Homebrewing Update, and an Announcement

Last night Hubby and I bottled the Vanilla Ale, which was just about the most delicious torture imaginable. The aroma of fresh ale mixed with vanilla extract promised wonderful pints in a few weeks, once it has aged enough for drinking. Tomorrow night we’ll bottle the Chocolate Cream Stout, and then we will have 6 whole cases of homebrew ready for Thanksgiving.

As for the announcement: I will be taking a month-long vacation from posting here, though I may of course show up from time to time if I have something really noteworthy to share. In the meantime, though, I will be writing up a storm as a participant in National Novel Writing Month, which challenges participants to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. To do this, I will need to crank out at least 1,613 words a day, and that’s a fairly tall order for an inexperienced writer!

I am just of 4,000 words into my story, though, so I’ve made a good start. If I think it’s shaping up to be anything other than pure crap, maybe I will share a bit of it here.

Compost Bin-October 23, 2009

This has been one of those weeks that was great for productivity but bad for blogging! Work seems to be back at a steady pace, which is welcome. I’ve also been busy with volunteer work as a youth soccer coach and also mentoring the local intermediate school’s Future City Competition team. The Vanilla Ale is fermenting away like mad, and the Chocolate Stout was also started in a mad rush one evening. I wish I could say that I’ll be getting some rest this weekend…but there’s three soccer games to attend and a house to decorate for Halloween.

Even through all the madness, I found a few gems for this week’s compost bin:

• So Rude: “When was the last time you did something that inconvenienced 200 people.” I may have taken precious time from my life to gripe about shopping cart rudeness, but at least cluttering up Costco’s parking lot isn’t directly putting other people in danger like the behavior documented in this short film. Something about driving in Manhattan (especially Manhattan, beyond most other cities) causes people to drive like aggressive maniacs. I know that most of us living in and near the big apple are always in a rush, but there is no place any of us need to be so important that it’s worth risking the safety of others.
• World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale. Mindblowing stuff. I’d explain it, but words fail. You just have to watch it.
• Follow The Glow. Great blog post about focusing on what’s truly important in your life. For me, my children, my garden, preparing good meals, and encouraging others to think towards the future are glow points.

Brewing Update: Cape Cod Red and Vanilla Ale

Yesterday Hubby and I, with a little help from Thing 2, bottled the Cape Cod Red. I stole a little taste, and it seemed pretty good. Two weeks from now we’ll crack open the first bottle for the official first tasting.

I’m not going to recap the whole process again, but if you’re interested, you can read about it here (that’s for you, Joe Z).

While we were bottling one batch, another was brewing on the stove. This is the first time I’ve been so ambitious as to brew one while bottling another, and it was exhausting. But I was so excited by the Vanilla Ale recipe kit that I had gotten from the Brewer’s Apprentice, that brewing could not wait for another day. I also picked up a Chocolate Cream Stout, which I’ll be brewing up one evening this week.

For a complete overview of the brewing process, go here.

Compost Bin-October 16, 2009

Sorry for the relative silence this week! Work has been busy, for a change, leaving me with little time for play. The house is a wreck, the laundry is piling up, and the kids are wondering when Mom is going to cook something wonderful. Fortunately, next week is shaping up to be a bit lighter, so I’ll have more time for fun. We’ll be bottling the Cape Cod Red and hopefully starting a new brew this weekend, and then it’s time to start getting the house ready for Halloween.

I haven’t had much of a chance to poke around the internet, but I managed to find a few offerings for this week:

• The Awakening. Imagine how lovely a place the world could be if we all experienced an awakening while still young enough to use the knowledge to craft our lives wisely.
• TED Talks: Rory Sutherland. Life Lessons from an Ad Man. Brilliant presentation on how we can avoid getting bored with the stuff we already have.
• National Engineer’s Week Future City Competition. The 8th grade gifted and talented kids from my local school district are competing in the Future City Competition for the first time this year. I learned about it this week when we attended the G&T Open House for Thing 1, and I volunteered to mentor the team as an Urban Planner. I will be meeting with he kids for the first time today, and I am so ridiculously excited.

Field Trip-Hiking in Molly Pitcher’s Steps to Perrine Hill Spring.

Thing 1 reads an informational sign about Molly Pitcher on the battlefield.

Molly Pitcher (real name Mary Hays) was a colonial woman who helped the Continental Army during the Battle of Monmouth by carrying jugs of water from a nearby spring to the men and canons serving under General George Washington. Molly’s work was one of the reasons Washington’s forces won that battle…in the brutal heat of that June day, both men and canons required lots of cool water, and as the local wells were drained and the creeks rendered too muddy, the spring on the Perrine Farm was the last remaining source of fresh water.

Thing 2 is doing a biography report on Molly Pitcher at school, and so this weekend we decided to take her out to walk in Molly’s footsteps. I am thrilled that my daughter choose this woman to study for her report. Molly is a heroine who contributed to our country’s history, and I think she serves as a great example of feminine courage and valor. She also lived in our county, so visiting the site of the battle she fought in is an easy trip.

The Monmouth Battlefield State Park is a 15 minute drive from home and a frequent field trip destination for local schools. The park has many miles of trails, playgrounds, a museum with archeological finds from the battleground, and picnic areas. Sunday morning we packed up a picnic lunch and headed out to explore the battlefield and learn about our local history.

Thing 1 learned quite a bit during the hike. She saw how the battleground included the farms of several local families. The Sutfin family’s farm had the great misfortune of being between the two lines of artillery, which cannot have been fun. We walked the path from the artillery line to the spring and back again, to see what a trek Molly was making with full buckets of water. Back in the museum, a local historian guided a group of kids through the process of loading and firing a canon, so we were able to see not only how much work it was, but also what Molly’s water was used for (sponging sparks out of the barrel between rounds).

Thing 2, on the other hand, was simply jazzed at the very idea of visiting a battleground. He packed up a pair of toy light sabers and challenged his father (and later his sister) to battle:

The force is strong with these two.