Flooding: Update 2

We have gotten a lot of help from Scott's parents and his cousin, and a huge amount of progress has been made. We have ripped up all of the carpet, and torn out the gyp board along the exterior walls of the main room. The picture above shows how soaked the insulation was before we removed it. It's out now on all of those walls, and we just have interior walls and the exterior walls at the bathroom and laundry room left to go. We have bleach mopped a lot of the concrete slab, but there is still plenty of bleaching left to go.

The good news is that since what we have is a sewage backup, the insurance company will treat it differently from a flood. Still no word on what, if anything, they will cover.

Priority tasks for today:

1. Remove lower drywall and wet portions of insulation.
2. Remove any remaining destroyed stuff or things we decide can't be salvaged after all.
3. Remove unaffected keeper items so cabinets and shelving can be moved. Mostly done.
4. Bleach clean items to save.

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Flooding: Update 1

We have accomplished a lot since the drain line cleared out yesterday, but it takes a really long time to get things done. I think I spent about six hours with the wet-vac, just to go over the carpet once, suck up the water and get it to a state resembling dry. We also filled an entire box full of garbage bags and Scott hauled them and some ruined furniture to the street. Once the carpet was pretty much dry, it was already past the time Scott had planned to stop, and we called it a night.

Priority tasks for today:
1. Get water heater working
2. Remove couch and other remaining destroyed stuff (mostly Scott's terrain boards for miniatures gaming)
3. Remove unaffected keeper items so cabinets and shelving can be moved. In progress.
4. Get washer and dryer working and begin sanitizing clothes that got caught in the flood. (Yay, sanitary setting on washer! Also, we're pretty sure the washer and dryer still work, I just want to thoroughly clean/inspect them before turning them on.)
5. Remove baseboard. In progress.
6. Remove lower drywall or at least cut vent holes. In progress.
7. Remove water from floor for a second time.
8. Shampoo carpet. (Even if it can't be saved, we'll shampoo it once before ripping it out and getting in close contact with it. There is no padding, so it might be salvageable -- with at least three shampooings.) Carpet removal in progress.
9. Bleach clean items to save.

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Flooding

This week's Cocktail Wednesday was superseded by a small disaster at our house. There has been a lot of rain recently, and yesterday, it rained hard for several hours. Early in the afternoon, the water began backing up into our house.



First, Scott rented a power auger to clear the drain out. Then, we called a plumber, who had an auger with a larger cutting head. We definitely cleared the line out all the way to the city main. Then, we found out that four other houses on our street are flooded. Finally, we found a sewer manhole, where we could see that the line was full to overflowing. It turns out that the main city line was blocked up, and it backed up into our basement and our neighbors' basements. At the highest point, we had about 5" of mixed storm and sewer water that had welled up into our basement. Yuck.

We spent the night at Scott's parent's house. It was a bit of an adventure for the dog, who was so unsure at first about staying there that we accidentally pulled his collar over his head as we tried to get him into the house. Then in the morning, he wanted to explore the unfenced yard, bolting around until Scott got him back on the leash.

When we got home this morning, there was about an inch of water on the floor. I went to the store on a search for rubber boots while Scott returned the auger. After the army-navy surplus, the Target, and the garden center, I found something in Scott's size at Sports Authority. I ended up with a pair of hip waders, myself. Finally, around 11:00 a.m., while we went for a walk to find out where the city was working on line, they cleared the blockage down the line and the basement drained until the water was in the low spot, sadly far from the drains.

Since then, we've been cleaning up and throwing things away. Now, it's break time. Probably time to get back to work, though.

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Edible Bushes

Wednesday, I stopped by English Gardens to pick up some shrubs, since they are having a big sale this week. Even though I'm worried a lot about spending money while I'm unemployed, I think it's important to get plants as soon as possible, especially the big ones, since I want them to grow in, and they'll need time.

I went in looking to plant hydrangeas, and came out with something else entirely. They didn't have any oak leaf hydrangeas, and I decided to be picky, and not settle for another type. I will have to check the other local nurseries for the kind of hydrangea I would like. I am actually contemplating viburnum, which has a similar flower, but is evergreen. The other thing that I looked at was edible plants. We we intend to plant edibles not just in our raised beds, but also as landscaping. With this in mind, I came home with two black currant bushes and a quince bush.



I planted the black currants in the back yard, right next to the entrance to the vegetable garden. You can see black currant flowers in the photo at the beginning of the post.



I planted the quince in the front.



I had to split a hosta to get the quince into a good spot for it to fill out.



It should have beautiful red flowers in the spring, and it already has some fruit starting.



That still leaves me with this area by the back door to figure out what to do with. This is the spot I'm contemplating placing hydrangeas or viburnum, or perhaps some beautiful rhododendron that I saw at the nursery. Any thoughts?

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Cocktail Wednesdays: Vermontucky Lemonade

This week's drink harkened back, in some ways, to the other week's Mint Julep. It's another iced drink involving burbon. This one is a recipe from Deb at Smitten Kitchen, Vermontucky Lemonade. Vermont because it contains maple syrup, and Kentucky -- as mentioned -- for burbon.

In presenting it tonight, I tried to make it as a single serving, rather than making the lemonade and pouring it over the ice and burbon as Deb directs.

I served it in glass-bottomed pewter mugs that I received today in the mail from my mother. They once belonged to to my grandmother's uncle, who raced and trained horses on Long Island. A quick search on google, found me an article about when the National Steeplechase and Hunt Association granted his license to ride in the Steeplechase on January 11, 1910, two articles on races he won in 1911 and 1912, a race in 1918 in uniform, to the opening of the United Hunts Association in 1925, to a race he judged in 1938. I thought it was appropriate to use these mugs for a drink that I associated with horse racing, even if the association is just in my own mind.

Vermontucky Lemonade

Juice of one lemon
2 tsp Maple syrup
2 oz Bourbon
Ice (I crushed the ice a little in a bag with a mallet)
Cold water

Mix lemon and maple syrup until syrup is fully dissolved. Fill cup with ice, add burbon. Add lemon juice mixture. Fill with cold water to top and stir.

The verdict: Tasty and refreshing thumbs up from me and our guest. I found that the whiskey and maple syrup added a richness to the lemonade. Scott found it to be too acidic, and thought that it wasn't a standout for him.

I realized belatedly that the Preakness is happening this weekend, so next week's drink will be the Black Eyed Susan.

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Flower Day at Eastern Market

After Scott and I attended our first ball together -- and Scott's first ball ever -- we needed to rest our feet. Scott did really well and danced half of the dances on a tricky program. I'm excited to be dancing more with him, and I'll be teaching class on Monday night.

Sunday afternoon, we headed over to Eastern Market for the annual Flower Day event. All of the sheds were full of plants. We battled the rain and 44ºF weather, as well as the fact that we had forgotten to remove the huge bags of mulch from my trunk, but we still brought home a small haul.







We brought home two flats of strawberries (18 plants in each at just $20 each), which will go in the new raised beds as soon as we've filled them.



We got three Ostrich Ferns,



Two Montrose Ruby Heuchera



And two rosemary bushes. We bought big rosemary bushes (just $7 a pop) because we hope that larger ones might survive the winter. Yesterday, I popped the bushes in the front window box temporarily. They'll probably go in the ground once I figure out where they should go.

Obviously, I also need to figure out what's happening with this window box. The griffon needs repainting, and the dead herbs from last year need to be replaced. The sage is the only thing that survived. I liked the idea of having the herbs there, but I would also like to have something permanent filling out this area. Another progress area.



Yesterday, I planted the ferns and the heuchera around the chinese magnolia. (Those huge branches leaning against the fence are branches I have to deal with before the city will pick them up.)

I also discovered that some of the asparagus that I had given up on are actually growing!



The blueberry is leafing out.



The little whirlwind hostas I planted are finally coming up.



The daylillies are getting big.

The yard still has a long way to go, though. Now, it's time for me to go and do some more.

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River Nile Dress

I mentioned before that I was working on a dress. I am trying to sew up some of my stash fabric, and I decided that the nile blue mystery fabric with the fabulous drape (it's a bit more green in person) would pair nicely with Vogue V8285, which was also in my stash. I had already made a dress using this pattern, before I learned how to fit clothing properly. This time, it came out better -- just how I wanted it, without futzing the seams or ripping like a mad woman. For you sewists out there, I added 1 1/4" to the bodice pieces at the neckline for a modest overlap that hides my bra.





I added gathers at the back to deal with the extra fabric below my shoulder blades, to mimic the front, but I think darts would have been more successful.



I spent some extra time adding bias silk organza strips to stabilize the neckline and armscye, like I used on the sleeves of the Crepe dress. But these strips stared out 3/4" wide, before stretching.. I also hand-understitched these openings and hand slip stitched the skirt lining in.

I started hemming by hand, but ultimately used my machine's blind hem stitch for the first time. I learned that I should have turned the hem up more than 1/4" before turning it fo the final hem. I hemmed it up a whole 3 1/2" the second time, because I want to wear it for dancing. In fact, I decided to finish it so that I could wear it to the ball in Ann Arbor on Saturday. Dresses for serious dancing require much shorter hems to prevent tripping or being stepped on. Floor length is a no-go. I went ankle length, but I wanted to preserve the ability to let the hem out, which is why I made such a deep hem. This was a bit of a pain, because it required a lot of steaming to ease in the extra fabric. The final result was worth it, though. It worked beautifully at the ball, too.

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Backyardwork

I have been pretty quiet over the last couple of weeks, but that it mostly because I have been productive. Over the next couple of posts, I will share some of the things that I have been doing.



Probably the biggest thing I did was work in the back yard. Scott and I have been filling our new raised beds, in preparation for our last frost date this past Sunday. Unfortunately, rain has limited our progress on that, so we haven't been able to plant yet.



We have reduced the piles of dirt and compost we had delivered by half.



During the week, I weeded the vegetable garden, the paths, and the bed just outside the gate.





I also planted heirloom Yellow Finn and German Butterball potatoes from Seed Saver Exchange in one of the beds. We had tons leftover, so I discussed with Scott an idea I had about where they could go.



I don't think I've shown this before, because it was pretty embarrassing. It's the brush and compost pile area in our backyard. Unfortunately, it's also the area you see when you walk through the gate, and it wasn't contained at all. Need proof?







Fortunately, these are "before" pictures.



I removed thirteen or fourteen bags full of sticks, decomposing leaves, hunks of wood and grass clippings from this area.



I'm still working on the area near the stump that Scott uses for splitting wood, because I started to come across buried rocks.







Still, you probably never would have guessed that there was a brick edging under there.



I planted potatoes in the part that I had totally cleared out. After planting two 12' rows of potatoes, we gave the remaining seed potatoes to a friend.



Finally, here's the current state of that area. It will only get better from here, but it's still a huge contrast!

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Cocktail Wednesdays: The Sling

Tonight, we tried The Sling, using gin. According to what we've learned about the history of mixed drinks, The Sling is the pre-cursor to The Cocktail, the source of the toddy, and to a certain extent, the source of the alcoholic julep as well. Now, the 12BottleBar guys say it isn't a very interesting drink, which doesn't add much to the spirit, but that seemed like a perfect combination for trying the new gin that Scott picked up the other day. The Sling was just a bit sweeter and weaker than the gin.

The recipe:
1 tsp Sugar
1 oz Water
2 oz Spirit

A lump of Ice
Stir

The gin is from Michigan Spirits in Webberville, which is associated with Michigan Brewing Co. Given the packaging, I have to assume that the neutral spirit is their vodka from grain also grown in Michigan. Legal distilling in Michigan is very new, given that Public Act 218 of 2008 is what legalized small distillery licensing, attempting to promote local artisanal spirits. Brewing has been going strong in Michigan for a while now, and there are many good beers, as well as meads and ciders, from Bell's to J.K.'s Scrumpy and everything in between. We usually buy our beer from Michigan breweries, but we didn't have great expectations from this gin, given that the tradition of distilling is so short and, well, the fact that the label on the bottle was clearly made for vodka, and they just added a printed label from the office supplies on top that says, "GIN". I assume that it is distilled gin, not compound gin, which is simply infused or flavored and not redistilled, but there is nothing to indicate which is the case.

The verdict: At any rate, we were pleasantly surprised. The gin wasn't very complex, but it was certainly better than we were expecting. It is admittedly possible that the Sling flattened the gin out, though I think it probably just sweetened it and weakened it. Not a very interesting mixed drink in itself, but certainly easy-drinking. Given that many people feel overpowered by the flavor of gin, this could be a way for them to approach the flavors more easily.

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Cocktail Wednesdays: The Sling

Tonight, we tried The Sling, using gin. According to what we've learned about the history of mixed drinks, The Sling is the pre-cursor to The Cocktail, the source of the toddy, and to a certain extent, the source of the alcoholic julep as well. Now, the 12BottleBar guys say it isn't a very interesting drink, which doesn't add much to the spirit, but that seemed like a perfect combination for trying the new gin that Scott picked up the other day. The Sling was just a bit sweeter and weaker than the gin.

The Sling

1 tsp Sugar
1 oz Water
2 oz Spirit

A lump of Ice
Stir

The gin is from Michigan Spirits in Webberville, which is associated with Michigan Brewing Co. Given the packaging, I have to assume that the neutral spirit is vodka from grain also grown in Michigan. Legal distilling in Michigan is very new, given that Public Act 218 of 2008 is what legalized small distillery licensing, attempting to promote local artisanal spirits. Brewing has been going strong in Michigan for a while now, and there are many good beers, as well as meads and ciders, from Bell's to J.K.'s Scrumpy and everything in between. We usually buy our beer from Michigan breweries, but we didn't have great expectations from this gin, given that the tradition of distilling is so short and, well, the fact that the label on the bottle was clearly made for vodka, and they just added a printed label from the office supplies on top that says, "GIN". I assume that it is distilled gin, not compound gin, which is simply infused or flavored and not redistilled, but there is nothing to indicate which is the case.

The verdict: At any rate, we were pleasantly surprised. The gin wasn't very complex, but it was certainly better than we were expecting. It is admittedly possible that the Sling flattened the gin out, though I think it probably just sweetened it and weakened it. Not a very interesting mixed drink in itself, but certainly easy-drinking. Given that many people feel overpowered by the flavor of gin, this could be a way for them to approach the flavors more easily.

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Cocktail Wednesdays: The Mint Julep

In honor of this weekend's Kentucky Derby, this week's drink was the Mint Julep.

The Mint Julep

2 oz Whiskey
1 oz simple syrup
A dozen leaves fresh mint
powdered sugar
A silver julep cup or collins glass

Muddle mint leaves in the simple syrup in the bottom of the glass until broken and the oils are released.
Add the whiskey. Stir it all together.
Fill glass overflowing with chipped ice.
Garnish with a sprig of mint coated in powdered sugar.

In my mind, the Mint Julep is so associated with Kentucky that it should be made with burbon, but we only had an ounce of Jim Beam bourbon left, and the only other burbon in the house is the Eagle Rare, which we won't be mixing drinks with. So, the for the rest of the whiskey, we used Jack Daniels as we have been using for other whiskey based drinks. Pretty soon, we'll have to move on to using up some of the other whiskeys in the basement bar.

Based on what I learned at the Buffalo Trace distillery, the differences between burbon and other whiskeys are as follows: 1) burbon is made in a certain area of Kentucky. This is significant because of the unique limestone hills there. The calcium in the limestone is taken up by the grass that the horses eat and that is what makes it such good country for raising horses that not only does the arguably most famous horse race in the world take place there, but many international horse owners stable their horses there during most of the year. The water contains the calcium and changes the flavor profile of the whiskey, just as the granite in Scottish highlands makes the difference between highland and lowland whiskey. 2) Burbon's primary ingredient is corn (maize). Grains typically used in whiskey are rye, barley, wheat, and corn. Changing which is the primary ingredient changes the flavor. Scotch malt whiskey is made primarily from malted barley. Using corn as the primary ingredient means that the whiskey is sweeter. 3) Bourbon must be aged in new, charred oak barrels. These barrels are often subsequently used by other distillers to age their spirits, including the majority of Glenlivet, Glenfiddich, and Glenmorangie single malts. 4) Burbon must be aged at least two years. If you're lucky, the stuff in the drinks gun is a toddler. The stuff not found on the bottom shelf is generally aged at least six years. See other technical information about the legal definition of burbon here. Actually, Tennessee whiskey meets the legal definition of burbon, and can officially be sold as such, but of course, it doesn't have the same water, and tends to use a special filtration process. At any rate, Tennessee whiskey is not a bad substitute for burbon.

Given the amount of water or melted ice, and the lack of a bitter component, the Mint Julep is more of a twist on The Sling than a cocktail. Apparently, as mentioned on 12BottleBar and in the video clip linked to below, juleps were originally ancient Persian drinks of herbs macerated in sugar syrup, and they were often used in more recent times for medicine delivery. It was here in the US in the 19th century that juleps were combined with alcohol, and the rest is history. Now, they are thought of as the perfect relief on a long, hot, Southern summer day.

Watch a master mix one up and recite poetry about it at the same time.*

Surprisingly, I had never tried one before, though I have had mojitos plenty of times since my first one years ago at Loca Luna, a tapas restaurant in Atlanta. The mojito recipe I have used is from fellow MyFolia gardener Mondomuse, from when I was super active there. (I still really like the site, there are just too many sites taking up my internet time, so I use it more sparingly.) The Mojito is similar to the Mint Julep in that it is a sweetened, iced, mint mixed drink. It is different in that it contains club soda and lime, and the spirit used is rum.

The verdict: All four of us at the table thought the julep was delicious. I think that the julep is a much more subtle drink than the mojito, and because the rum in the mojito is a white rum, it is a spirit with less flavor and character. The julep is, I think, a more interesting drink, even though it contains fewer ingredients. Despite the fact that it is rather diluted due to the ice, it doesn't taste weak. It doesn't seem to be common on menus, and I was afraid that it had been abandoned because of an old fashioned (in a bad way) flavor profile, but that isn't true at all. The mint goes beautifully with the sweetened whiskey. It is a really lovely drink.


*Ignore what the video says about the silver cup conducting the heat of the alcohol. Obviously, alcohol at room temperature doesn't have a different physical heat from the room, and even if it did, heating up a glass will not cause condensation on it. I suspect the trick of the silver cup feeling cooler is that it cools your hands and lips as their heat is conducted into the glass to melt the ice. Also, unlike glass, silver is reactive, so it may lend something to the flavor profile.

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Flowers

A month or so ago, I dealt with some of my flower envy by making some paper flowers and putting them on a branch on the mantle. I used this tutorial. Now, I finally have real flowers in my yard.



This is the iris I bought on Saturday, at Eastern Market. I haven't decided where to plant it yet. It isn't the only thing growing in my yard, though.



The hostas and daylilies I posted pictures of emerging from the groud are getting bigger.



The blueberry bush I feared was dead is showing leaves.



Scott built and I built a second cedar raised bed. This one is tiered and will be filled with strawberries and rhubarb. It also wraps around the cherry tree and raspberry bush Scott planted last summer.



Unfortunately, while tamping it down to level it, one of the side boards split. It will be fixed before we fill it with dirt. I'm not 100% sure when that will happen, given how busy we are and the possibility of rain, but I want to get the plants outside and going.



The raspberry bush is growing strong.



The cherry tree as well.



The plethora of beautiful blooms promises many cherries to come.



We also have a beautiful japanese magnolia tree filling the side yard with beautiful blossoms.



In other people's yards, daffodils are blooming, simultaneously with tulips, dandelions and forsythia. It's s bit strage to me to have these all at the same time.

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