It's My Life

Ginny is OK and enjoying the whoopla

http://www.therolladailynews.com/articles/2007/02/27/news/news01.txt

Very interesting - will have to keep an eye on it. And yes, I told her to call you, Mom!! You've probably got this one on your own news.

Storm update

Well, the insomnia is back and here it is 4 am. Not tired. So I'm drinking a bit of tea and checking the weather and hoping that the icky storm front will just "poof!" and go away.

I was supposed to escort Van to a rapier fighting event today. Day of Squirrely Wrath looked like it was going to be fun - but I'm not going. Not even if Van decides to try it am I going. There's more snow coming. Icky!! There is snow piled up in front of our door from blowing off the roof. Since I bought a copy of Secret Garden, maybe I'll just indulge. The plows are out; I can hear them scraping the streets.

I've got lots to do; armoring, sewing, housework, brewing. The time will not be wasted, I'm sure! I'm working on an Iron Rose favor, and then I want to do this sort of trim on a gown. That's a wool fabric but it should be as effective on linen. I like linen; crisp and not nearly as scratchy!

live webcam

This is a retired couple in Spain - http://www.stickam.com/profile/casarosado  and who knows? They were on but leaving the area when I came into this site.

Stickam.com is yet another experiment of the Web 2.0 community. Social experimentation reaching for its full potential.

Update, update!!

A quick post to update my family as to my doings. It's been awhile, hasn't it? Mainly, it's SCA and Van and work and home. Pretty much. Saw Tharen and Megan, his new wife, this last Sunday. She's a very sweet, funny lady. Also a Theatre major, she also has the compassion to work with the less-fortunate members of our society. One of her part-time jobs brings her into contact with elderly women who were born with mental retardation. Even in the brief time we talked, her concern over their well-being and her regret that she only gets to know them now, when they have had full and meaningful lives, is evident. Tharen is very lucky.

I threw my elbow the wrong way two Sundays ago and developed what could be tennis elbow. Ouch!! So I babied it and didn't work out and it just got more painful. Someone suggested picking the lighter weights back up and doing full extensions on some basic curls and lifts to strengthen the muscles that support the tendons, and you know, it doesn't hurt as bad this evening. Huh.

Van got me collapsable tent poles today so now the tent will fit into the car. Yeah!  This is a good thing. Tonight, the Shire's curia meeting, the officer's meeting, was a short, good, useful. And now I'm tired...time for bed. I'll try to write something deep and meaningful tomorrow, OK?

Eighteen Bottles of Mead on the Wall!!!

I wasn't looking forward to opening that fermenting honey mix as it was purely nasty the last time I peeked at it. So when I opened it this evening and did not see a mass of fermenting gunk but a nicely clearish liquid with just a few masses of yeast floating around in it. Huh. I did all this cleanup of bottles and a carboy, racking the brew into the carboy just to see what it was like. Tasted it. Not bad! It's got 1.04 SG and the chart says this will be about 5.5% alcohol. Very interesting. I filled up eighteen bottles with mead - mostly gatorade bottles but two pyrat bottles.

So now to see if they explode!!

GAG-Mead

Link: GAG-Mead.

"Mead from Curye on Inglysch (mead and Fyn Mede & Poynaunt): The two recipes here are less clear. The first is a straightforward mead recipe, which has no clear measurements. Since the recipe calls for letting it stand only a few days before drinking, and uses the honey boiled out of pressed combs (plus a quart of pure honey), we concluded it was probably very light, We redacted the recipe as about 1 lb honey per gallon. When we used this same assumption for the apples and spice version (the second recipe) we got a spicy and sharp mead (poignant or piquant as the recipe says) with a life of only a month or so. The last two recipes are from a 14th century English manuscript. These both use the same base, with one being a plain mead, and the second a mertheglyn (with hyssop, rosemary, centory, thyme, etc.). This recipes calls for 1 gallon honey to 4 gallons water, or about 2-2.5 lb/gallon. This recipe, similar to the Curye calls for one week fermentation before drinking. This comes out somewhat sweet, very active, and quite tasty".

This blog discusses low alcohol meads that are to be drunk quickly, rather than bottled and aged. Low alcohol means you can drink more without getting tipsy! My current brew has 1.5 pounds honey per gallon and isn't very sweet.

Skimming Honey

Hi, Hi!  Just a chatty post to start off my small mead production. I've got 7.5 lbs of honey and lots of water coming to a simmer - I'll heat and skim scum until there isn't any more scum to skim. Then into a carboy to cool and get oranges and ginger added. When it's cool enough, in goes the ale yeast!

This is a quick mead that would be fine and dandy for making for feasts and revels, according to Baron Sir Riekin.  I'm going to bottle this first batch and hand it out to the fighters, over 21, who saved me gatorade bottles.  Poetic, that is! Plus Mike F., who isn't a fighter but is bringing me wine bottles. And Kirby, who said he could provide champaigne bottles that are stronger and less likely to break under fermentation pressures.

Hummm....according to this recipe, the spices go into the water before the honey.  But this one says to add it at the end of boiling. Since I'm using a top fermenting yeast maybe I will just pop this all into a fermenting tub for a couple of days. And the orange and ginger can go into a separate pot of hot water now since I've not nearly the five gallons of liquid in the honey mixture that I will need.

It's been a good day. I did a workout, then chatted for a bit while drinking coffee, then showered and went driving with Van, looking at open houses. Didn't actually go into any, lol, as none were what we'd live in. We ended up going to "Night in the Museum" which was just a delightful movie. I'm going to end the day with this small mead production, the comics, a bathroom scrubbed, and some sewing.

Wow. I've skimmed three times while writing this short note and each time, the top is again white with scum.

7:25 pm update - still skimming!  8:06  - still skimming!

PaperBackSwap.com - Letter From Our Founder

Link: PaperBackSwap.com - Letter From Our Founder.

"Do you enjoy reading paperback books as much as we do? This PaperBack Club was started because we were tired of not being able to share good used paperbacks with others. A while back, the proverbial light bulb went off and we came up with a solution. So we talked and talked about it (until our friends got sick of listening to us), and we decided to build this web site! "

This is a cool idea.