Oh good lord what a year it has been, or I guess to be more honest good lord what the last two (2) have been. Well between my injuries, testing out medications and having my daughter move from Ohio to here plus all the extreme weather as I posted previously, the year 2014 was a bust for working on my outdoor kitchen. Now in 2015 my daughter that moved in is now going to college and has now moved out and two (2) of my boys have moved out, both enlisting in military service. One enlisted in the Navy and the other enlisted in the Army. I’m very proud of all of them. That being said that also means I lost all of my helpers, so that means much slower going as it will be down to just me. 2015 has also brought all kinds of unusual weather here in Arizona which has also kept my progress at a standstill. Not to mention the numerous house repairs, projects and car repairs.
So what does all this mean? Well, honestly it means I haven’t gotten a dang thing done on my outdoor kitchen like I wanted. So I apologize to anyone who’s been reading this blog for such a long delay on me making any progress. I’m not promising much progress however until after this winter. Believe it or not we’ve already started getting snow here in Arizona, one of the first places in the country to get snow can you believe it. So I’m not very confident of good weather for us here this winter.
I’m also going to spend more time researching my options for building the outdoor kitchen. I’ve begun looking into the possibility of using compressed earth blocks rather than abode bricks. If for no other reason just to save some wear and tear on my body. As I could produce the blocks with some mechanical aids. The blocks would serve the same purpose and be used in the same way as the adobe bricks. In this way they are fully interchangeable.
Ok, so what am I talking about when I say “Are You Kidding Me?” in the posts title? Well I have recently found out that someone using an IP Address from Russia attempted to hack into my account with my domain registrar and as a precaution my account was disabled by the registrar. Do to my account being disabled my domains that I had associated with this blog earthkitchenproject.com, earthkitchenproject.net and earthkitchenproject.org all expired. I expected them to automatically renew, but it seems my account being disabled prevented it. As if that wasn’t enough of a problem I just found out tonight that a company called hugedomains.com registered my domain earthkitchenproject.com so that I couldn’t get it back. To add insult to injury this company, hugedomains.com, wants to sell earthkitchenproject.com for $2695.00 US. I mean really, are you kidding me? Just because this blog gets some traffic they figure they can essential ransom the domain for a ridiculous amount of money. The reality is if the idiots that are trying to resell the domain had taken any time to read this blog they would have known that there is no way I could or would pay $2695.00 US for any domain. Like I said, are you kidding me!
So what does this mean for the blog? Well it will remain accessible at earthkitchenproject.blogspot.com and I’ll see about possibly reregistering earthkitchenproject.net and earthkitchenproject.org. However like I said before there is no way I could or would pay $2695.00 US for any domain so that means I will not be reregistering earthkitchenproject.com. As far as the blog goes I have no plans to stop until my project is finished. So for all those who have been reading my blog, and I thank each and everyone of you, I will continue documenting my progress.
On that note let me say something about my progress, or in this case what I’ve learned from the weathering of the adobe. As you may remember I made some of the adobe bricks with hydrated lime to try to stabilize them. I also sealed the grout with boiled linseed oil. Well the linseed oil worked well until the water got underneath it. once the water got underneath it has begun to break loose, but to be fair it has now taken several years of weathering to get to that point. The lime stabilized bricks have held up incredibly well to the weathering. I will point out a mistake I made. When mortaring the bricks I should have used lime mixed into the mortar. As it stands I didn’t so the weathering affects the mortar faster than it does the bricks. I’m thinking that once I begin to build again I’ll use lime stabilized mortar and bricks on the footings and lower sections of the walls to make sure to protect against the moisture.
So on that note I’ll end this post. I will begin with my next post to start documenting what I find out in my research about the compressed earth blocks.