Books

I decided to track the books I've read this year on Goodreads. Just a fun little experiment to see how many books I read. So far this year, I've read two books twice (well, one was reading and one was an audiobook but still...) Yes, I re-read books. I have a horrible memory and I also like to re-read previous books in a series when the latest one comes out.
January: 18
February: 22
March: 46
April: 38
May: 32
June: 29 (on the 28th)
In my defense (do I need to defend this? It's an awful lot of books, but...), a lot of these are books I've read before or I listened to while doing other chores or are short, young adult books. A LOT. If you just went with adult books that are improving for the mind, there are probably about 10 (actually, it's 10 exactly).
Then again, I'm a bibliophile so it's hard to get too upset with having read such a large number of books. It's all in fun and I've enjoyed every one.

Three! Beer Recipes! Ah! Ah! Ah!

Brewcraft Newcastle Brown

-Did NOT follow recipe on label

1. Carrie put some H2O in a small thing and is boiling it (the water, not the pot, cause that don't boil too well)

-CLEAN, CLEAN, CLEAN

-If you have an electric stove, watch that pot dance. Dance, pot, dance.

-Reminder- Never go to Costco when you are hungry

2. Clean Carboy

-1st round-iodine

-2nd round-hot water

*warm malt in can so it comes out of the can easier

3. We're pouring the can that came with the kit into the water

4. Add 400 grams of malted barley (whatever type Eric left) and 600 grams of corn sugar (dextrose) to the mixture

-keep below a boil

-keep below a burn

5. Add 2 generous tbsp Co-op honey (it's crystalized so we need more and Carrie still has allergies)

6. Stir for a LONG time

NOTE-make sure Carrie has her hose at the beginning or she will run around the house asking, "My hose, where's my hose?"

7. Dump "some" (couple inches) water in the carboy so it won't shatter when we add the mixtuer

NOTE- Don't let Jessi stir. She doesn't stir with love.

NOTE-If Carrie can't find her thermometer, tell her to check her hot springs kit.

8. Proof the yeast in wort/water combination @ ~72 [degrees] F.

NOTE: Use metric measurements except for temperature

9. Move pot off heat to temper before adding to carboy

-Wave hand over 2 cups of mixture with yeast and intone "Yeasties, yeasties"

NOTE: if you lean in real close, you can hear them sing, "Oooooo, we're making beer, oooooooo"

10. Time to pour (@ ~ 120 [degrees] F)

-wash your hands

NOTE: Liquor is good

11. Swish the liquid

NOTE: Liquor is still good

12. Add more water to Carboy

13. Swirl once again. Gently.

14. Sterilize hose with vodka

15. Insert blowoff hose in Carboy

16. Let the magic happen

**Note all words and tabbing are taken directly from beer notebook June, 2009

Work Tour

Anne and Derek at the Midway Geyser Basin

Every once in awhile, my job has some great perks. One of them is our once-a-year tour of the park with our new seasonals. This year we also had Anne, the archivist who started in March. She grew up in Bozeman but hadn't been in the park for awhile so this was a fun trip for everyone. We also had our high school volunteer who is moving away so this was her last trip in the park. It's a great way to see the actual sites of the stuff we help others learn about.

It was a cold and rainy day but we perked ourselves up by eating ice cream at all of the stops. Okay, that was mostly me but I LOVE Wilcoxson's and I had brought vegetables for lunch so it was all good.

This is also a great way for everyone to get to know each other, cooped up in a car for 10 hours.

Lobby of the Old Faithful Inn

At the Lower Falls

Behind on postings-again... Garage Sale

This year we had the annual Garage Sale a little earlier in the year than usual. I needed to make sure I could get everything out of the garage so Josh could move in. It was great, we had a lot of people bring stuff to sell and, though I forgot to put an ad in the newsletter, enough people saw our signs and read the messages on Facebook and Craigslist that we had a respectable showing. We didn't make as much money as last year but we also didn't have as much stuff. So, it was fine. The usual round of egg casserole and mimosas with a touch of cinnamon buns kept everybody happy. I think this just gets easier every year 'cause we all know the drill and can get stuff marked faster. A good time was had by all, hacky-sack was played and naps were started by 2. A great day all around.

Two Beer recipes- Ah ha ha

8/1 (but really 7/31)
Recipe:
LALVIN, EC-118 saccharomyes bayanus
1/2 kil Muntons dry malt-amber
1/2 kilo sugar in the raw
"Some" (Eyeballs down of a bear of) honey

1/4 c. priming sugar
1/4 c. amber dry malt
3/4 c. lactose

Dissolve misxture in two bottles of cider. Jessi whisked like a fiend. Smells nice and appley. Sidenote: Carrie, in her drunkeness, decided that we should wash bottles tonight for a brew to be bottled next week.
->No more honey in the house, need to improvise.
Sugar is disolved, removing from heat
Dump 1 1/2 bottles into the carboy first so's it doesn't crack
Let mixture get to 75 degrees and add the yeasties (Carrie is drunk, so take the rest of the instructions with a grain of salt)
LALVIN is added
Add a little bit of wort to your water to get it spot on
Perfect at 105 degrees
Add yeasties. Let sit without stirring at least 15 minutes
It went up and down
ADd 2.25 tsps of Pecitic Enzyme to the wort
Swirl the yeast mixture into the carboy
Add Wort and swirlie, swirlie, swirlie
Add rest of the cider
Run cheap vodka through tubing
Put the Blow off on
Blow off initiated! Go yeast!

Make sure the spigot on the bucket is upside down and turned with handle to the left. While siphoning (or "racking") cider into bucket, wait until about 2 inches are in the bucket, add ingredients while gently stirring in one direction. When suction starts to fail, lift wand, keeping on side of bucket, above level of cider. Make sure NOT to suck dregs from carboy (Especially since Carrie is going to refrigerate and culture the yeast, 'cause this is good yeast, not evil yeast)

One beer - ha ha ha

Weissenbier X2 7/14/09
Drunk as [expletive deleted] (ED)
Can Preumium Premium Imported
Brewcraft Bavarian Wheat 1.5 kg
Instructions call for 1 kilogram dextrose, have 700gr
Am dumping all this [ED] into the wort
Now we need to add malt 'cause we have lots of malt
300 grams of malt ed Barley are going in if I can find a funnel (very chunky) (I need a bigger funnel, this has a [ED] screen in it.)
Stir until the chunks are not chunky any more
Dance and sing while stirring
If not disintegrating, whack with a pastry cutter a la Jojo
Eventually, being like flour, but not really, it will melt
Sacrifice local honey (1 squirt) so's Carrie's allergies will get better
Add more water to temper it a bit
Turn off heat
Doesn't matter if their are still chunks 'cause the yeasties will eat them (If you run out, find more liquor)
Before putting the yeast in, make sure it's cool enough, that they won't die
Pour pot through funnel into fermenter. Add yeast as pouring
("C'mon little guys, make beer")
Add more water to de-glaze the pot. Use rest to fill up the fermenter.