Mushrooms in backyard

25 August, 2016 | | 3 seen

The other day my aunt visited us at our country house, we spent some lovely time together, and while somewhere in the woods near Akmenrags lighthouse we hunted for chanterelle fungi, should I mention we found just enough to make a barely pan of sauce? 

The day my aunt left, my better part went for mushrooms again, this time at our backyard:

Our backyard

Yes, the veggie garden in the boxes and skew barn as well. Wait, there is a rock garden also.

Here is the catch from nearby pine coppice:

Suillus luteus

Commonly referred to as slippery jack or sticky bun in English-speaking countries, its names refer to the brown cap, which is characteristically slimy in wet conditions. 

Yep, that's our catch for today... Piece of Life after all!

Akmenrags Lighthouse

24 August, 2016 | Tourism objects | 11 seen

Akmenrags Lighthouse (Latvian: Akmeņraga bāka) - a lighthouse on the Latvian coast of the Baltic Sea, located to the south of the resort town of Pāvilosta.

I first visited Akmensrags Lighthouse in the mid Summer of 2016 together with my aunt - we made a lovely excursion with her around Courland. Akmensrags lighthouse is located some 11 km south of the Pāvilosta, the road is not in the best shape (Breakstone road)

There is a small museum/kiosk/ information center located in front of the lighthouse. When we approached lighthouse some people from kiosk asked what are we doing here. It seemed they enjoyed their loneliness and forgot that Akmensrags lighthouse is actually a tourism spot (right, it's main purpose is naval, but you got the point). I asked about opportunities to climb up to the lighthouse. The lady asked am I from some governmental organization something? I felt confused, replied that I'm just a visitor willing to make some photography here, she told me to buy a ticket for 0.70 EUR what I actually did and started my way up one hundred and twenty six steps reaching up to the viewing gallery.

…

Another morning, another beatiful mist

23 August, 2016 | | 3 seen

It seems I have a new tradition - for the second year in the row I have captured beautiful morning mist in our country house backyard.

Alright, previous year my beloved did the shooting while I was dreaming about roof works. This time I couldn't sleep (as I was thinking of upcoming bathroom remodeling works), and I noticed - a mist. In our backyard. See it for yourself:

Mist over our pond and neighbors meadow

Few things have changed this year: we have freshly dug pond and neighbor have packed hay into plastic packages.

Mist in our backyard territory

Few things have changed in this scene as well - first we have a new roof, second constructions works still continues, but instead of roof laths this morning we had supporting beams, cool right?

Mist in the garden

Mist in rock garden

Yup, we built a rock garden few weeks before. Can't wait for next year's beautiful morning mist!

Cats on The Rocks

21 August, 2016 | | 14 seen

Recently I featured a post about how we built a rock garden in the front of our country house. I reported a lovely sunset just shortly. In today's Piece of Life series - little creatures who enjoys the most of our new rock garden. Meet our lovely cats Tiger and Richard.

Cat on the rock

A nice observation place for planing an attack on...birds? Or at least a try.

Cats on the rocks

Double attack?

Cat on the rock

Are you shooting me?

Red Sunset in our Rock Garden - Cool Evening Mood

17 August, 2016 | | 2 seen

This Summer spoiled us with a lovely sunsets, but one of the most empathic had been observed  in front of our house at rock garden. 

Red/Orange Sunset at Rock Garden

See how we built this rock garden a few days ago.

Country house during sunset

There is still a lot of to do, and it will require a huge investment to completely remodel/rebuild this house, but evenings like this breaks it even.

Sunset over pond

Yup, we dug this pond as well a few days ago.

Drupal 7.50 introduces User warning messages for incorectly removed modules

16 August, 2016 | Drupal Development | 15 seen

The other day I did perform a minor upgrade from Drupal 7.43 to Drupal 7.50, and was a bit scarred when noticed a huge warning page, at first I thought there are some problems with my files and folders or I have done something terribly wrong.

Thus I learnt that this is a new feature, implemented starting Drupal 7.50 version

Drupal user warning

User warning: The following module is missing from the file system:Module Name. In order to fix this, put the module back in its original location. For more information, see the documentation page.

I actually visited that documentation page and found following:

The warning was introduced in Drupal 7.50 and is displayed when Drupal is attempting to find a module or theme in the file system, but either cannot find it or does not find it in the expected place. Usually this indicates a problem with your site. It is not a major problem, but one which should ideally be fixed if possible

I found that my site has been missing following modules: addresfield, chr, drupalgap, fblikebutton, feeds, feeds_flickr, google_analytics_api, google_plusone, menu_views,…

Beam Replacement for Old house - Building Bathroom from Scratch - Part 2

15 August, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 10 seen

Here comes another update on home remodeling works - building a bathroom from scratch. After I successfully concreted stone wall it was time to install new beams. For this side of house we did not had any beams installed (ok, they were, but they were rotted, as the roof was leaky, see how we changed a roof)

A while ago I ordered beams at local sawmill (beams are 20cm X 20cm) and about 4 meter long. Today I called to the father and son (these guys are helping me out this year), and it was the matter of chainsaw, chisel and a little bit of math. Some stamina was required as well to lift those beams up.

Installing beams

I didn't experimented with light paint photography today, so please forgive bad quality of photography. Want to see light painted loft photography with the same scene (same guys), see how we took old chimney down.

Father working with a chisel

Beams installed

I will need to strengthen them soon, as it's planed remove those walls and put the weight of roof on those beams using support beams attached from ground. More on that in future home remodeling posts.

Our neighbor - Fox baby

14 August, 2016 | | 6 seen

For the second year in the row we have one small and lovely neighbor - baby fox. Once we met him at the bus stop, looked amazing - fox going to the city, the other morning bad farmers had mowed crop fields and baby fox seemed very disappointed.

Today we met our friend, just wandering on the road.

baby fox on the road

I wish I had a telephoto lens attached, to capture a lovely portrait, as the fox didn't seemed scared or so, just wandered.

road and the fox

Piece of Life after all!

Making Rhubarb Wine

13 August, 2016 | DIY | 15 seen

In our garden we have a lot of rhubarbs, one thing you can make out of them is a rhubarb cake, but turns out there is at least one more thing you can do with rhubarbs - you can try to make a wine. 

In today's Do It yourself series - my (our )attempt of making a rhubarb wine - I'm calling this an attempt - because we actually didn't make any wine this year. But if you are looking for a receipt on how to make a rhubarb wine, here is one: How to Make Rhubarb Wine at Home

Rhubarbs

Above is our rhubarb harvest from our garden. First thing you will want to do - to remove leaves.

Cleared rhubarbs

A Swiss army knife is a great tool to help you to clear rhubarbs.

Rhubarbs in the basket

Next thing to do - to squeeze a juice from rhubarbs, we used a regular juice extractor and learnt that rhubarb is pretty hard to squeeze, we had to cut rhubarbs in small pieces before putting in the extractor. 

Rhubarb juice

Well... that's all we got today. If you want to make a rhubarb wine you will need to have a lot of rhubarbs. Probably will try to make a…

Gravel for road surface and rock garden

12 August, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 5 seen

The other day I first met with one of our closet neighbors, he approached me and told me, that in couple of days he will cover road (we are sharing together) with a gravel. I already mentioned it in my previous post about pond works. 

I asked what kind of gravel does he is using for road surface, and decided it would be a good idea to have a little bit gravel for upcoming home foundation works (concreting). We agreed that he will give me a little bit gravel (I asked for about 1m3, but got some 3m3).

Pile of gravel

Just later I learnt, this gravel won't be suitable for concreting as it contains particles of clay.So we decided to use it later in shaping our upcoming rock garden.

Piles of gravel on the road

Neighbor will use some heavy vehicle to even out gravel later tonight. Cool you can  have such neighbors, right? 

Building a Rock Garden

11 August, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 4 seen

Today we made a rock garden from scratch, well almost. The thing is - idea to have a rock garden have always been in our minds, but we hadn't yet figured out how to solve the biggest question - rocks.

We had already idea of place were rock garden will be situated (in front of house, were use to had been a dump - see: The Big Spring Territory Cleanup )

Luckily after pond works were done, pond guy told he could help us with his New Holland excavator to do something else, and we agreed to take down that collapsed cowshed in front of house, it turned out there are huge rocks laid for the foundation. It was time to shape our rock garden using those huge rocks.

Excavator taking down collapsed cowshed

We will build something cool at the place in former cowshed, but for now we are taking rocks from it's foundation and forming our rock garden

Rocks in the place

Wow, they are huge ones, the same will be our rock garden

Rock garden in front of house

Former cow shed

Building a foundation for a garden oven - Part 1

10 August, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 5 seen

Idea to have a nice garden pizza oven were sit first already last year, together with the works we started shaping a form of our rural house, we recently inherited. Thus we had to wait for more than a year, before actually proceeding. 

The other day, while the pond guys were finishing digging pond, I dug some soil, to lay in the foundation for garden brick.

Laying foundation for garden oven

With the help of a shovel, I will dug off the ground surface

Shaping the form of foundation

We will go for a L for garden oven, attached with a sink and water (nice outdoor kitchen)

Laying in bricks

I'm using old clay bricks from the chimney we took down some time ago.

Base foundation formed using old clay bricks

Now it's time to fill the foundation base with a concrete, but later on that.

Pond Digging - Part 3 - The Result

9 August, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 26 seen

This morning started with a surprise, I was still sleeping, when my partner awakened me and told - pond guys are digging. I was surprised, because I didn't heard a sound. Maybe I was too tired from yesterday's pond draining or as it turned latter - the modern excavators are quiet. 

Anyway, I was not surprised at all - because when pond guys started, they didn't even informed me, see how it started in part 1.

I made (more correct, my partner did it) my morning coffee and took my camera to document the progress.

Excavator digging pond from the road side

I was a bit worried about the road, because we are sharing it with one another neighbor, and few days ago he informed us, that today he will be adding some load of gravel on the road surface. And that for a few hours he will block any access to the road. I told that to the pond guys and they replied with a smile, he will have to wait. 

Digging the pond

At the Spring we constructed three greenhouses, and they were actually an obstacle in today's digging works, but we agreed not to touch them.

Excavator demolishing and…

How to drain a pond with a pump and hose - Digging Pond - Part 2

6 August, 2016 | Home Remodeling | 9 seen

Today I had a chance to excel in pond works - I was left with no choice but to drain the pond. Luckily the pond guys brought an electric pump to make my life much easier. 

If you are new to home remodeling series, make sure you check out an article on how it all started about a year ago. And of course check out first part on pond digging, when we discovered that pond have been dug without our presence. Surprise pond digging in the middle of Summer.

Now, pond guy phoned me and told me that it would be great that we should drain the pond, he will bring a pump and all I have to do - just to watch for the water level going down and turn of the pump once the works are done. In fact it turned out to be a bit complicated, but in short yes, nothing hard.

Inserting pump in the pond

Luckily I had bought an electrical extension cord 40 meters long to plug the pump to the electricity. 

Pond drainage

With help of about 30 meters long hose I had an option to drain pond water to the nearby cherry tree garden. 

Pond drainage - few hours later

In total it took me about 6…

Chasing Sunset Photography with a Strong Foreground (Pāvilosta / Jūrkalne)

5 August, 2016 | | 14 seen

Chasing sunset photography with a strong foreground is a brief story, which happened on the next day after Summer Solstice. We took our moms and a little doggie and decided to visit coastal Latvian beaches. 

At start we headed to Pāvilosta piers, I left girls wandering around while installed a tripod and thought I will make a few HDR's here. I have been into HDR photography since the day 1 I discovered this lovely technique back in Tbilisi. The rule of thumb for a great HDR is so called Golden hour - 30 minutes before sunrise/sunset to get interesting colors.

Pāvilosta piers

I have felt in love with the city of Pāvilosta since the day one I first visited it. Read my review of Pāvilosta piers or see Piece of Life postcards from series post - Postcards from Pāvilosta.

The above picture was not yet post - processed and I already knew - I have a good picture for my 365 days photo project. So we left white sand beaches of Pāvilosta and headed to nearby tavern - Āķagals, and spent there about an hour. My better part told me - hey, but we must get you a better sunset photography - let's visit the nearby Jūrkalne seashore…