I was too busy to blog this summer

I have been having an amazing summer, no doubt. My garden was semi-successful despite my neglect. Transformus was extremely satisfying. Wisconsin was beautiful. I built a sturdy stand for two rain barrels.  I've continued the buttermilk production and have been making both cornbread and buttermilk bread regularly. Oh, and I put in a pool. :) I'll try to update more often, it'll be nice when my memory leaves me.

RE: Reaching Personal Financial Goals

Paid off my car loan today. Five long years, but it is still an awesome car, very dependable and most importantly stylish.  So I feel that it was totally worth it. Now it will be like having extra money every month. I guess I should start paying off the rest of my debt... Being a grown up is hard work sometimes.

Cultured Buttermilk

I recently found this mason jar in my back yard. I was cleaning up some trash and it was laying on it's side in the dirt, amazingly unbroken. I brought it up to the house and oxicleaned it, then cleaned it again. In the end it's a perfectly functional glass jar, and I love that about these jars.
Here I am using the jar to culture my own buttermilk. I used foodiewithfamily 's simple instructions using an almost expired quart of whole milk mixed with maybe 1/3 cup of buttermilk. If this works (and I have no reason to think it won't) then I plan to start making more cornbread and cake and bread. :) Also, I imagine myself as a skinny old man drinking lukewarm buttermilk straight from the jar, dribbling some into my grey, wizened beard as I nod my head to a classic DJ Shadow track.

Brewing

I've been brewing up a storm lately. I'm drinking the last bottle of an American Wheat as I type this, in celebration of another successful boil. I just pitched the yeast on a Pale Ale, after first soaking a couple pounds of specialty grains and then boiling malt extract and hops (I think the term for this level of brewing is partial grain). It's easily a 4-hour job with lots of wet hands and measured steps and a few moments of excitement, and I think I'm getting the work flow down. I could use a couple more pieces of equipment, but the current setup works nicely. 
Last night I racked a Double that had been fermenting for a week. It had plugged up the airlock on the 2nd day with it's extraordinary krausenhead. When I opened it up to siphon into the 2nd fermenter, I had to push aside a 2 inch layer of yeast scum or whatever to get to the beer. I didn't taste it, but I smelled it and it smells great! I'm real excited about that one. 
One other success I had was an Oatmeal Stout. It's dark and delicious and should get better with time, to a point. So I'll put aside a 6 or 12 pack for next winter, to see what develops. 
I'm seriously digging this hobby. It can be reduced to the very basics: water, malt, hops, yeast. Or it can be all about the nearly endless variables that go into brewing. And the end result of this experimentation? Beer! I love beer, and I love learning, and I'm having a golden moment. :) 

Ramblin' Jack

I have been noticing something lately, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I have a tendency to read a caption before I really look at a picture. I seek out the caption after a cursory glance at the image, just enough to lightly stain the memory banks. I let that sit in the back while I tackle the description, the text of the situation. Then once I've fully grasped the W's ( whowhatwhyfor...) I turn back to the photograph for further scrutiny.
I feel as if I'm not giving the image enough credit to tell the story, and I'm not being present in the moment and appreciating the art. Also I think it could be the related byproduct of mass information input (I'm an information addict), a constant search for more facts about any particular topic that has caught my fleeting interest.
So I'm trying to be more conscious of it, and maybe that's enough. Because there are pros and cons to the proliferation of digital images, including the hyperbolic increase in the number of scantily clad self portraits in the bathroom mirror.
Anyway, just a thought I had and wanted to express in actual vocabulary. It feels great to form paragraphs. The FB/twitt phenomenon is training a generation to respond in short, abbreviated lolspeak. Kids these days... ;)

Caption:  This is my before frost harvest of basil and sage (taken about three weeks ago). I hung this in my bedroom for a fortnight and the finished it in a desiccant chamber, with final storage in mayonnaise and mason jars. This is the first time I've dried my own basil. I had a great year with those plants; much pesto was made. Ramblin' Jack Caption...

Bats!

I have an update on my bat situation. Yesterday we were chillaxin' in the yard, gettin' our quid on, when J exclaims "Bats!" There were about 4 or 5 bats just flyin' over the yard for maybe 20 or 30 minutes right at sunset. I haven't investigated the bat house yet for signs of habitation (guano), and it's really too early to even get my hopes up. But up they are! I would love to have a bat family living here, I would even build and install a second house asap.

Either way, it was a great feeling and a blessed moment. This was only the second time I've seen a bat at the house, and they were flying formations over us. :-)

Pups and Blooms

I took a couple pictures today. It was hot. I like dancing in the streets when I can...