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By Annette, on February 4th, 2012% Working away at the ranch: taking down Mount Mulch a wheelbarrow at a time. Hauling hoses out to the trees to water them since we’ve had no rain at all. Spraying fish gut solution on the garlic and making the entire front garden smell like a fish processing factory. Pulling weeds. Shoveling soil from where I’ve reconfigured frame lines up front. Checking the blueberry plants to make sure they’re still alive (they are). Realizing while eating after washing my hands three times that next time, wearing gloves while using the sprayer to dispense fish gut solution would be a good idea. Playing with the lazy dogs on this ranch. Wondering if the clouds will finally get together and bring some rain. Sitting down to watch Colony again and try to finish the review of it. Thinking about bees. Laughing at the crow that followed me around this morning, cawing away at me as we moved along from task to task.
In all: a good day. And it isn’t over yet.
By Annette, on January 31st, 2012% I’m not a huge fan of overly-litigious people or corporations. That’s why I was quite happy to see this suit last year from a wide group against Monsanto. Monsanto, of course, has “security” people that roam around, getting in the faces of farmers when they suspect their GMO crap has “been utilized” by those farmers, when in fact, it is Monsanto doing the trespassing. Most farmers wind up settling – and being bound by gag orders – because they simply do not have the money to fight. This battle, though, is well worth it, and it boggles the mind that anyone would agree with Monsanto’s arguments that the farmers are infringing when Monsanto’s seed invades their fields. It will take a couple of years to get this done, but hopefully more sensible minds will prevail and people can tell Monsanto to get stuffed when they come knocking.
By Annette, on January 30th, 2012% Looking forward to the (short) series Doomsday Preppers coming up on National Geographic. They had a standalone episode last year, with one guy repeating the same long phrase about coronal ejections over and over – but he and his wife did build a tilapia tank out of their pool and used that waste to fertilize crops in a very nice setup. I’ve been reading the comments on some sites about the new series – in the clips for which I could swear I saw the Dervaes clan briefly, so that part will be muted out or forwarded on the DVR if that’s the case, since they annoy me – and I have to say that some of the fringe dwellers on those sites are absolutely batshit insane. Between the people with grandiose conspiracy theories about how the military is gearing up to take over at least one major city and the armchair commandos blathering about OPSEC, it can be amusing when it isn’t a bit scary. I watch this sort of show for the same reason I watch things like Hoarders: morbid fascination.
I’ve also been watching some bee-related documentaries and working up some reviews of those, including the single most annoying line out of all of them.
Mount Mulch is being taken down, slowly but surely. The back garden area has two walkway areas to mulch to be complete before I move along to the herb garden and berries up front. I figure Tuesday to finish the paths and begin on the other stuff. Wednesday is yet another trip to the dentist, so Thursday will be the day to pick things back up again. Instead of banging/jarring my head around working outside after the dentist, I’ll be starting the wine (riesling!) that we’re going to make here. Fun stuff.
By Annette, on January 23rd, 2012% I’ve been working on Mt. Mulch in the rear garden. Mt. Mulch is the truck full of mulch that we had someone deposit on the grounds in order to mulch in the paths in the various gardens and around the trees. The first load, which was up front, I had some help to finish off from family. This time, it’s only me hacking away at it. It’s good exercise, really, but it takes a toll on your traps, from squeezing together armfuls of it to toss into the wheelbarrow. Why pick it up by hand? Have you ever tried using a shovel on a big pile of mulch? That’s a one way ticket to exhaustion and sore everything (and lots of cursing). It’s faster to do it by hand. The only downside is that while the top of the pile is dry, it’s wet under that layer, making it a chore to carve out a chunk to move to the barrow.
Goal: six barrows a day loaded, dumped, and spread, in order to get the back garden finished. That’s about the limit my morning shake gives me in terms of calories/energy, but it works out well since I can generally get one eight foot long section mulched at about an inch per barrow load- which in turn gives me one full row done on the long side of the garden. It’s a lot of mulch, but I only have four rows left, plus the large non-row area where there is currently nothing but which I’m considering for containers. I should be able to finish the mulching of the back area this week and then move on to the berries on the easterly fenceline to get those done.
After the daily loads, it was dog shaving time, something I did in bare feet on the front porch instead of getting dog hair in my boots and socks. They’re so cute with their cuts, but I suspect they were pooped after the excitement/stress of it all.
Tomorrow: more mulching. More flats to go under the lights. More something else. There’s always something else.
By Annette, on January 21st, 2012% Bottling day at the ranch for the German style lager we brewed. Started on Monday, completed Saturday night. Not too bad, as far as hobbies go, and much of the week was spent waiting – as is the case for most things around here, like waiting for dough to rise, or seeds to germinate, or something to ripen, or a canvas to dry. When the bees finally arrive and are hived, we’ll start the waiting game with them, too.
Step one: siphoning.
As it turns out, this is better with two people, so one can hold the siphon while the other pours in the priming sugar (and takes photos).
It’s a dark beer.
Very dark, to the point where a flashlight comes in handy to see the bottom of the siphon to make sure it isn’t embedded in the gunk at the bottom.
The bucket fills as the carboy empties.
And eventually it’s down to the last that we’re taking out.
Time to bottle!
Capping. Take a cap, center the capping tool over it.
Lean into it and push the handles down until they crimp the cap on the bottle.
Release.
Repeat. Forty-nine times.
Before you know it, you have a couple of cases of beer, ready to go into the cold room to age.
Then comes the cleanup.
I wonder if the chickens would like to nibble on this. Would they get themselves a buzz going?
By Annette, on January 20th, 2012% Ever wonder about that phrase? Wonder no more.
Bottling bucket, spigot, siphons, bottles, and caps, all washed and ready to be sanitized Saturday. Also known as: bottling day.
Before bottling, though, there are a number of other things that have to be done, primarily outside. Unlike our neighbors to the north, it’s going to be rather balmy here for the next week or so, with temps in the mid to upper 70s. Winter in Florida. Have to love it.
By Annette, on January 19th, 2012% Almost.
As I mentioned the other day, I started a batch of beer. It took a few hours for the yeasties to get their gobble on, but when they did, the airlock was bubbling away.
All the crap around the neck is where the foam went pretty high in the carboy. It settled into percolation quite nicely, seen in the foamy activity at the top.
Yesterday, things slowed down a bit, and today, they’ve slowed down a lot – an indication that the yeast has done its business and belched out alcohol from the sugars it ate.
The foaming is almost completely stopped, and there is just the occasional bubble hitting the airlock. Sniffing the top of the airlock, you can smell the alcohol quite clearly. On Friday, I’ll wash and sanitize the bottling bucket, bottles, and caps, then transfer this into the bucket (with the priming sugar). Saturday: bottling time. Once bottled, we’ll store the beer away for a few weeks to age. I suspect there may be a tasting of fresh beer here at the ranch. In the name of research, of course.
By Annette, on January 17th, 2012% First you clean.
Then you put together your ingredients, get the mix into the carboy, pitch your yeast, put the airlock on, and wait for it to ferment.
It didn’t do much, at first. I was hanging out, checking on it now and again, to see if it would start bubbling away, but finally gave up and went to bed. At about 3 AM, I woke up to the smell of malty bread, and figured the little beasties were doing their magic. After a few days, the action should calm down, and we’ll move the brew into the bottling bucket.
Why brew your own beer? Why not? I can’t drink it, of course, since the radiation treatments did the tango on my mouth, but others can (and hopefully they won’t be poisoned by some stray bacteria missed during the sanitation or that sneaks in during the process).
By Annette, on January 14th, 2012%  Blueberry
By Annette, on January 13th, 2012% We have four monarch butterfly chrysalides hanging in the front planting area near the walkway. We had not actually seen the various caterpillars that were munching on the butterfly bush form their cozy little homes, but one day, there they were. Had four, that is: two butterflies emerged from theirs, and two remain, no doubt hibernating against the cold weather.
One of the newly emerged butterflies we found on the driveway on Thursday while Getting Things Done here at the ranch. It was still damp from its chrysalis, and I plucked it off the driveway to keep it from getting stomped by a wayward foot. It is a thing of beauty to hold such a creature, truly.
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2012 Harvest Totals Eggs: 152
Vegetables:
Peas (shelling): 1# 12 3/8 oz
Peppers (bell, all colors): 7# 1 7/8 oz
Herbs:
Marjoram: 5/8 oz
Oregano: 3/8 oz
Rosemary: 7 1/2 oz
Thyme: 6 oz
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