Another month that went quickly

 Here is the update on our October doings. Sorry folks it took so long, but blog postings were not on my mind this month. Progress on the trawler has been steady. There were still many electrical jobs completed as well as some woodwork. Benno’s goal was to have the pilot house completed before winter except for the ceiling, which is really the last thing after everything is mounted topside and all wiring is complete.

Planing the next step is really important in boat building. Having the items on hand to make the right connections as well as making sure the part fits the space. So with this thought in mind, I got a new kitchen appliance that was meant for the boat. For years I have been using a Breville toaster oven daily. I liked it so much that I started to substitute it for my big kitchen oven for most of our baking needs. It is really a neat compact appliance but I read about a new Breville that incorporates an air fryer as well as microwave in addition to the convection oven all in one unit with many preset cooking menus that use a combination of the above. 

Photo taken from the Internet of my Convection/Toaster Oven

When the Breville arrived I wanted to try it out in my kitchen before storing it away to be installed in the trawler. Well, after using it now for a month I don’t want to give it up, so decided to keep it right here in my kitchen and to take my previous Breville appliance into the boat as it will be sufficient enough for most of our food preparations while underway.

My new combination Convection Oven/Air Fryer/Microwave

Speaking of food, we had a wonderful, scrumptious  family Thanksgiving dinner that our son cooked and our oldest granddaughter, Heidi baked the apple crumble dessert. We almost licked our plates, it was that delicious. :-)

Benno celebrated a special birthday and for that occasion I used the new Breville to bake the foundation for the hazelnut/marzipan cake. See all the trouble I go through for my hubby, grinding the hazelnuts and making the marzipan from scratch!

We were fortunate to have mostly great weather this month with lots of sunshine and it being warm enough to wear shorts some days. I managed to clean up some of the garden in preparation for the winter. However the neighbouring trees are shedding their leaves now and there will be more cleanup to come. Yesterday I brought in three more zucchinis and with frost forecasted for tonight that plant will be history tomorrow. 

The roots are in that pot to the left, the plant wandered all the way down to the walkway

I have helped Benno by varnishing the wood trim that he made, painted with epoxy paint the cabinet that will house the new VHF radio, Solar Panel Controller and Furuno GP-33 GPS Unit and gave him a hand when needed, like grinding a difficult corner with his Dremel Multi-Max oscillation tool. 

Perhaps some of our readers have fabricated wood cabinets or other projects and used plugs, but I was wondering if any of you are familiar with making plugs from the same type of wood so that you don’t see the screws at all. Well, that is what is done in custom boatbuilding and our third time around to do it. 

As an example here are some photos to illustrate what I mean. 

First the screw holes were drilled into the trim with a countersink bit to create a cavity for the screw and plug. Next he drives the screw in.

Then Benno used his drill press with a wood plug cutter bit to cut plugs of the same wood and popped the the plug out of the wood strip with a small screw driver.

These plugs are glued with epoxy (West System Epoxy) into the holes and after the epoxy is cured the plugs are cut off with a Japanese flush-cut saw and then sanded before being painted. It is time consuming but worth the effort, we think.

This is the Japanese flush-cut saw Benno uses to cut off the plugs

The contract we had with our local Virgin Plus cellphone provider was up. By switching to Koodo we increased our data to 10GB per phone and are saving  $430.92 per year. However, when traveling to the US we still have to get a US SIM card and if we use our Canadian SIM in the US we are looking at a fixed rate per day for roaming but unlimited calling to back home. 

Benno winterized the travel trailer and greased the wheel bearings and suspension as he does every year before we head out to our winter travel. When that will be, we don’t know yet as Benno wants to complete as much work on the trawler as he can before the cold temperatures will put a stop to that activity. So stay tuned for what we are into next.

Thanks for not giving up reading my blog.