husband is a (half) ironman

last weekend, husband did the half ironman in helsingør. a half ironman is 1.2 miles (1.9k) swimming, 56 miles (90.1k) cycling and 13.1 miles (21.1k) running. he did it in 5:42:57, which was more than 15 minutes faster than his goal. it would have been about 5 minutes faster, but his bike shoe broke during the first transition and he spent a bit too much time trying to fix it. he ended up biking with a broken shoe, but still averaged more than 33km/hour.

i didn't manage to catch him on the bike, so no picture of that part. we were super lucky with the weather - sunny, but not too hot, though husband did say that about halfway through the run, he did think he might get heat stroke. of course, it was a bit warmer for him out there than for me, sitting in the shade under my sun hat.

he ran it with daughter karoline, who did a full ironman in 2021. this was her fourth half! and she had a baby last september! they are truly heroic! husband is aiming at the full ironman next year and will do a half marathon in the autumn. he did say after the race that he might do another half next year and then wait to do the ironman in 2025.

just a little summer project

no summer is complete without husband engaging in a more or less major building project. we had long planned to build this building to shelter off the house a bit more from the road, which is quite close. it's also the first step towards being able to tear down the middle house, which is in quite bad shape.

husband did all this framing himself, building each of the sections over near his workshop and then we brought them over on the trailer and raised them (i helped with that bit).

there will be windows up high along the walls on both sides, but since we weren't sure we'd get them in before autumn winds and rain come along, he didn't cut the holes yet.

husband found a guy who rescues old doors from various places - these from a school somewhere. i even loved the color so much, i bought a can as close to it as i could get to paint the whole thing. i had talked about red or blue, but this green is perfect. we're going to have some vinyl stickers made for the windows, for a bit more privacy and with a groovy design of some sort - i'm thinking of incorporating our name, the house number and the nordic sun symbol.

100 happy days :: day 85

it's a long holiday weekend here in denmark, the last of the spring holidays. our child is off to copenhagen for the weekend with her friends. as one does when one is 14. tho' it's still a bit chilly and working outside requires a heavy sweatshirt and scarf, we've been working in the garden (husband didn't wear a scarf). husband has once again changed up the greenhouse. this time, we used waffley plastic roofing as a covering and he built a back wall with repurposed wood he brought home from the harbor. me, i planted beans and onions and leeks and a couple of squash. in the greenhouse, there are now tomatoes and cucumbers and chilis and a couple of aubergine.

the cool kitchen :: an update on the progress

great strides have been made in the kitchen since our last update. i've shown you this red door before, but now it's hung up and the chalkboard has been painted next to it. i just love it!!

husband carefully crafted this 4 meter long kitchen island and he's putting it in place before the final coat of paint goes onto the floor. it's magnificent. and it's made from scrap wood from the harbor, so it's also upcycled. he's incorporated some very fine details. he's getting pretty good at this working with wood thing.

the sink, the dishwasher and the stovetop will go into this and leave plenty of counter space for rolling out cookies and such.

fitting in the panels. husband actually chose to use MDF for a very smooth surface, as we're going to have them painted with whimsical chicken art by an artist friend.

and the painting of the chickens has begun. we had a lot of fun, laughing and talking and listening to music. people should really consider having custom art done in their homes more often. our friend loves the project and we love having something very special. and it might not be as expensive as you might think.

here's where it stood at the end of the first day of work. it will probably take a couple of weeks to be finalized, but this is an ongoing project and we're not in a hurry.

as for me, i'm writing quotes and drawing little doodles on the baseboards that line the room. husband wanted to have those in place before he does the final coat on the floor. he's also given the floor a treatment of filler, as there were many little bitty holes showing up in the floor, despite 5 coats of epoxy paint, so that's why it looks dusty all of a sudden.

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rem koolhaas' cool thoughts on architecture

and more specifically the hermitage in st. petersburg.

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jill lepore takes down disruptive innovation.

it's so good to see someone taking on trendy business theories 

(tho' whether it's still trendy after 20 years is debatable).

and clay christensen, originator of the innovator's dilemma, answers back

(with a bit of the wizard of oz's "don't look at the man behind the curtain" air about him).

* * *

and now on a lighter note...this cute little video is clever and spot-on.
(if websites started dating.)

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overheard at whole foods is my current favorite FB page.

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have you seen the little post i wrote over at #stuckinplastic?

100 happy days :: day 24

slow but steady progress on the new kitchen. that ceiling looks just awesome. husband has done a great job. the windows are about to be ordered as well, so soon we will have a big leap forward in progress. hard to believe this was once a pig stall.

rethinking things

husband has an uncanny ability to rethink things and decide to go in a completely different direction, not being stuck to an idea just because it's what he originally thought and just because steps were taken towards realizing it. he's very open to change and new ideas. and i feel like it's very good for me.  two summers ago, he built a rather significant building to house his sawmill. he now has outfitted a rather nice workshop for himself out there and we were even able to hold sabin's confirmation party in the building. it's a pretty great space.

we're getting ready to buy a barn and a little bit of property for a paddock for the horses from our neighbors. we first broached the subject four+ years ago when we moved in and now they're mentally ready to consider it. we already rent part of that barn from the neighbors, and have two stalls there, as well as our bunnies, hay, straw and a stash of building supplies in the building. it's not really much of a barn, more of a machine shed, really, but it has potential and with a new roof on it (paid for by the insurance after a storm last december), it would be good for us to have it.

and husband is already planning on moving his sawmill and workshop over there, which would leave the lovely sawmill building for another purpose. perhaps a party space to rent out? a bed & breakfast? a space where i could begin to have blog camps at my house again? or maybe we could move into it? the possibilities are endless. and it's so much fun talking all of the ideas over with husband. he just makes it seem like anything is possible. being so open to new ideas and rethinking old ones is really a gift. just another way in which that boy is a keeper.

progress on the kitchen project

it's been a long time since i showed you any progress on our kitchen-to-be. we've had a real bricklayer here for the past two days and now it seems like there's really been a lot of progress, so i had to share some snaps. this is one of those interminable projects because we do it as we have money for it and husband is doing much of it himself (all those beautiful wood beams you see are him). but it feels like things are finally moving in the right direction. there's heat in the floor, so husband has worked faithfully all winter and has done a beautiful job with the wood. tho' he bricked up a bit in our brewery, he's not really a bricklayer, so we hired one in. it only took him two days to brick the whole thing and man does it look great! it's looking less and less like a pig stall and more and more like a home. and husband is pleased because he says it's starting to match the picture of it he has in his head.

the brewery

i've not shared any house progress photos in ages. mostly because things happen so slowly and incrementally around here that it never feels like there's anything significant to share. but that changed recently.

husband recently his old workshop space (and a space that was a garage with the previous owners) into what he calls the brewery. it's a room dedicated to big, messy jobs, like pressing apples for cider, spinning honey out of their frames, and eventually yes, even making beer.

he painted the walls and ceiling white and the floor grey. and i can tell you that paint makes a huge difference. to divide the space up a little bit, he built a little brick wall (to practice his brick-laying skills for the bigger job in the kitchen). he also built several shelves - mostly to house the beekeeping supplies - frames, boxes, wax, even buckets of honey.

we got this old scale at a flea market ages ago and it really works and is quite useful when you want to weigh how much honey you harvested.

an old cupboard that was one of the first things we bought together way back when houses our flag collection down at the far end. we inherited the flags from husband's father, who was crazy about flags, especially the nordic ones.

the wood-burning stove isn't hooked up yet, but it will be and then i intend to spend lots of time out there, as it's much nicer than the house! i love the brick pedestal husband built for the stove. there to the left, there will be a sink, as a brewery needs a water source. we're scouring the markets for the right sink and haven't found it yet. but we will.

husband made a new top for an old green table that was here (one of the few good things), so there's a nice work table next to the honey centrifuge.

that little green bench was in sabin's room until yesterday. i'm not sure it's going to stay there, but it's always good to have another surface.

on the right is the cider press husband made. he's making modifications to it after this year's cider pressing, so it's not intact at the moment (if you're looking at it, wondering how on earth you can press cider in that). i love how he has no qualms about taking apart something he made and remaking it. i could really learn something from that. down at the end, more shelves with the beekeeping supplies on them.

my favorite feature is the meaningful stones he bricked into the wall. the three bricks are from a favorite beach in sweden. the second stone from the left is from crazy horse monument in south dakota. the heart and the stone with the eye are both from møn's klint, one of our favorite places in denmark.

i want to grab my book and a cup of coffee and go relax out there right now.

if a tree falls in the forest...

...does it make a sound?

a big storm blew through late yesterday afternoon. high winds and driving rain accompanied it. there were branches down on the road here and there and we decided to check our forest today. to our surprise, there was a wide swath of downed trees. i tried to count, but stopped at 35. there are probably at least 50 and it's a clear path, like a tornado went through, even tho' otherwise conditions weren't as we know them for tornadoes in the midwest of the US (instead of hot and humid, it was rather chilly and no lightning and thunder seemed to accompany the storm).

what i wonder is how we didn't hear all those trees crashing down, even tho' we're a kilometer or so away from our forest. it must have made quite a racket.