Dressing the Part

I don't think I could ever go to a convention for an toy / action figure and dress up. It is just over the top and ridiculous and sad.

American Wheat Update #1

On Sunday I went ahead and bottled about half of the brew. I sanitized 24 bottles and filled the up, racking the remainder over 2 cans of Oregon raspberries in heavy syrup. I hadn't planned on using the ones in the syrup, but that's what Sharon bought and it should work fine. I also wanted to start a test batch of Apple Raspberry Cider. I had 4 gallons of Tree Top apple juice sitting in the garage for when I was ready to bottle my first batch. That may be soon, but in the meantime I though I would do this test batch. Plus I needed some AJ to baste the pork butt I was smoking so I broke into one of these and used the extra to fill up a glass gallon container I had. I dumped in most of the syrup from one of the cans and some of the fruit along with my yeast and placed it in my fermentation chiller.

More good news. I think I am done collecting bottles for a while. I now have 66 bottles full and sitting on a shelf, 60 empty and cleaned, plus my fridge has at least 24 bottles in it. Many of those in the fridge are from my first batch, but some are not, so I would have some label removing to do, but all in all I am close enough to my 150 bottle goal that I am not worrying about it. Plus, having a batch and a half of empties with only a half batch of raspberry wheat and the cider which will bottled who knows when, lets me feel that I am far enough ahead to stop worrying about emptying bottles. To celebrate I busted into my bomber of Duvel with dinner. A very good beer in a bottle that I have no need for. It was great, and the pulled pork sandwiches I had it with were wonderful.

Mary and Rachel Swing Play

Mary is really into playing with her sister. Whenever Rachel wakes up from a nap, she wants to run upstairs and get her up. She is starting to do a real good job of interacting with her, and helping us entertain Rachel as you can see from this video.