I went duck hunting for the first time last week and have been meaning to make a post about it. Until I get to a full-blown post describing the day's adventures here are a few pictures to tide you over.

Tom setting out the decoy spread before sunrise.


Armed and dangerous.


Our only duck of the day. Unfortunately I didn't shoot it.


Tom let me take the duck home though.


It dressed down to 1.3 pounds and turned out very nice.


Amy came over to help roast it that night, and we also made Alton Brown's French onion soup. It turned out good too.

I get to buy one of these tomorrow!

I took today off from work to make it a four day weekend and to paint my garage door. I started the day by leaving the house at 8:30 AM to have breakfast and read the paper at McDonalds. After that I stopped at the library and picked up the movies Crossing Over and In Bruges.

The main reason for going out was to swing by Home Depot. I had exterior primer and paint left over from painting the trim a couple years ago, so I took it back and had them put it on their paint shaker for me. I also picked up some sand paper.

I got home and set up camp in the driveway. I tied Mitch up in the shade, plugged the radio in, poured a big glass of Diet Pepsi, and set out all of the gear I needed.

I first ran my palm sander over the entire door and then washed it down with a towel and water. After it was dry I cut in the edges with a brush. When that was done I washed my brush and then poured primer into my roller pan and finished up applying the primer.

The primer needs at least 16 hours to cure before applying the top coat, but that's OK because now I am tired.

It is 4:30 PM, I just got out of the shower and I'm trying to decide what to do next. The first Ohio State game of the season is on ESPN tomorrow at 11 AM CDT. I was going to make a pot of chili and corn bread for the game, but now I don't feel like cooking. I think instead I will get a frozen Home Run Inn pizza (my favorite!) and maybe a few other nibbles to have on hand.

I don't know whether to get up and get the top coat on the garage door right away tomorrow before the game, wait until after the game, or just do it on Sunday or Monday. I guess I'm leaning towards doing it first thing in the morning. Maybe I will just cut in with the brush and then wash up. That is the hard part. Using the roller is easy and only takes 20 minutes.

I picked up dog poop and got the grass cut Thursday night when I got home from work, so I don't have to worry about fitting that in this weekend.

After 24 hours of drying on top of the fan my hops went from 5.5 ounces to 1.9 ounces.

I harvested my first season of hops tonight and I got way more than I expected. I was thinking an ounce, maybe two if I was lucky. I got 5.5 ounces!



I expect the weight to go down after they are dried, but I have no idea by how much.

I have a box fan on a stand. I pointed the fan straight up, and then took a window screen, spread the hops out on the screen, and put the screen on top of the fan. They should be dry by tomorrow morning.



After I was done picking the hops my fingers were coated with a wonderfully aromatic yellow sticky film from the fresh resin in all the cones.

Tonight I finally got around to watching The Wrestler. It is the best movie I have seen in a long time. Mickey Rourke was amazing. He deserved all of the best actor nods and wins he got for the role. I can't wait to see his next movies.

I just racked the beer I brewed last week and I think it is going to be very good. My basic recipe now is 6 pounds of dry malt extract, 1 pound of specialty grains steeped for an hour, usually crystal malt, and Safale US-5 yeast. Then I adjust the hops to what I want. This batch I wanted to be on the lower end of the hop spectrum and keep it on hand for people new to craft beers so they won't be turned off by a really hopped up beer. I designed the recipe to come in at 31 IBU's (International Bittering Units). The Safale US-05 is supposed to have been cultured from the Sierra Nevada brewery. It is very crisp and clean and just gets out of the way.

After I tasted a sample this morning I wanted to dry hop it in the worst way, but like I said I want this to be an approachable beer for people just starting out. I think I might brew this same recipe next weekend and just nudge the hops up a smidge, and dry hop it.

This is also the first batch I brewed where I put all of my hops in a mesh paint strainer. This resulted in a very clear beer and I think might help reduce the chances for off tastes.

Also because there were no solids in the beer I could finally see how much yeast was generated. I scooped out 4 cups of yeast hulls from the bottom of the fermentor!! All of that from an 11 gram yeast packet.

Brad's Summer APA
Brewed 7/3/09
IBU's: 31

1 lb crystal malt steeped 30 minutes
6 lbs Light Dry Extract
0.60 oz Cascade [5.40 %] (60 min) Hops
0.70 oz Columbus [12.20 %] (60 min) Hops
1.00 oz Amarillo [8.20 %] (5 min)
Safale US-05

This is what my four hop plants look like so far. I need to figure out a better support system for next season.



This is a little frame I made out of PVC pipe, four elbows and two T's. The T's are what the elastic of the paint straining bag are looped around. I put all of my hop additions into the strainer bag, and then when I am done with the boil I just pull the bag out and I am left with very very clear wort.



I got a package of two bags for $4 at Home Depot. They are made for professional painters to pour their five gallon buckets of paint through before they use it in a spray gun or if the paint gets bits and pieces in it.

For my purposes the bags will be reusable for a good number of times. I just turn it inside out, rinse it really well, wring it out and hang it to dry.

I love this picture of Mitch coveting Bella's Nylabone.

Mitch is 6 years old today!

I didn't tell him, though, so he won't be upset that I didn't get him anything.

I picked up a bottle of Don Miguel Gascón Malbec 2008 yesterday but have not tried it yet. It has a number of pretty good reviews on-line. If I had to assign a letter grade to what most reviewers said about the wine I would say it is averaging around a B+, maybe an A-, and especially for the price.

I was too full from a chicken dinner yesterday and I don't want to open it until I am ready to enjoy it without distraction, so I will wait to uncork it until then.

Went out for some beers last night with some work friends to Two Brothers Brewery. Our waitress was very chatty and it came up that she used to work at a winery. We started talking wine, and one thing she said was that Argentinean malbec's are an excellent bargain right now and very delicious. They have almost become the national varietal of Argentine. I plan on picking up a bottle this weekend when I do my grocery shopping and will let you know what I think. If you try a bottle let me know what you think.

For what it's worth, if I had to replace my GPS today I would get the Garmin Nuvi 755T. It is on Amazon.com for about $320.

A few months ago I watched the Good Eats episode where Alton Brown makes sauerkraut. There is almost nothing too it and I decided I wanted to give it a try. Since then I have been looking for the perfect glass crock to make it in. Last night I think I found it at Wal-Mart, so I picked that up and a couple heads of cabbage and attempted my first batch of sauerkraut today.

This is what it looked like after being in the crock for about 30 minutes.



My finger is pointing to the level of liquid so far. The glass of water sitting in the crock is to provide pressure to help squeeze out the liquid from the cabbage and to keep the cabbage submerged to avoid contact with the air.

This is what it looked like after four hours.



All of the cabbage is now covered by liquid. In order to fit the lid on I put a smaller glass of water on top. The glass is sitting on top of a little glass saucer. I tried it with just the saucer but the cabbage was buoyant enough to lift it up to surface level.

I am supposed to keep it cool (65 – 70 degrees) and skim off the blooms that will form every couple days for two weeks. It sounds like after the first couple weeks no more blooms will form and I let it sit for another two weeks for a total of four weeks.

I used to be able to get real sauerkraut at Bobak's when they had a local store. It is so much better than the sauerkraut that is just cured with vinegar. I can't wait to see how it turns out. Very excited. If it works and I like it I don't think I will buy sauerkraut anymore. It will keep for six months in the fridge, and it would be no big deal to whip up a batch every few months.

I love this ad. Makes me laugh every time.

I love my Toyota Matrix! I was able load up my lawnmower with lots of room to spare. It's surprising that a little car has so much functional room



The transmission/gearbox that drives the front wheels of the mower locked up. This morning I spent some time seeing if I could take it out myself and replace it, but I got to a point where the next step could have left me with a bunch of parts laying on the garage floor and not knowing how to put them back together. So I took a couple of eight foot 2x4's, laid them on my bumper as a ramp and rolled the lawnmower right into the car with no problems.

I took it to Sears and it turns out the truck only picks up lawn mowers to take to the shop on Thursdays, and the kid said it usually takes two weeks after that. Looks like I am going to have to borrow a neighbor's mower a couple times.

The gearbox froze up early last year or late the year before that, and I just took the drive belt off and used it as a manual mower. It is a little heavier than a non-self-propelled mower, but it wasn't too bad pushing it. But the last week or two my knee has been a little tender and pushing the mower up the few steep inclines I have was not comfortable, so I figured I better get the mower fixed. It's also nice having the self propelled working when it is 95 degrees and humid in the middle of summer.

Here are the latest pictures of my hop plants.

Willamette


Cascade


Chinook


Centennial

I don't print very much on my home ink jet printer, and as a result I think I end up wasting more ink it gums up in the cartridge than I actually use for printing.

I have always used the printer manufacturer's ink cartridges, but when I went to the get new ink a month or so ago I thought I would try refilled cartridges. The lesser quality was immediately noticeable. The edges of each letter was blurry and I could see the ink bleeding along the little paper fibers. Not recommended.

Because of all this I have decided I am going to buy a low end laser printer. As far as I know the dry toner powder will not dry up and clog like ink jet ink, or at least I think it would last much much longer than the ink does. My requirements:

1. It must have built-in networking so I can plug it directly into my router and send print jobs to it from any of my computers around the house.

2. I would very much like it to have automatic duplexing so I can print on both sides and save paper, but I am not 100% committed to this.

3. I am going back and forth on whether to just get a black and white printer or a color laser printer. I don't know if the quality of the color output of a low end color laser printer will be as good as the color laser I am used to at work or an ink jet. For what I mostly print I don't know if the extra money for color is worth it either. I'm probably leaning towards just black and white, but I'm still open to color. I will have a better idea once I see some sample prints at the store and price out the cost of the color toner.

A toner cartridge costs more than a set of ink cartridge, but on a per sheet cost it is much cheaper. It's something like $0.08 per page for an ink jet and $0.02 per page for a laser. The printers I am looking at are in the $200 range. The brands I am interested in are Brother, Samsung and, of course, HP.

My first hop plant poked out of the ground today! It is the Centennial variety. The warm weather being forecast the next couple of days should help coax the other three plants to show themselves if they are still viable. It looks like a mini hop cone at the top, and all of the leaves have that distinctive hop look. How fun!