traay production - days 3, 4, 5

this week there were ups and downs in the production - the double sided tape and a new router bit came in. so very exciting! and i had a little birdie joining me for an afternoon when he flew in and could not find his way out for the longest time.

yet then some of the cherry tore out so much on the planer that i had to make mill and make some new trays, the router bit snagged some wood and provided some nasty tear out - that took some time to fix, and a stop i had put on something came loose and tore a huge hole into one of the large trays... 

but i was productive, setbacks - yes- but all in all good. i am learning how to make multiples of the same thing look the same, and production work so far is not as bad as i expected.

i think i will be ready for the dreaded sanding of things by the end of today, latest tomorrow, as i need to shape all the handles by hand before then.

thanks for checking on my progress. 

canned:

fruits of this weekends labour: medium corn relish, spices corn relish, roasted red pepper and tomato sauce, hot cherry tomato salsa. yeah, baby, yeah!

red barn:

It is so nice to hear that my piece I donated to this years Penland School of Crafts Benefit Auction went for $1700 and that there is a second buyer who has expressed interest in having me duplicate the piece for them also..... 

will report if anything comes to fruition. I'm just excited it was such a big hit.

One of those days:

Today did not start out as a very good day: when I looked outside the windows this mornings  to check to see if my all chickens were up and about, I only saw a big white thing under the fence and feathers everywhere. I scrambled out there only to find my spunky little white leghorn chicken -fondly named after the dr. Seuss character "thing 2"- headless and lifeless laying there with her feathers strewn all about.

It was heartbreaking.

After cleaning up the mess and taking her into the woods, I went back out to check on the others and promptly fell down the entire back stairs as they were wet from the never ending rain. It took me a while to gather myself in my wet state, but managed to get back up and was fine. All I could really think about was how "thing 1" would react about her counterpart being missing. She went looking. Flew over the fence to check out the situation.

After getting "thing 1" back into the pin in all the rain, i went about my day: roasted off some peppers, chatted with the man from Trinidad who came to tint our giant windows, took my neighbor Amy to work, dropped off 2 dozen eggs, went to the bank, the store, and finally home again to draft a kitchen nook and size a table.
I received the first order for 2 service trays I designed for my friend mark. How very exciting is that! Yet during all of that my shoulder started hurting like crazy. And I remembered the fall. 

Blast!! 

What a day.

Ups and downs. 

Robert decided to treat me to dinner at the "light-well" after this crazy day, and it was good.
thank goodness. 

Now I have jars in the canner and salsa on the stove. It smells amazing. But my shoulder still hurts and my heart is still heavy. 

I guess this is all part of the circle of life. 

traay production - day 2:

day 2 was not much of a day. i think i spent about 2 hours in the shop, max. i did not realize i was out of double sided tape and looked all over town for some. but all they have is cheap carpet tape that will not hold up to the RPMs of the router nor the dust of my shop.

therefore i had to order some online, it got shipped the same day, so hopefully it will be here by the end of the week, or early monday. i only got a little bit further on the trays. 

maybe just a bit more than is crossed off the list.

so they are in a good position to go pretty far early next week when the templates can be attached with the tape. and the router madness can start! YEAH!

ps - just got word that 2 of the large service trays were sold on the HAAND website! super! 

so very exciting! guess there will be more milling of wood tomorrow.

traay production day 1:

this week i started the first round of production for the HAAND trays. production has never been one of my favorites, as it is so repetitive and at times monotonous. lets hope i don't get fed up with these... but fortunately i love their design and its just a small run for now.....

-milled the wood, cut it to size, glued it up-

-got visited by some critters-

 -started cutting in details-

pretty good day one.

stay tuned for day 2 - which will not be tomorrow, as i will be working ALL day at the Inn,
but do please check back thursday/friday
Thanks!

today's harvest:

eggs!

all of our 8 chickens are finally laying now:

we get 4 brown eggs from our reds, 3 white eggs from our leghorns, and a very pale brown one from the white rock that was supposed to be a leghorn... 

trays for HAAND:

a little while back i wrote about a project i was working on with my buddy Mark Warren and his long time friend and co-conspirator Chris Pence.

here a little sneak peek:

you can now view the fruits of our combines labour on their beautiful website.

thanks for checking it out!

vodka sauce:

take your beautiful tomatoes....

...chop them up. some people like to skin theirs - i don't.....

let them simmer down, down, down. since this takes a while, i have started doing it in the crock pot with the lid off.
that way i don't burn the tomatoes, as it has happened to me a few times in the past in a regular pot.

after the tomatoes have cooked down for a long time and are nice and thick, i follow this recipe from the cookbook "Get Sauce" that we had in the Penland kitchen when i was a weekend cook there during my core student stint..

its my favorite vodka sauce recipe:
1t extra virgin olive oil  (I used our caribbean red infused oil for some heat)
4 oz. pancetta or bacon diced
1/2 onion minced
1/4 t red pepper flakes (used the ones we made last summer that are nice and spicy)
pinch of dried oregano (again, used homegrown/made)
1/4 cup vodka (or a little more.....)
4 1/2 cups of the cooked down tomatoes (or a 35oz. can of whole tomatoes, chopped)
salt and freshly groung pepper, to taste
1/2 cup of heavy cream
1 T tomato paste (which I substituted with some ketchup-like-stuff I made last summer)

After you sauté onions, render down bacon, add oregano and vodka, cook it off and deglaze the pan with it,
add tomatoes, salt, pepper, cook down for about 20 minutes.
Add cream which has been mixed with tomato paste, cook for another 10 min or until desired thickness

Enjoy fresh on your pasta
or for canning:
Fill hot jars, put lids on and water bath for 30 minutes.
Take out, wait for lids to pop.
Done.

Note: I know they say one should not water bath dairy or meat.
I have been doing this recipe for 3 years now and have not had any issues with spoilage, etc...
So take that however you will.

et voila! beautiful, yummy sauce!