Updates in beerville

ok, so i wrote this about 2 weeks ago and then got busy and forgot where i left off and never posted it... so here goes. (written 4-3-10 but posted 4-21-10, yeah i'm on top of things)





The negra turned out not too good, kinda as predicted, but it still has alcohol so the watery, lack of hops taste that it has hasn’t stopped us from consuming all but about 4L to this point.

The Tripel was bottled back on the 29th of march. It took significantly longer (27days before it was telling me it was ready to be bottled) than I thought, but all signs point to it being a really good trip in about 3-6 months. i tasted before it went into the bottles and it definitely needed to mellow a bit but the flavor was there, especially after i dry hopped it for 4-5 days. It clocked in at a final gravity of 1015, giving it an alcohol content by volume (ABV) of 11.3%. WOW! That is going to make for some fun late summer/fall nights… Mariners games anyone?



This batch I knew would be sitting for an extended period of time so I got some 22oz bottles and a bottle caper so that I wouldn’t have to tie up the 1L grolsch style bottles that I still intend to use for the daily drinking instead of extended storage. This too helps the rubber seals stay fresh if they are used, washed and reused regularly instead for sitting at pressure for an extended period of time.

The House Those Chicks Live In...

ok, so i wrote this about 2 weeks ago and then got busy and forgot where i left off and never posted it... so here goes. (written 4-3-10 but posted 4-21-10, yeah i'm on top of things)








Thus far the chicks have been staying in the garage as their coup gets built and they grow into strong enough little girls to endure the harsh northwest climate. None other than K built their brooder and she gave them plenty of cool shit to occupy their time in the 6 weeks +- they will be spending in the garage. They now have elevated food and water dishes, a perch and cool vents that they can look out of and the cats can look in. Yes the cats have discovered the chickens and as one would guess, Stew is scared to death of them and Bob can’t get in their enough to see them, that is until about a week ago when Cheepy nipped him on the nose when he got too close for comfort. It was a thing to behold, a 15lb cat running scared from a chicken that is about 6-8oz and ¼ of its full size. I got a good laugh, and since then Bob has jumped back on the horse so to speak and likes sitting on top of the brooder during the day until his heart is content. Some of the literature that we have been reading about chicken rearing has said that it is important that the cats know that the chickens are their masters and they are not to fuck with hem, but I am inclined to think that animals are animals and if the cats wanted to be cats they would be, but perhaps they are doing me the courtesy of not ripping them to shreds. If that is the case then our cats rule and are some of the most considerate animals on the planet. Who says you can’t teach cats manners?


Building the better brooder.


(and yes, it was built in the middle of our living room)


Heat lamp in place so that those chicks of ours stay smokin hot! about 90 degrees for the first 2 weeks actually, then it gets lowered by about 5 degrees a week till they are outside animals.
K checking in on the peeps (no not the marshmallow kind)

learning to use their wings to balance themselves. she-so-cute... and the bird ain't bad neither.

they were so soft with their little fluffy feathers.


Who you lookin' at? yeah i started getting my big girl feathers... what of it? (that's Cheepster being shy)Cheepy looking like a little chicken already, a little neck stretch never hurts.


Polly and Alpha staying tucked in, a little camera shy.



more chickens coming soon.

Chickens, and its about time...

Ok so it have been a long time since I have written anything for the masses (both of you, sorry all three of you, the fanbase grew by 50% when i wasn't even paying attention) to consume and I sincerely apologize for my inconsiderate nature but as things have a tendency to do, they came up, I got behind and overwhelmed and then lost track of what and where I was… Fishing season has just opened and though I have yet to get a license I am very much looking forward to pulling my share from the briny depth this coming season. I will definitely be keeping as up to date as possible once that fun starts, but now for another subject I have long neglected. CHICKENS!!!! K picked them up on the first of march and an entire month has passed and there has not been update one about our gals, again sincerely sorry. So here goes…

they started life as little fluff balls not much bigger than the eggs they came from when they were picked them up from the feed store.

Quickly they began to show little personalities and as any new chicken owners we hesitated to give them names because we knew that once we did they would be much harder to kill and eat when they stopped laying in a few years. Eventually we gave in and gave them the most cursory of names just to distinguish one from another.

The biggest and most dominant right off the bat was the first to get a name, we started calling her Alpha so there you go…

The one that just would not shut up happened to be the smallest and I called her Cheepy, but my wife began calling her Chicken Little (truly a name debate for the ages)…

The last one was named for us by a co-worker of K’s who insisted that you can’t have chickens unless one is called Polly…

Over time we intended to change their names to something more appropriate (at least Cheepy and Alpha’s names) but why? They already had names so why confuse us right? Well that is not entirely true, Alpha is still the biggest, but now instead of that being the reason for her name we are saying that it is short for Alfalfa, just seemed more appropriate for some reason.

That's my little Cheepy checking out a knothole... while the other gals worry about posing fr the camera.

Yum!

This was the best breakfast lunch ever! If only there were a simpler way of saying breakfast lunch meal… perhaps an abbreviation of some sort or other. Oh well, mayhap that will be how I make my millions, with just such an shortening and combination of those two words. Oh well maybe I should tell you about the scrumtrulesent treat I made for myself on this particular day since it was so worthy of picturing and writing this rambling diatribe about. It was vanilla French toast with plenty of butter fresh homemade blackberry syrup, powdered sugar and thick pieces of crispy bacon.


it is meals like this one that make me love cooking...