So much to do.

So I finally let go of my BMX bike.  I listed it for $150 on craigslist, which apparently wasnt enough as I had a dozen people contact me about it.  I ended up selling it to a couple 10-14 year old kids, which made it a lot easier when they came and picked it up this morning.  They were very excited about it and their mom said they saved the money themselves, so it felt good.  It reminded me quite a bit of a 30 year old dude who sold me a surfboard for really cheap when I was their age. 

In other news I really like gardening and the rewards of it.

We have almost a dozen jalapenos growing (pictured above) as well as this sweet huge pumpkin on the vine.

Today is the final brew day here at the Humboldt house.  I opted to make a bunch of beer to try to use up some of the grain and hops that I had sitting around.  The grain should last the move, but the hops are a flower and will really lose their umph if they get hot and stuff during the move.  The objective was to use up as much as possible.  We will see how the beer turns out.

One negative about brewing stuff is my brother, who owns around half of the stuff we have, decided to ask for money for everything he bought.  When we previously talked about it, it seemed like he was going to let me have/use all our equipment for the time being.  It really complicates things and now post move I will have to spend a decent amount of money to be able to make beer again.  Its only frustrating to me because I have been the only one who has used and taken care of any of the equipment for pretty much a year now.  I will let him sit on it and maybe a year from now after he he will be willing to part with it. 

Only 4 more days...til campin time.

ITS TOO HOT!

Its way to hot.  You can't move without sweating and our house always seems to be warmer than it is outside.  I can't wait for that nice coastal breeze..  Unfortunately I don't have too much to talk about.  Busy with work and trying to prepare for the pending homelessness/move.

I do however have a few pictures from the brewery tour we did a couple days before my birthday.  It was a lot of fun even though we didn't go on any brewery tours, we tasted a lot of good beer.  My favorite of the day which I unfortunately did not take any pictures there was Funkwerks.  Its an awesome 1 1/2 year old brewery that makes some fantastic belgian beers.  They specialize in the Saison style and they do it very well.  The guy won a medal for his homebrewed saison, after which he went to brewing school and then started a brewery.  Some people make it seem easy...

Anyway here are a few pictures:

Randes face is priceless in this one..

 

Touching Cheeks.

Wolfgang came too! He goes everywhere he can.

DANG

 I am very excited to provide a garden update.  At least someone is enjoying the recent daily downpours...

We are going to harvest some lettuce heads for a salad the next day or two.  Everything is huge and thriving.  peppers and tomatoes and cucumber all have lots of blossoms.

Apparently we have pumpkins growing too.

The grape vines require constant trimming.  They are halfway to the garage on the telephone line and our house is pretty much surrounded.

Wolfman says its tooo hot.

Brew Day

Delicious hoppy goodness full to the brim.  Yesterday I brewed the 'sort of sumpin sumpin' which I managed to squeeze 1/4lb of hops into the boil with another 1/4lb for dry-hopping that is going to go into the secondary fermenter.  A lot of hops doesn't mean a bitter beer.  This one is all about hop flavor, which hopefully comes out as some citrusy candy-like goodness.  I added a few ounces of crushed coriander seed to this one as well as a little personal touch.  We will have to wait and see how well the coriander seed blends with the hop flavors.  I am pretty excited about this beer as I have been on a quest to achieve the wonderful hop flavor that so many commercial beers exhibit these days. 

I feel like the beer making deadline is approaching fast, so I hope to be a diligent brewer in the next few weeks.  I am really limited by the fact that I can only temperature control one 5 gallon batch at a time, and since the basement is 75-80 degrees, temperature control is pretty much a must to make good beer.   I will update soon with beer progress..

Day 2 off work

I managed to get out of work today and got my brother to go instead...awesome.  I hurt my knee the other day at work and although it is feeling a lot better, I just am not feeling like working just yet.  It is a really easy evening which is mostly babysitting.

We just experienced THE craziest thunder/hail/crazy downpours of my recent memory.  Poor Jammie and Lexi are working day 2 of Kenny Chesney up at Red Rocks, hopefully the weather is better up there.

Where is he supposed to pee if the whole yard is flooded?

Garden update pre-hail storm so hopefully it looks similar now.

A pic of our sweet back yard setup.  Less than $50 invested in it! 

 

Did a little bit of beer stuff today too.  Put the base wheat beer onto blackberries today.  Rande helped.  We managed to keg at least a few beers worth of the base beer so we will see how that tastes carbonated. 

Hoping to make a beer tomorrow if the weather is nicer.  A semi-clone of a Lagunitas Brewing Co. Little Sumpin' Sumpin'.  It is one of my favorite beers, so we will see how it comes out.  The champer has an oil change scheduled at Blazer Automotive on Monday, I hope to have them check it over and make sure everything is good.  I fear I have a small coolant leak somewhere up front, so I might have them pressure test the coolant system to see if I'm crazy or not.

Workin Hard

My last post coincides with the last day I had off of work, combined with the 90 - 100 F heat we have had over the past weekend I am just about shot.  Today has been a pretty good day of relaxation, would be better if our room wasn't still 85 - 90 degrees. 

Aside from work the only thing I have to show for myself for the past week is an ever growing to do list combined with increasing anxiety about the upcoming month without a house and the subsequent move.  I always have to keep in mind that we are all in complete control of what happens in our lives, and Jammie and I can do whatever we want regardless of work or living situation.  I will say that I can't wait for some change of scenery and hopefully things fall in place for us this fall. 

One good thing is the van engine made it to the 1000 mile marker.  I intended to schedule the 1000 mile warranty oil change today, but apparently I was meant to do to it tomorrow, so hopefully i do it then.  It is almost to 1K and I am paranoid about the warranty stuff, so I really don't want to go over 1000 before getting an oil change. Either way the van seems to be running good so that is great.

The only picture I have to post since I've been so busy and forgot to take any pictures at Cherry Creek Arts Festival.  "Symphony above the Clouds" in Woodland Park Colorado.  Which is up in the mountains just west of CO Springs.  This was my 4th or 5th year doing this symphony gig and it was good this year as Chris opted to bring along a bunch of tired employees to help out.  60 or so microphones and all the necessary stands and cables to go with it, time consuming to say the least...

Sorry no beer or bikes updates today.  There is beer and moped work to be done.  I somehow broke the compression ring on the moped, so I have to work on that.  Luckily I have all the parts now to repair it, just need some time.  Working another symphony tomorrow, so hopefully Friday and Saturday are productive days for me.