter, and then I can dig them up and put them in the greenhouse in the early spring, and with luck have an earlier crop of strawberries. The strawberries which are in the ground to the south of the greenhouse also got a cover of hay. I suppose I can count them as my control group.

We shored up the greenhouse with a couple of posts - it got snow on it a couple of weeks ago, and it was heavy and collapsed a couple of the hoops. No trouble to pop them back up, and the snow slid off, but the weight was hard on the strapping we used to hold the piping rigid. It's the way the snow fell, I think - it came straight down and built up (we had almost 20 cm.!) and then it got warm so it melted and increased in weight (is that physically possible? Does it absorb moisture from the air? It Feels like it does, anyway) and the roof buckled. It's popped up again, and I have wrapped the roof in a big green tarp, and tied it down to concrete blocks front and back. There hasn't been any popping of the plastic clips or any blow-out of the ends since that happened. It just may be winterized at last.

The solar is working well when it is sunny. I think I've probably had a couple of solar showers now. We did cut down the Theves poplar just beside the house, also on the weekend. It wasn't interfering much with solar gain at the moment, but it had to go - the leaves in summer would have been a disaster! I'm hoping the white oak will be able to stay - it has been pollarded and so far it looks like it won't shade the panels. I've put the Christmas lights on it to make it feel a bit better.