Thursday 22 November 2012

Granite Walls

For the past few days I've been shifting lumps of granite.  It's rather heavy.  1.6 kg per Litre (compared with water which is 1:1)  Each piece weighs about 25-30 kg (and keeps me fit)
The granite has been lying about in the yard cluttering up the place, so I've collected it all up into one corner to build a retaining wall.  Geotextile keeps the weeds out of the cracks, and a drainage channel filled with gravel runs along the front - here it is, "work in progress":
 
And here is one I made earlier...
CT

Friday 16 November 2012

Warming the Cabin

Preparations for the winter are moving on... 6 tons of firewood are chopped and stacked to dry, and a new drain has been laid the length of the driveway, to catch the rain and take it out and down the hill, instead of the previous arrangement, which brought the rainwater through the building.

What we hope will make the most difference, though, is the new jacket that we've put onto the cabin - turning another wall into a warm wall instead of a cold wall.  We took off all the cladding. filled the walls with 10cm of insulating material (the full thickness of the wall), added the jacket (a further 3cm which should also have the benefit of stopping the wind whistling through) and replaced the cladding.  Although it would have been even better to install a total of 20cm of insulation, the structural restraints made that impossible, and 13 cm is what we've got - with 13cm of insulation we'll  be considerably warmer than before!

 


We've also re-hung the black fleece blanket/curtains on all the windows, and will add a second insulating lining to each of the curtains

Monday 12 November 2012

Cake that's good for you!

healthy & naughty!
For the past few months we've been setting up a cake business:  My friend Tefi is the cake maestro, experimenting in her fabulous kitchen with new and delicious ways to make cake.
  • Some of her cakes are fat-free (so you can eat more! without adding to your fat-intake)
  • Some of them are gluten-free (not just for the non-wheat-eaters: you'll be amazed by the lightness of many of the gluten-free cakes - order one and share it with yourself!
  • Many of the cakes on offer are vegetable-based (Instead of boiled carrot for supper, why not eat cake? - Try the famous "Carrot King"
  • Some are not at all healthy - but full of delicious goodness and extremely naughty.
  • All are absolutely divine - take a look for yourself: www.englishcakefactory.com
You can choose to look at the website in English or Turkish, but it only went "live" this morning, so we're still working out some glitches.  And by the way, delivery is FREE - but only to addresses in the Beyoglu-Mecidiyekoy-Levent corridor (Beyoglu/Sisli/Besiktas municipality areas) 

Organic Cake, coming soon...
A secondary objective is to make the cakes not only healthy but also mostly Organic - so we'll be growing some of the ingredients for the cakes here on the farm... eggs, squash, strawberries, and buying Organic from other Organic farms for the remaining ingredients... (or follow the cake-blog, at www.englishcakefactory.blogspot.com
C.T.