Spice Rack

My attentions were devoted to the spice containers that were on the back of the stove* but we do also have a proper spice rack. When we first moved here the kitchen was a bit of a work in progress ** in need of shelves inside the cupboards and nicer better countertops than the inexpertly poured cement ones. John came up with the idea of open shelves on either side of the sink  one for spices and one for coffee cups. Being an engineer, he measured the spice jars and the coffee mugs and designed the shelves accordingly. It was David's idea to make them out of a warm color wood.

I don't know how it happens, but the number of spices acquired always outgrows whatever space it is in,. My ministrations resulted in a couple of open spaces but there are still more jars in the pantry around the corner. All of these were new when we moved here and some have been purchased more recently, but the older ones have probably reached the end of their shelf life since we are going on ten years here. However, it would be expensive to replace them all at once, so I will keep them all for the sake of the display...

It is definitely the most convenient place I've ever had for storing all these spices, but I have noticed that the top shelves have gotten a few inches higher and I can no longer reach them....

John came into the bedroom this morning as I was putting off getting out of my warm bed that David was arriving in ten minutes. That got me moving and I leapt out of bed and threw some clothes on. We were sitting in the living room drinking our morning coffee and reading  skimming glancing at the newspaper when I commented that it had been considerably more than ten minutes and David had not appeared. He looked again and said, he had misread the text...he was coming at 10 o'clock. As it turned out he didn't get here until noon but it gave me time to comb my hair and put my shoes on....

He was helping John rebuild our compost bins which burned to the ground in the fire , along with the compost in them and it turns out he cut the wood salvaged from another job before he came so all he had to do was assemble the pieces. It took John and Tim and Dana and Owen hours to put together the first one  but it only took David a couple of hours. I like the color of the salvaged wood .

I cleared off the bookcase in our bedroom  and found that the simple solution to the large yellow out-of-scale vase looks pretty good on the floor next to it. The quantities of dust behind the books in the corners was shocking, but not surprising as  the wind was swirling the dirt that is still being moved around next door was swirling around in small cyclones. There are high gusty winds which are deceptively cold given the warmth of the sun. We definitely needed another layer as we made our way around the circuit and past the barking dogs . They never got a rise out of Ozzie who would often sniff around for a place to pee right in front of the enclosure where they were going mad. Spike, however goes mad himself if a dog barks at him making it a challenge for John to keep him under some degree of control.

Now I'm off to look around the garden for some  branches of something that will dry gracefully  to put in it....

* first extra
**second extra