I picked the first of my hops for the year today. This was enough to fill up about half of a gallon bag with. They are looking pretty good despite the Japanese beetle invasion. I am expecting to harvest a lot more still this year.

I’ve got stuff to make 10 gallon of Rye Pale Ale. I’m thinking I’ll make that with at least some of the homegrown hops. I also need to get ingredients for my yearly Blackberry wheat. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Jacki has been having some weird urge to go watch dirt track racing. Well we don’t have a dirt track close, but we do have a Drag Strip right outside town. So we went out there last night to check it out. It doesn’t even cost anything to go. Some pictures and a couple videos….

Ok under the fold is a bit of a rant….

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So we harvested a few Blackberrys for the first time this year. YAY! Looks like there are going to be lots more. Anyway pictures….

And the sexy close up….

Jacki finally has a shop open again! Her Etsy shop is here. Go take a look. I’ll give you a little preview.

Have some patients and I’m sure she’ll get some more stuff up there. Those roving balls she makes are the nicest things I’ve ever spun. *sigh* There is also going to be a website for Gaslight Dyeworks. It’s not much yet, but I’ll work on it.

Some spinning that I’ve been doing lately. This is the seacell/merino blend that I got from Creatively Dyed Yarn in Wooster. Dianne’s roving is so nice to spin and looks so beautiful when it’s spun.

This one is a triple ply that is two plys of CDY and one ply of alpaca that I dyed. It’s 123 yards long and it weighs 7.25 ounces.

Then I ran out of alpaca. So I plyed the rest of the CDY bobbins into a two ply. It’s 210 yards long and weighs 4 7/8 ounces.

I made another LED lamp. This time I used a clear glass insulator and 4 color changing LEDs. For some reason the colors don’t change at the same time. I rather like it that way so I haven’ even bothered trying to fix it so that they are all the same. Also if you want to see version 0.1 look here. Anyway some pictures…

Some video…

I’m going to have a busy day tomorrow. I’m going to brew, Jacki’s dad is coming in town and we have to take all the animals to the new vet. The plan is to take the animals to the vet while my mash is going. That should be an interesting way to do things.

I went ahead and go my starter going and crushed my grains tonight. I’m going to do a Saison. It’s been a while since I made one and I really like them. I’m going to drop some oak in the keg with this one when I keg it. So here are the starter and the grain getting milled…

So it’s been a while since I posted anything. I got since I got sick (and better ;) I’ve just had this feeling of not wanting to be on the internet. I just haven’t wanted to get on and post anything. Who knows why. Anyway I have been doing some spinning and baking so on to that.

This is the first 4oz of an 8oz braid I got at Wooster from Creatively Dyed . It’s a 30% Seacell 70% Merino blend and is great to spin.

We went up to Wooster for a fiber festival a couple weeks ago. Jacki has more about that on her blog. I bought a bunch of fiber from Creatively Dyed …..

The other thing I’ve been doing is baking. Jacki got me a really nice pizza peel and the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. So I haven’t read the whole book, but so far I really like the concept of making a big batch of dough and keeping it in the fridge to use as needed. Thanks to Ava and Lola for inspiring Jacki to get me this book. So here are some pics from the first bread run….

I’ll try to be a little better about posting. Maybe……

I’m sick. This sucks. It’s been a while since I’ve been really sick like this. The worst part is that I know who I got it from. My conductor last trip was sick and didn’t have the courtesy to stay home. So I was trapped in a 10 foot by 10 foot are with this sick motherfucker for the trip up and back. Your going to pay for this Sugar Bear.

Hops Update! They are all coming up really nice. Even the transplants are all coming up. EEEEEeeee. I’m really happy about the hops. So check it out.

Dogs had a good time hanging out in the yard also. Both shots are HDR.

So not much with the words. Just some fun pictures. Oh and Jacki predicted the Pennsylvania primary result pretty damn well. Better than any of the fuckheads on TV. Of course I might be a little bias…. Check it out on her post here.

This was an idea that came about when I brought home several glass insulators from work. I was bored and picked them up out of ditches. So today I actually pulled the parts together and went for it. The one thing I didn’t have was a power supply. So a quick stop at Goodwill produced one for $1. You can’t beat that. Here are a couple pictures of the finished project. A complete rundown of the build under the fold.

:)

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