You may remember my post on the sturdy king-size bed frame a while back? It’s inspired many people to build their own frames at home, saving $$$, avoiding the purchase of cheaply made furniture and learning about carpentry in the process.
“I want to tell you THANK YOU for your article ‘Making the custom bed frame’. I based on it to build mine. In March 2011 I asked which size of beam you used.
So for now I almost finished it. I have to build the drawers. In attached files, some pics.”
I took these photos a few weeks ago in our garden and didn’t get a chance to post them until now. The sour cherry trees were full of flowers, the lilac trees were sprouting leaves, the ladybugs had started to come out, the dandelions were in bloom (I love dandelions), the strawberries and tulips were blossoming as well, and a few more flowers whose names I don’t know were looking quite pretty. Enjoy!
Here are photos taken at the Vietnam Memorial in DC, back in 2006. War is war. The photos say it all. Just have a look at the faces of the people who were visiting it at the time, and at the huge flock of crows flying around the grounds.
With the warmer spring weather, I tried something different when making my coffee one day: I decided to brew it using the sun’s heat. I was hoping for a different, milder taste and I was right!
The basic coffee-making equation doesn’t change: use your favorite coffee, use as much or as little of it as you prefer — but instead of putting it in the coffee machine, put it in a glass pitcher and add cold, filtered water. Then, cover the pitcher to stop insects or dust from getting into it and set it on the window sill or somewhere outside, in direct sunlight.
Monitor it periodically. Once it gets hot to the touch, the coffee’s done. You can leave it out a little longer if you want a stronger coffee, or leave it less if you don’t. I live in a temperate climate and in moderately warm spring weather (18-25° Celsius), my coffee was ready in 1½ – 2 hours. If you live in a warm climate, it should be ready even faster, maybe even in 30 minutes or so.
The taste of sun-brewed coffee is unique: it’s mild with no bitter aftertaste and there’s a distinct caramel flavor to it.
A few pieces of advice:
Use alkaline water, it will make it taste even better
Use a French Press, it’ll make it much easier to pour the coffee out of the pitcher once it’s ready
Use regular filter-ground coffee even though you’re using a French Press… it doesn’t make sense at first, but know that the water temperature in the sun will only be about 40-50° Celsius as compared to 90-100° Celsius with boiling water. This means you’ll need a finer grind in order to get more flavor out of the coffee.Â
It was touch and go for a while this year, wasn’t it? We weren’t sure when Old Man Winter would go and Spring would finally be here to stay. I think we’re pretty safe now that the first blossoms are starting to come in.
Our apricot tree is in full bloom. The sweet cherry tree is also starting to blossom. No sign yet on the sour cherry trees. And of course the spring flowers are out, as you’ll see in the photos from our garden.
Raoul Pop 