Item you viewed: Fresh Whole Rabbit (I’m not sure why, I think someone had a link like ‘wow you can get anything at Amazon!!’ It’s kinda creepy looking.)

50% buy this alternative: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Thanks to the wonders of tv, we have learned new words tonight!

Pajamagram – spoil her with the gift of…pajamas!

Pornado – I guess we never experienced one of these because we have popup blockers. I hear it sucks, though.

Fairyoke – not gay karaoke, unfortunately.

It’s been over a year since I’ve made beer, and although I’m told by Matt that it doesn’t compare to my salsa-making skills, I decided to give it another whirl. Last week I brewed up a batch of amber ale to get back into the swing of things. There was a small mishap earlier in the week when it fermented so violently that it blocked the airlock with foam, causing the pressure to build until the lid of the fermenter went *plonk*. There was some beer splatters on things in the office, and I have been worried that it became contaminated from sitting there with the lid popped open all day while at work. In the oh-so-clean office that contains things like bags of uncleaned sheep wool.

I think my fears are unfounded, however. Today I racked it into a secondary fermenter since it hasn’t been making bubbles much for a few days, and the hydrowhatsit meter said it’s specific gravity is where it should be when done (isn’t that geeky of me?). And it doesn’t taste sour or funky. The downside is it also doesn’t seem very amber.

A few more weeks it should be bottled and carbonated and ready to drink. Maybe I can save some until Cabol’s parents visit. Today or tomorrow I will work on a steam beer. It will be my first experience using lager yeast, albeit at ale temperatures instead of at cold lager temperatures.

Cabol said I should add some pictures from today’s brew session, so here they are:

Grains After Mashing

Hops

Boiling Wort

Yesterday we bottled the wine, and ended up with just under two cases (as measured by beer bottles) worth of wine. I also took the wine bottle worth of wine left in the carboy that had a little yeast remnants in it and bottled it in a spare wine bottle and stuck it in the fridge – I figured the yeast will settle out within a few days, and I hate to waste any…

Wine Bottles

This morning I decided to make Spritz Cookies, since it seemed like a yummy Christmastime thing to do. Except I couldn’t find any green food coloring, so my little trees are rather yellow.

We’ve had a cookie press for, well, a long time. I think it used to be my grandmother’s. But we’ve never used it, and of course there are no instructions. My first attempt involved putting the die on the wrong side, so it was promptly ejected as the dough squeezed through, making a large mess. After comforting myself with raw cookie dough, I searched online for how to use a cookie press. It turns out the die goes on the inside (ok, that wasn’t in the instructions, but Cabol figured it out), and that you just sort of push the cookie onto the cookie sheet and when you pull back the wonder of physics will hold it to the sheet and break it apart from the rest of the dough in the press. I’m sure anyone who makes lots of cookies are rolling their eyes at this point, but it was a little bit of magic to me.

Spritz Cookies

Today I decided it was time to sample the first batch of wine and rack it into a new container – I’m thinking in a week or two most everything will have settled out of it and it will be ready to bottle.

To my not-very-distinguished palate it tasted like a dry red wine. It seems to have lost some of the ruby red color it had the last time I racked it, and has more of a lighter reddish-purple hue. It will be interesting to see how much of that fades over the next few months.

Wine

It hasn’t been a very eventful week, although Hop and Wibble were both sick and stopped eating (but now are better). Now Carla has stopped eating, so we’re worried about her. But we have leftover critical care stuff to force feed her, so hopefully we will get things moving again. We decided to get rid of some of the bantam chickens, since we really have more than we need now that all those little baby chicks are grown up!

Some pictures from around the house:

Buddy

Sana Blowing Her Nose

Bunny Snuggle

I am sitting at my computer desk, when out of the corner of my eye I notice the black suitcase sitting on the futon is shaking back and forth. Well, more of a vibrating. Concerned that it is getting ready to explode, I cautiously approach it, only to find a freeloader!

Larry inna suitcase

I am always astounded on how the cats sneak past me into the office, as we keep the door closed on purpose to keep them out! Unless someone has found a secret way in. Maybe that hidden compartment the previous owners mentioned, but never told us where it was….

Larry stretching

The blackberry wine I am trying to make has hopefully now entered the fermentation stage. Although I will be in New York when it is happening, so hopefully the troops here at home will keep an eye out for any explosions.

I am a man, and I as such I never, ever, sew things. Especially not dollies.

-A

Just so all of you who were holding off visiting because I could not make ice cream without jury-rigging up the machine using pantyhose strips know, I found the ice cream machine lid. It was inside one of the nightstands.

Recently Sana was staring intently out the front door, so I looked outside to see if there was a kitty friend. Cabol looked up and said ‘Is there a walnut on the porch?’