Blog Archive: August 2016
An ex-pat living in Georgia since 2011, I trade stocks, take photographs, work out at the gym, and many more. Here I write about travel, finance, and other things that might interest me.
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Gravel and Crushed Stone For Foundation
This Summer I will need a lot of gravel and crushed stone for home remodeling tasks, mainly for foundation sealing works. Some time ago (while digging a pond), I negotiated a few cubic meters of gravel from neighbor, who was sealing surface of the road meanwhile, it turned out that neighbors' gravel was not ideal for foundation as it consisted from clay particles, and we decided re-use clay/gravel for rock garden instead. I had no chance but…
Sponge Cake With Wild Berries
Here comes another post on food blogger series, and again I must admit I'm not the original creator of following sponge cake, my better part is. Sponge cake with wild berries Really cool cake, here is photos and cooking directions: Biscuit dough: 4 eggs, 4 tbs. flour, 4 tbs. sugar Cooking directions: Separate egg white form the egg yolk. Whip egg white to hard foam. Separately whip yolks with 4 tablespoons of sugar. Fold into the egg…
Digging a trench around existing foundation - Building a bathroom from scratch - part 4
Here comes another update on building a bathroom from scratch series in project home remodeling. The thing is - the house we got didn't pamper us a lot, and so for example I had to install new supporting beams, not to speak about changing a roof, prior to before ever dreaming about having a bathroom. OK, I had a vision about a bathroom once we replaced roof last year, but to actually feature bathroom, we have to build many new things, among them…
Concreting Foundation For a Garden Pizza Oven - Part 2
This Summer I excelled in concreting works, the major concreting works involves concreting stone wall inside our rural country house and concreting house foundation (more on that in upcoming posts from home remodeling series) In spare time from major home reconstruction works this Summer we decided to build a cool and fancy garden pizza oven, connected with a water supply (sink) and electricity - making a cool outdoor kitchen with a lot of…
Forest Mushrooms - Penny Bun & Red-Capped Scaber Stalk
A few days ago I reported a photo story with a harvest of mushrooms from our backyard, then we gathered fungus called Slippery Jack, in today's Piece of Life series - a harvest from deepest woods of Courland (Latvia), meet Penny Bun & Red-Capped Scaber Stalk. And again, those mushrooms were actually gathered by my better part and not me. I was actually drilling holes in a stone wall meanwhile: Penny Buns and Red-Capped Scaber Stalk Red…
Beam Strengthening on Stone Wall - Building Bathroom from Scratch - Part 3
The never ending story with my adventures on home remodeling and building a bathroom continues. In todays part 3 I will tell you a brief photo story how I strengthened a beam on the stone wall. See part 1 and learn more how I actually concreted this stone wall, while in part 2 see how we actually installed first bearing beams above bathroom ceiling. I'm of course talking not only about bathroom, but about a stronger and stable house as well (as…
Mushrooms in backyard
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…
Akmenrags Lighthouse
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…
Another morning, another beatiful mist
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…
Cats on The Rocks
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?
New Ambrolauri Airport will be constructed in Georgia's Racha Region
Georgia will never end to surprise you, so today after finish concreting tasks for my country house foundation I spent some time reading Georgian websites (I have been absent from Georgia for about 4 months and haven't red news lately). One of the first I red was article about new airport/airfield construction in Ambrolauri, region of Racha. I red the title and thought - wow, cool, then I red the whole article, and condemned - Awesome, they…
Red Sunset in our Rock Garden - Cool Evening Mood
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…
Drupal 7.50 introduces User warning messages for incorectly removed modules
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…
Beam Replacement for Old house - Building Bathroom from Scratch - Part 2
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…
Our neighbor - Fox baby
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…