Waldfried Haus

[waldfried-haus-blog]

Priming the Garage Floor

OK! Now on to the actual priming and painting!

Due to what was supposed to be a couple days to Mooresville and back trip extending to a ten day trip, we left it partly done. This is not recommended.

First, the products.

We are using Seal Krete primer, which comes in a gallon jug and is about the consistency of gummy milk. You put this on with a roller, and we are reusing a roller tray from previous painting projects. Clean it well, as you don’t want particulate from the other type of paint in this project. What you see is really solidly attached to the tray. This is the easiest product to follow the directions on. Just make sure your surface is clean, your tray is clean, the roller is clean and the primer is mixed without foaming it.

You pour some in the tray, run the roller through it to coat the roller, allow the roller to drip the excess off for a moment, then spread it on like you are spreading a thin glue. It is milky white at first, and you need to roll it in lines back toward yourself to get the puddles. Don’t overdo this process, as it foams up when you have gone over it too many times.

The area to the left is done, and has a look like it is coated in dried Elmer’s Glue, all clear and shiny. The area to the right has been more recently coated, and Lindsay is doing the gap to connect the areas. Try to always keep a wet edge. This is harder than it seems, in a garage with just a little bit of door and closet nooks, but you do the best you can.

You’ll notice, there aren’t any pictures of Lindsay using the blue telescoping mop handle on the left. She thought it would be lighter, as it is fiberglass and hard plastic, than the wood and aluminum mop handle on the left. We took a couple pictures of Lindsay doing the very first section of the floor with the blue mop handle, then I took over and did the area near the garage door to the backyard. After about 40 strokes of the roller, I broke the roller handle off the mop handle. In order to get a decent coating and texture, I was exerting about 2-5lbs of downward force sideways on the roller head to squeegee the primer around. The roller handle wasn’t broken, and the mop handle tube hadn’t broken.

The mop handle screw head which attached to the roller handle had sheered. Don’t buy cheap equipment. That handle was rated for Swiffers, not DIY paint rolling. The job finished fine with the wooden mop handle with an aluminum head. Of course, after that I was worried I’d break the roller handle. It weathered this stage fine though.

The primer stage finished, and it’s dry in just a few hours. Purdy ain’t it?

After it dried enough to walk on, Lindsay went around the edges and cut in the primer. Speaking of cutting in, she followed that in a few hours with the edges of the floor sealant. (Areas not on the edge are spots where there is a crack or pitted spot she felt needed extra filling)

So this is where we left it to come to Mooresville. The floor is primed, the edges of the sealant are cut in, and we are ready to roll on the sealant!

[waldfried-haus-blog]

Dehydration

Flip here.

Well, we let the dehumidifier run for a while, to dry the floor and walls of the garage. It just sat there and purred along.

It has a humidity monitor on top, and we were hoping to compare it to a regular thermometer and hygrometer set. But we detected a problem. The hygrometer on the set we have won’t fall below 70% humidity. We know from analysis and static discharge the air in the garage is drier than that, so we’ll just have to take the meter on the dehumidifier’s face word on the actual humidity. There is no way the floor dried in 70% humidity.

So, 30% humidity it is. We’ll get a new meter for the plants and our health inside sometime when it is convenient, but for now, we are really happy with the dehumidifier, which pumped so much water out under the garage door the concrete outside the door was constantly wet near where the hose was draining. I love machines that work!

[waldfried-haus-blog]

It’s Fungus Roundup Time again!

We’re back in Mooresville to pack up another load of our junk to move down to the Haus in Rocky Point, and I’ve once again stopped to look at the photos from the last trip.

Again, there are more new fungi.

After some organization and counting in my photo folder, I’ve realized that there are at least 26 species of fungi that I have photographed since we started moving in at the Haus. Possibly a few more, if some of the shelf fungi are not the same.

So here is a roundup of the new ones:

Blackish-Red Russula, Russula krombholtzii

This is the only new one I have managed to identify, via spore print and description.

Unknown Polypore (shelf fungus)

Another Unknown Polypore, with interesting gills on it’s underside.

Unknown Polypore - This one is fast growing, huge, and thick. And they seem to eventually turn black and fall apart. This is the first photo because it’s the first one low enough on a tree to get a good shot of. I think the color is brighter red when younger and fresher.

Another Unknown Polypore, growing on an oak stump. This one starts thicker and fans out as it matures. First two shots are the same bit of fungus a couple days apart. The edge is brightly white when young, which the camera on my phone hates photographing.

Found this colony growing on mulch. They are greenish/yellow white, and shadowed brown any place on the cap that is shaded from light, like where a leaf or the cap of another mushroom covers them. I’m not sure if these are native or came in with the mulch.

Unknown Yellow Coral Fungi - This may be the weirdest fungi from this trip. I almost missed it, but luckily realized that those funny things in the grass were not yellowed grass leaves.

That’s all for this round up, as the other few new ones I photographed didn’t turn out nice enough to post without identifying the mushrooms.

-Lindsay

[waldfried-haus-blog]

Mushroom time again & Cooking!

So, today we’re going to talk about edible wild mushrooms.

First: DO NOT EAT THINGS YOU ARE NOT SURE OF.

Really, taking spore prints is easy. Get more than one reference book, search online for info about your shrooms. If you aren’t really positive, DON’T EAT IT.

Because there are some really deadly mushrooms, and some that will make you sick without killing you.

TAKE PICTURES NOT BITES IF YOU AREN’T SURE.

That said, I have been madly photographing the massive diversity of the fungi in my new yard. And I’ve been going though my books as I have found them while opening boxes. And I found a shroom I am sure of, which is edible!

Armillaria tabescens or the Ringless Honey Mushroom is abundant, and tasty. It’s safe to eat if well cooked, though it can cause stomach upset in some people. So, with that in mind, we were cautious and I made mine a sidekick to steak, well sauteed.

Pic taken of the first clump, after a rain. Caps are darker than when dry.

Photo from a later clump in the same place. These are growing over the remaining roots of an oak that was cut down by the previous owners of the Haus. Here you can see the color of the caps when dry, and the gills.

Cap size can be very important when identifying mushrooms. You do not have to use a vintage Stadtler triangular engineering and drafting ruler to do this. I just had mine sitting out when I went to get the photos. Yes, it needs washing.

It is helpful to identification if you can find examples of different maturity.

I also took a spore print, on glass to allow a clear look unaffected by the color of paper used. It was a nice clean white, which helped confirm the identification. I want to dig into my stuff after we get more of the move finished and find my childhood microscope, so that I can use slides for spore prints and get a closer look at the spores. The microscopic shape of spores can actually further refine species ID in some closely related mushrooms.

Here are the caps, ready to cook.

Little known thing: Unless you are talking about commercially grown button/crimini/portabello (all the same species, Agaricus bisporus) you shouldn’t wash mushrooms.

If they are so dirty you can’t brush the dirt off with a shaving brush type implement, it’s too dirty to eat. Skip it. Washing saturates the tissues very quickly and can ruin a mushroom’s flavor and texture. The only reason I recommend washing commercially grown buttons is that while they are grown on totally sterilized compost, they are packaged in facilities that package things like tomatoes and lettuce, and often have salmonella loose in them from those veggies. (commercial lettuce, man. Just….google salmonella and lettuce. Enough said.)

For these, as the stem is thin, I didn’t keep it, since thin stems of this type often look weird after cooking and don’t have that much flavor.

Shown: Black/red pepper mix, Hickory Smoke Salt, Garlic Powder, Mesquite Seasoning, some cheap but reasonably tasty Cabernet Sauvignon. Not shown is the little bit of Scarborough mix I decided to add. The ribeye shown was a lucky find at a local place, and huge. It’s at least an inch thick, so I decided to split it with my hubby.

Rubbed with the spices and a little extra virgin olive oil. Yes, it’s in a Teflon coated saucepan. My electric grill hasn’t been moved yet, same with charcoal and gas outdoor options.

Wine added, simmering.

Quartered small red potatoes, with Scarborough Mix and olive oil. Covered with plastic wrap and put in the microwave. These took around 10 minutes, but I checked them at 6 mins and 8 mins. It’s easy to poke them and check for doneness.

Part way through cooking, I added the mushrooms, and more wine. This steak was too big to have the shrooms in the whole time unless I wanted to go past well cooked to mushroom mush.

Here it is just before serving, with the steak split for sharing. The mushrooms took on the color of the wine quite dramatically, because this shroom has a texture similar to shiitake or oyster mushrooms.

Here’s the finished product.

It was quite good, though next time I am going to use some of the abundant extra caps I put in the freezer in a light Alfredo sauce over pasta to bring out the mushroom flavor with less competition. The wine really soaked in, leaving the mushrooms very much seasoning and wine flavored, with a good texture being the main thing left of their shroomy-ness showing through. We didn’t have any stomach problems, but remember, each person is different when it comes to fungi. Crimini from the grocery store upset some people’s digestion, so always try new shrooms with care.

In other news, we are working on a hybrid Blog/Podcast with Video clips thing, called Flip & LJ’s Kitchen Alchemy. It’ll be essentially a cooking show kind of thing, with recipes and cooking techniques ranging from very simple to pretty advanced stuff. But, you know, for real people who can’t cook in a cooking show kitchen all the time. We’ll let you guys know when the first episodes go up.

Another post with pics of the other new fungi I found will go up either later tonight or tomorrow, plus an update on the studio floor sealing and other stuff. Also, pics of a different katydid, a couple moths, another ground skink, a cute anole, and a good pic of one of the treefrogs! Also, snails.

- Lindsay

[waldfried-haus-blog]

Library progress pics! We have the trim completely painted in the base Jumping Java brown, two coats. The closet doors aren’t quite done, and need another coat to be solidly covered. Next will be the dry brushed/wiped on metallic copper paint for making the highlights, to produce the effect of ancient patinad copper trim. I’ll test my method on the back of the closet doors before doing the trim. - Lindsay

[waldfried-haus-blog]

Red velvet ant or eastern velvet ant (Dasymutilla occidentalis)

Spotted this very quick moving beauty in the front yard; my first spotting of a Velvet Ant species, which is actually a type of parasitoid wasp. They have a very painful sting, so I didn’t really want to get too close. 

Please feel free to share the video with credit.

EDIT: re-uploading the video, because tumblr broke it after I uploaded it.

[waldfried-haus-blog]

Lindsay here again with the nature update!

You’ve seen some of the fungi in the yard in previous posts, and a cute Katydid, but you haven’t seen the lizards. So far, I’ve seen three species:

Up top, The Carolina anole (Anolis carolinensis), also known as the green anole, American anole and red-throated anole. These are actually photos of two different large individuals. It takes a bit of trickery to catch these if you are past puberty and can’t rely on pure speed any more. I’m nearly 30, and more clever than a lizard, evidently. I have previously caught these while visiting Florida, so my skills aren’t some near 30 onset superpower. I’ve always been this awesome. These little lizards are plentiful and very active, and a good bit of the reason we aren’t knee deep in bugs, if the numbers of random insects I’ve seen them attack are valid evidence.

In the center: The Ground Skink (Scincella lateralis), also known as the little brown skink. Despite it being listed as “common” in our area, it is very shy and has excellent camouflage, so if it had not nearly run under my nose while I was gathering mushrooms, I would probably have never seen it. No tricks to catch this one really, skinks can be fast but I think I was actually too big for it to see me as a threat before I grabbed it.

Bottom: This is the best pic I could get through the sliding glass door of what I think is a juvenile Five-lined skink (Plestiodon fasciatus). I hope to eventually catch one or more of these for closer photos, but they are VERY shy and super fast.

Interesting behavioral note about some lizards - They often play it cool for a few minutes after release if you don’t make sudden movements, so you have a short window to get a couple photos after you set them down. That’s how I got the two pics in the center.

I also need to take some decent photos of our host of American green tree frogs (Hyla cinerea), which do a good job of eating every bug that dares to approach our porch lights.

Be safe, and stay out of trouble,

- Lindsay

[waldfried-haus-blog]

This is one of the best trained dogs I’ve ever owned. Outside the house, she does well on leash and socially with other dogs. Here are a few pics from her scrapbook. She’s completely mastered the art of sitting with her attention on you (so long you are in her pack). 

[waldfried-haus-blog]

Merli and I being silly at each other while Lindsay films. I was actually training Merli to pay attention to me despite other distractions. She is being trained to behave in the house, which includes staying off the bed, refraining from charging about, don’t eat everything you find on the floor without permission, and come to the person calling you. She’s doing well with the transfer from attention on me to attention on Lindsay, but Lindsay is the pack leader, and I’m second string, so I have to train her to pay attention to me when Lindsay is in the room.

[waldfried-haus-blog]

Flip here, with my first “Unboxing” post! Yay, Fun! Our Hisense 70 pint dehumidifier arrived, and we immediately sat down to figure it out. After the usual unboxing, in which this was really well packaged, we discovered it was sealed in high quality tape. It is an attractive little machine, with a shell that reminds me of a Star Wars Droid. I sort of expected it to light up, activate a visual sensor, spin around and bleep at us when we got it finished. That was disappointing.

I want a droid garbage can that sorts everything you put into it into various garbage and recycling compartments during the week then walks itself to the street on the appropriate night. That being said, back to the show...

So Lindsay sits down to carefully pull the sealing tape from all its seams, as I sit and read the manual to her. I’m not sure why the manuals spend so much time repeating the same warnings over and over on different pages, as I got the hazards off the first page just fine, and didn’t require three repetitions in the other pages. Between warnings about electric shock and water we managed to discern this isn’t that complicated. Basically, it has three modes: Auto, Timed and Manual. It can run in one mode to decrease the humidity to a 50% and turn on or off to maintain that humidity, another to run until a specific shutoff time, and in the third you program the humidity you wish to maintain and it runs to keep that humidity in the same fashion as “Auto” mode.

We hooked it up to a garden hose we purchased for the purpose, plugged it into the wall and set it up in a location in our garage that had plenty of room for it to shed heat. Apparently compressor dehumidifiers are prone to getting hot if they don’t have sufficient room to vent heat. We closed our garage door and ran the garden hose so the water from the machine would drain out under the door, using the lip of the concrete slab to prevent water from coming back in. This allows the device to run continuously, and we don’t have to empty buckets of water.

During setup we discovered the relative humidity in the garage was 65%, which was low compared to the weather we were having. After setup, in which we chose to run a 30% humidity manual setting, we left it to do its work. The next morning we checked everything to see how it was doing. The humidistat on the machine was indicating 32% humidity, the machine was quietly running its fan to draw more air, the water was flowing out of the hose unimpaired, and there was a cool breeze to be felt at the air intakes. The concrete looked drier already, as it didn’t have any of the dark spots of retained moisture at cracks and seams anymore. All was well, and we were impressed. At that point, just sit back and wait.

After two days the walls, floor and air felt considerably drier, though the garage was retaining a little heat. It wasn’t stifling sauna heat, just warm, like the outside. We decided this was what it should normally be like, and let it do its thing.

[waldfried-haus-blog]

Here it is almost completely masked. Don’t leave anything to chance, mask anywhere there might be a drip on your floor. We weren’t concerned about the blue area of the wall, as it is getting painted over later. Watch out for crazy women with paper rolls, it’s that season again!

[waldfried-haus-blog]

“Honey, I’m At The Library!”

The room in our house, not the gentleman’s club in California, Tampa or Las Vegas.

Quoth Lindsay, “We are gigantic book nerds! We own more books than we have ever owned underwear, combined.”

Ok, if I put all my books on shelving, there are probably just enough for a massive Victorian mansion library. Maybe. Lindsay disagrees, but I think I’m close.

There are enough books to make the second of the two smaller rooms into a library, and we are still going to be putting in bookshelves elsewhere.

Crafting books will go in the studio, and the tabletop RPG books or science fiction and fantasy art books will go in the den. Cookbooks will go in the kitchen. This leaves the fiction section and the rest of the non-fiction books to go in the library.

We have already decided that the library will retain the cream color paint above the chair rail, but the chair rail is getting a treatment to make it look like it is aged copper, and the paint below that is Daring Jade Green.

So we spent the next several days masking and painting the trim in the library with the beautiful chocolate java brown (Color name is Jumping Java) Lindsay selected at the DIY store. It was remarkably quick and easy. We didn’t have any trouble with the blue masking tape and scissors to make sharp corners.

The only problem with painting is the occasional drip, smudge, fleck or touch of paint on clothing. We didn’t want to waste money on coveralls, or get decent clothing messed up, so we painted in the nude. Don’t worry, the ratings of this blog aren’t changing, no photos exist. But Sherwin Williams Ovation latex paint washes off skin easily, and doesn’t mess anything up. Especially if you are using Goo Gone paint cleanup wipes. You should be painting in a clean room, on clean paper or plastic, so you aren’t going to get anything. It all works out so much better, especially if you aren’t worried about neighbors looking in the window that has no blinds in the middle of the night. All that is behind our house is woods, and I don’t think the squirrels care.

[waldfried-haus-blog]

It’s September, I Need A Dehumidifier

Flip continuing here. SO, the wettest month in Pender County, NC year after year is September according to regional statistics available online. The natural place to look for a dehumidifier is a DIY home supply store. So after looking on Amazon, and being amazed at the prices, we go to our local Do It Yourself store.

We wander. I have a feeling about appliances and start there, but we get distracted talking about the displays of cabinetry available at this location. I am trying to figure out the source of the cheap cabinetry the previous owners installed, and Lindsay is trying to enlighten me about how to fix what we have or replace it with better. Dehumidifiers don’t seem to be there.

Up aisles of stoves, ovens and refrigerators and down aisles of washers and dryers. Across to plumbing, and a tour of water softeners, fixtures, bathtubs, showers and toilets. Not there either. (Obscure tabletop RPG reference follows) Ask the GM to roll for a random encounter. Happily, he rolls that we encounter three red vests helping one lady pick out the right faucet. I didn’t think she was that charming. They tell us what we are looking for is on aisle 36. We go back.

We started here, and encounter another random red vest. We ask about “dehumidifiers”, and he points to humidifiers. I look numbly at the humidifier selection, with my heart sinking. They seem to have never heard of such a thing. Lindsay discovers they are in the rack next to the humidifiers.

At least the stickers for them are. Most of those shelves are empty.

We are able, from reading stickers, and looking at the four hollow shell models on the top shelf, to determine that they normally carry the 70 pint per day model we would prefer in stock, but they don’t have it right now. We follow the red vest to the “Flooring Design Studio” (Really?) where a nice lady in a blue vest determines they don’t have any in the local region, and have no idea when they could get one in, as they don’t have warning what is coming on the truck. We really don’t want to pay for them to ship it to the store (for an additional shipping fee) by purchasing online. We all walk back to the aisle where the last few models available are sitting forlornly remembering their warehouse fellowship now torn asunder.

At this point we find ourselves in a conversation about needing a dehumidifier with a randomly encountered Boss, who confesses to having no idea why dehumidifiers might be out of stock right now, though several people have been through recently looking for one. Lindsay quickly defeats this level with a torrent of information about the need for dehumidifiers in homes at the most humid point of the year for the normally humid Southeast. The Boss retreats in confusion, having received a critical hit from information overload!

We quickly look for the way out of this level, and attempt to decipher the ancient runes hanging in these musty caverns. Though we defeated the Boss, we still don’t have the treasured “Dehumidifier”!

Aha! We have smartphones! Lindsay hunts up the price on Amazon for the model available in the store, and discovers it is available with free shipping for 33% less than at the DIY store. Ironic, huh?

We’re outta there!

Several days follow, in which we must wait for the shipment. To quell the restless natives in the remote homestead, Lindsay casts about for a task to prevent our demise from boredom.

“Hmmm,” says Lindsay, “I think we should paint the trim in the Library!”

[waldfried-haus-blog]

So, on the second night, we sweep out the leaves that have blown in, the millipedes that crawled in, and the etching dust from the night before that didn’t wash away…

Then we use the spray in small squares, scrub vigorously, rinse again and feel the surface. It has now achieved a 150 grit texture.

The garage was ridiculously wet after this, so we decided to buy a dehumidifier to get all the water out of the concrete. The floor paint won’t stick well to humid concrete, and might bubble, peel or crack later because of water in the concrete at this point.

[waldfried-haus-blog]

The first night’s work. If you look closely, you can see the white fumes off the etching compound after she sprays it.

[waldfried-haus-blog]

Step Two: Etching the Floor

Flip here.

Well, the basic process is to put down some water, mix a garden sprayer full of 1:1 acid and water, spray the floor, scrub with brush, and rinse. To avoid heat, we did this at night, with the garage door up.

This took two applications, and we discovered we put down too much water the first time, so we did the second night with only the moisture left in the concrete from the first night. A slab with a proper drain angle, or a drain in the floor would have helped. Bear in mind, this is in late August and the beginning of September, and temperatures at sunset are in the high 80′s. Humidity varied from 65% to 100% during this process. Always wear the recommended boots, gloves and clothing you don’t mind splashed with things that will leave white spots.

[waldfried-haus-blog]

A Long Week

Still posting from our old domicile, as we haven’t managed internet service yet at the Haus. The cable TV provider in our area gave us assurance they can hook us up, but their technician just needed to come out and survey the property to figure out where the cable junction box is in relation to our property. This was to happen Saturday, according to the nice Indian named Jacob that set up our appointment on Wednesday. Late Saturday, we call and talk to Jack, also Indian, who can’t find a work order for our house, but who is quite willing to set up a time that night for us to be visited by the survey technician. We noticed Jack had a particular tendency to ask the same four questions in the same wording throughout our conversation with him. Almost as if he was relying on a phrase book provided by his employer. We calmed down after the appointment was made and wait in anticipation!

Sunday morning, we roll out to the Cable Company Store in Wilmington. We talk to a nice young lady named Marie, not Indian. She informs us the survey technician visited our home on Thursday. It seems the distance from our nearest cable box is too far for cable TV/Internet/Home Phone service, so we had to look for alternatives. The cable company still hasn’t gotten back to us on the results of how much exactly would be the cost of running a line to a new box on our lane, so our house could get internet. This is despite the fact Marie told us the cable company would contact us on Monday.

We started calling around Sunday to the alternative sources. The telephone provider point blank refused to add us to the DSL in the area, stating they were at capacity.

Us: “Here, please take my money!”

Telephone company: “NO!”

Us: “WTF?!”

One satellite TV provider has a partnership with the telephone provider for landline Internet, and a partnership with a terribly slow, limited Gigabyte satellite provider for wireless Internet. The cellular wireless provider we already have phones with doesn’t provide cellular Internet service in our zip code.

So on to the other satellite TV provider. They seem to have a package we want, with satellite provided Internet and TV which, though expensive, is not the several thousand required by the cable company’s pre-survey estimates to get a cable box put in front of our home. This satellite provider has a long approval process to become a customer. So we are still waiting.

Moral of this story is: Be determined about asking and receiving clear confirmable answers regarding details like utility availability to your home while shopping. We asked and received answers that sounded like “Yes, that’s available.” We didn’t know we were being pacified with distracting half answers, because we didn’t call the utilities before closing on the property. Apparently, our predecessors in the home were grandfathered in to the DSL, and had satellite TV. The elderly real estate agent they hired to represent them mostly just hoped we’d hand over our money and go away, so he sent uninformative half answers to our questions, hoping we’d be satisfied, rather than do his research to prevent a liability issue. Our mistake, which we won’t make again, but which we can’t correct now.

However it has been a productive week, and we are eager to share pictures of our adventure now that we are back!

-Flip