Heated Floors and Marble a Luxury? Maybe not.

We were cross country skiing in Burgenland, a forgotten corner of Austria.  It was wet and cold and we were staying in an old Castle

Our room had heated floors.  Wonder upon wonders.  Certainly not what we expected

Unbeknown to me, Gene made a mental note that if and when we would build a house it would have heated floors

And so it does

Our house has mostly marble floors.  I know, you say that they must be expensive.  Yes, and so is an in-floor-heating system.  However, it is a one time investment and it pays off handsomely

By now all of you know that I live in the country and in a very small town

I appointed myself as the general contractor of our new house

In 1994, the Internet was not what it is today.  Everything had to be found and researched the hard way

After begging and pleading with several companies to please make the 2 hour trip from the big city to lay our marble floors, we realized that we would probably have to tackle the job ourselves.

Gene gave a decisive NO.  I reminded him that in addition to the cost of marble,   each square foot would cost an additional $10 to lay.  This cost without extra cuts and extra designs.  Total cost over $25,000.

My advise for Gene, "get a pair of knee pads, please" and I will be your aide d' camp.

And so, we began

I don't know what gave us the courage to begin with a difficult pattern and a difficult area

Our entire lower floor (except the library) is covered  in Desert Peach and trimmed with Rojo

We were still living in the "Big City".  We worked on our house on weekends

 As we gained more experience we became bolder with our designs

Cutting curves into marble was not easy, I left that task to Gene

 The stairs in the hallway are not marble I painted them to look like marble

The house itself was built by a fantastic crew of young men headed up by Jeff Tucker, a local young builder

For 4 month, every weekend we laid our floors

Envirotherm of Salt Lake City designed our "Buderus" heating system.  Because we have so many large windows, heating coils were concentrated in certain areas.  Seven separate heating zones can be regulated.  Hot water for household needs is part of the system

It may be minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit outside,  we are cozy and warm on the inside, as we were many years ago in an old castle in Burgenland

Gina

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Making Sauerkraut

Want to impress your Friends?  Make Sauerkraut.  It's so easy!

Just before we left for Europe we cut up our "Spitzenkraut" cabbage and let it ferment in a stone crock pot. 

It was ready to place in freezer bags a few weeks later

All you need: 2 to 3 cabbages (any kind will do), a bit of coarse salt, caraway seeds and mustard seeds.

Here is my recipe for making Sauerkraut from last year 

Gina 

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Lucinda paints Maiolica

My Trip to Bountiful


Last week I made a trip to Bountiful to visit with my artist friend, Cindy Ericksen.  I was excited to see her newly finished Garden Mural.  Cindy is a very fine and highly accomplished Potter

This is a very large Mural.  Cindy hand crafted every single tile and then painted them with powder pigments.  They were then fired, in her kiln,  to about 1800 degrees,  not so different from hand painted tiles of the Italian Renaissance, still produced in Italy and other parts of the world today.

This is the upper section of Cindy's Mural. Cindy tells me that she loves to design and paint intricate border details.

Cindy is a very accomplished potter.  She learned her craft through a very strenuous training program at the the University of Utah.  What they didn't teach her and what is seldom taught in the United States is a style of ceramic painting known as Maiolica.    

Not only is Cindy a fine artist she is also a very special person, she is also a very special friend, and a very special fellow artist.

Gina 

Thanksgiving 2010

Happy Thanksgiving my dear Blogging Friends

My friends have accused me of celebrating my birthday a month before and still a month after my birthday.  A few (not my friends) have asked if my birthday always falls on
Thanksgiving.  No, Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday. 

Wherever you are,  here is wishing you a very special Holiday with Family and Friends

Gina

Pullets

Pullets and Pullet Eggs

Pullets are chickens which are under one year old.  These came as "Day Olds"

This is how it works;  You order your chicks from a breeder and a few days later your Postman calls with a message that a box has arrived, a box that is making chirping noises. 

As soon as you get the chicks home you must dunk their beaks into a watering dish.  They seldom learn how to drink on their own.

 This is a Buff Orpington.  You can always tell when they get serious about raising little ones.  They start clucking incessantly and will also try to hide their eggs. 

Eggs were always more important to my Mother, so she would place the clucking chicken in a gunnysack and let the chicken  think for a day or two.  It always worked.

We also have a few older chickens.  Can you see the difference in egg size?  The small eggs are known as "Bakers Eggs".  Bakers like small eggs because they are super fresh.  Small eggs are never stored. 

 Did you know that large eggs are sometimes stored for 4 months or more before they are delivered to your Grocer?

Pullets start laying eggs when they are about 4 months old.

Gene was raised on a chicken farm.  He and his older brother, Blaine, took care of 5,000 chickens and collected a little over 4,000 eggs a day.  That is where the boys learned their work ethic.

I named him "Rocky".  He was a very fine and gentle rooster.  We have had others.  Alturro, the South American rooster was mean but beautiful.  Like our neighbor's bull, he was sent to another zip code.  Then  "Whitey" came along, not as handsome but very protective of his ladies.

We raise Plymouth Rock, Rhode Island Reds, Speckled Sussex and Buff Orpingtons, they all lay brown eggs. However, we do not raise Araucanus even though they lay beautiful blue eggs, that is when they are in the mood to lay eggs.  After all, they are from South America and it gets cold in Utah.

Gina

Special Doors

Our new House has old doors, very old doors.

Both front and back doors are more than 200 years old.

They were brought from Argentina.

They were also 14 feet tall and had to be cut.

We cut the top from the front door and made this cabinet.

And we cut the bottom of the back door and built a bathroom vanity.

It now holds this fine hand painted sink from Kohler.

This is the front door with glass panels and hand wrought iron windows

The  Letter box spells "Cartas"

This is what the front door looks like from the inside.

And this is what you see from the inside of the front door, our outbuildings.

Sometimes you see sunflower heads and onions drying on top of the wall and beyond that, our mountains.

Gina