Day 2 on the scrapheap.

Even with the 3 little horrors off school today, I have still made astounding progress with the smoker.

Did you know you can burn an entire bale of straw to nothing in 90 seconds just by putting it in the drum with an oily rag hanging from the bottom and setting light to it. All toxins now burnt away from the inside of the barrell.

The fire box is now attached to the oil drum, the doors are fitted to both, the shelf and hanging pole are installed in the drum, the whole thing is mounted on legs and, as we speak, there'e a sample peice of pork smoking away merrily.

As for utilising the chimney for smoking, by opening up the fireplace, the updraft from the chimney would take all the warmth from the house, hence the need for the smoker. Not only that, being the proud owner of so many other essential outdoor cooking tools, the spit, the paella burner and the double barrell barbecue, the smoker was an obvious addition to the collection.

Scrapheap returns to the farm

Since Tony and I last had a day of scrapheap challenge, the welder and grinder have been tucked away resting, just waiting for another opportunity to come out and play. Some of you may remember the amazing wine press that we built in a day out of an old washing machine drum and some bits of scrap metal. If you do remember the wine press, you may also recall that from 40 apples we managed to get an egg cup full of apple juice before destroying the press completely.

Anyhow, with our abbundance of pork at the present time, I felt it was time for a new scrapheap challenge. The home smoker.

Materials for this challenge include, the compulsory oil drum, a butane gas bottle that I can't be bothered to return, various bits of old metal and pipework.

The gas bottle will be the fire pit, with air inlet control, an ash box, a fire box and a shelf for the wet sawdust. The oil drum, soon to be mounted above will have a diffuser plate, shelves for meat or fish, hooks for doing larger lumps of meat and a flow control on the air outlet.

So far so good. Watch here for updates.

Fireplace Dilemma

Those who know me will know that I am a great sufferer of insomnia. Hence here we are at 4:00am trying to come to a decision on the fireplace for the kitchen.

When our house was built, the centre peice of the kitchen would have been a very grand, granite fireplace as opposed to the brick monstrosity and orange doors we presently have there. Sometime during the last 100 years, quite possibly just after the second world war when large peices of granite were taken from old buildings in the area to assist in the rebuild elsewhere, the once great fireplace departed from our kitchen.

You may be wondering what the dilemma in all this is. About 8 months ago, I found a stunning example of a 17th century Norman fireplace. As with all things I have learnt through life, if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it. Well we had to ask the price and were willing to snap it up at 1500 euros. Turns out they want 6800 euros so it was a non starter. Last Friday, I found another one, this time with a price. To give you an idea of size, this beast is 2.5m wide at the lintel, and from the floor to the underside of the lintel is 1.7m.

The first good bit of news is that, at a push, we can afford this beast. The second good bit of news is that, in Norman terms, it's local at only 35km away. The final good bit of news is that it's both the right size and right period for our kitchen. Now for the down side. It's located on the side of a slope in a muddy farmers feild. It weighs in excess of 6 tonnes. In order to install it in my kitchen, you have to knock almost right through the centre wall, over 3 foot of stone, in order to install the cantilever stones that support the front lintel.

Very few jobs have ever daunted me in the way this one does. I try to look at it with my lottery playing hat on, "the potential gain far exceeds the potential loss" but really this logic does not work here as I could lose our home in exchange for 6 tonnes of granite. Could I achieve the grandeur required using a couple of facing stones and a railway sleeper?

Decisions, decisions, decisions.........

All advice greatfully recieved

Kitchen Pictures For Credit Agricole

So there they all sit, in their ivory towers, allegedly working when in fact they spend there time surfing the internet and reading this blog. Just to add insult to injury, I then get complaints that I only put up one picture of the kitchen. So I'm now waisting valuable kitchen completion time, bowing to the needs of the masses. No doubt when I've finished the kitchen you'll want more.

Well Tough

Surprise visitors and new kitchen

Never a dull moment here in the Normandy countryside. Yesterday saw the surprise arrival of Alex, Wob and the kids. For once we didn't have a clue that they were coming and it made for a very enjoyable, alcohol consuming, evening. As the evening progressed, Jamie and Laura arrived as well, delivering the new dishwasher so it's been all go here ever since.

I started work at 3am yesterday morning ripping out the old kitchen and installing the new one. Barring a few leaks in the pipework, all is going well. Tomorrows mission will be to get some new fittings and hopefully resolve the issues.