24 Years, and We're Still Together!

Hard to believe that 24 years ago, yesterday, Lightnin' and I got hitched! I know there's several of you out there that thought that there was no way this relationship was going to last. Well it not only lasted, it's flourishing! So there! ;-)

So what do you do to celebrate 24 years? Let's see, 25 is silver and 50 is gold, I guess 24 is beer! Yep, we had a few friends over and brewed a double batch (10gal) of an Irish Red Ale. It was the first beer that I ever brewed, and this was the first time I've brewed since my surgery this past fall.

I've got a few pics to share from the brewing, and then I'll try to catch you up on everything that's happened in the past couple of weeks, we've been busy!

Here's the basic procedure:

The grains have already Mashed to convert the starch of the malted barley to sugars. This part of the operation is called the Sparge, where I'm rinsing the sugars off of the spent grain.

For the double batch I decided to go 1/2 grain and 1/2 extract, so here we are adding the dried malt extract.

Followed by the malt extract syrup.

Then come the hops, added in 3 stages: at Boiling (for bitterness), with about 15min remaining in the boil (for flavor), and after the boil (for aroma).

After that you cool the wort down (wort is the term for the sugary liquid).

Pitch the yeast, and in about 2 weeks you've got beer!

Here's what it looks like today, in full fermentation.

Looking back a couple of weeks what all has happened....... let's see........Oh I remember:

My friend Sir Thomas and I fried up 65lbs of chicken for his Daughter's friend's wedding rehearsal. It was hot, rainy, messy, and danged if we didn't forget to bring the camera! Bummer! The chicken came out great though, and we satisfied the hungry crowd.

Then there was Paella Night (pronounced: Pie-A-ah)! Lightnin' out did herself here, and we have photos:

Here's the Risotto (rice) just being added, and you can see the rest of the ingredients in the background (Chicken, Chorizo, scallops, Saffron, Smokey Paprika, Chicken stock, etc.)

Here's the finished product, and it went very well with the "Dancing Bull" Cabernet Sauvignon.

So did the chocolate cake for dessert.

Here's to the next 24 Sweetie!

End of Summer Part 2: One More Road Trip

It's not unusual at all to have groups of motorcycles buzzing by out where we live, especially when the weather is nice, and this past Saturday it was perfect! So I met up with a few friends who were looking for any excuse to get out on the road one last day of summer, much like I was myself. Unfortunately Lightnin was at home with a summertime cold, which she was happy to share with me (I returned to work with it this morning).

Here's the road crew

Here's their transportation of choice, I of course had the little four wheeled two-seater

We headed down south about 45 minutes from here to a little town along the Ohio River named Rabbit Hash, Kentucky. There was a festival going on with misic (live bluegrass of course) and a historic vehicle show.

These guy's were good!

Just follow the steps down the hill to the river and catch the ferry across to Rising Sun, Indiana.

This was an old grist mill, powered by this hit-n-miss engine. You can see the old hollowed out tree that was once used for grain storage.

Just in case you're wondering, this is probably how beer got it's start. Just think about what would have happened to the grain if a bit of rain water got into the bin during this time of year, a bit of a fermentation gone wild!

And this was the character that was selling the corn meal, of course he sold a bag of it to me!

With the road behind us, we stopped to wet our whistles before heading on home.








Summer might be over, but Autumn usually provides some good rag top weather too!

End of Summer Part 1: Back to School

This past week our oldest son Matthew stopped by to visit on his way to the Big Apple. He's been accepted into the Master's program at Christie's (yep the famous auction house) where he'll be studying Modern Art, "Connoisseurship" and the history of the art market. He was one of only 30 some students admitted into the program this year.

He was moving to New York and was just passing through in the U-Haul (which I neglected to get a photo of!). We took him out for dinner where we met up with a few of his friends for a small celebration before he headed out on the road and back to school the following day.

Weather Permitting!

The sky's were threatening, but not producing! Eventhough we didn't get the much needed rain a nice cold front came through and cooled us back down to the mid 80's for the high today. It was a welcomed change from the upper 90's lower 100's that we've been experiencing.

We had some friends over for dinner last night, and we were all hoping for the storm that didn't come. Oh well, the food and company was good anyway!

Last night was Italian night. We started with a traditional Sausage, Kale, and White Bean soup.

This was followed by some Ricotta and Spinach stuffed Shells (It looks sort of like Lasagna and was every bit as good), and garlic bread.

Followed by some homemade Tiramisu (we tried to slice it into reasonable sized servings which lost some of it's photogenic appeal).

Not pictured was a nice antipasto plate of various olives, artichoke hearts, cheeses, and salami. Sort of pictured was the wine, a nice Sangiovese-Merlot blend, which went well with the entire meal.

Back to Work

I started back to work on Monday, so I really don't have much to report since I've been playing catch-up with the the daily grind! After 10 days off it's been hard to get back into the swing of things!

My hops are so dried out that I think I can sell them for straw (they don't even rate a photo, can you believe that!). The rain just keeps passing us up, either going North or East of us. We get to see the thunder-boomers building up, but they move over us before they dump the much needed moisture.

The last set of storms blew North of us and dumped a ton of rain in that part of Ohio. I-75 is currently closed just North of Dayton and they think it's going to be a few more days before the water recedes enough to open it back up!

Well that's all I've got for today. Hopefully we'll have something more blog-worthy to report this coming weekend.

Land Ho! (Paradise Gained)

We did it, we found and secured what will become our final residence! It's taken years to get to this point, but we've finally made it. All of the traveling that we've done has been great, but it's finally time to anchor ourselves to one spot that we can actually call home. Oh sure the road is still going to call to us as we both have been bitten by the traveling bug, but we do finally have our permanent base camp.

Our quest was not only for a place to build our dream home, but to also try to grab enough property that we could leave some of it in it's natural state. We ended up with a 3acre plot of land that will allow us to do both.

As you can see by the photos it has already been cleared, but in this part of the world Nature quickly takes back anything that is left unattended. This means that I'll likely be spending my vacations down here keeping what needs to be cleared clear, and maintaining the nice fence that the previous owners provided.
The topography is typical sub tropical described as a "Hammock" of live oak and mixed various undergrowth including: palmettos, poison ivy, possibly some wild muscadine, etc.



Our intent is to clear only what we really need for the house and a garden, thin only what is needed to allow sunshine where desired, and then leave the rest to do as it was before we arrived. In other words we'll basically put a natural barrier between us and our neighbors, mainly for their protection! ;-)



Both Lightnin and I are so excited that we can barely wipe the smiles from our faces. We're now looking forward to visiting it as often as possible, while working on the design of our home. We'll keep you posted on the progress!

Road Trip - Days 9 and 10 (The long road home)

Day 9

Once again we awake to the sounds of crowing, yes the rooster is still alive and kicking.

We had a little time to kill before meeting with the realtor to sign the papers on our new property, so we spent that at the coffee shop blogging and looking at Cyprus home design. Once the paperwork is completed we are able to hit the road (The "we" I'm referring to now is of course Lightnin and I as I have traded my "Ballast Buddy" for my lifelong copilot for the trip home). We need to make it to Atlanta this evening for a stop over at Lightnin's Sister's house. She and her Husband (a fellow Dave!) are more than just family to us. We've been friends for years and always try to stop to see each other whenever possible.

The drive was uneventful (thankfully) because we were traveling on I-75 North. When we arrived they had prepped a fantastic meal of grilled roasted Lamb and Garlic Mashed Potatoes. The appetizer was Fried Green Tomatoes, with Goat cheese and a Remoulade sauce. They also had a nice selection of wines that went great with the meal. After dinner we talked, laughed, and basically caught up on everything that had happened since we last got together. It had been a long day, and this ended up being a fun long night

Day 10

We awake early once again, having been properly trained by roosters during the past week. ;-)

It's a hot humid day again, so not too bad for traveling (with the top up and the air on of course). We hop back on I-75 for the long trek back home, but as my copilot/navigator takes a short nap I plot a new course, we're going to cut across to US-127 when we get to Chattanooga, TN.

Once awake, and briefed with my idea, the copilot is ready with the camera to show the advantages of the roads less traveled.

This is what lies between us and home, it looks sort of like the start of the road trip to me (I'm hoping Lightnin can handle the turns that I'm pretty sure we're gonna' see).

She held up like a trooper and snapped these photos (look familiar FC?). It was sort of llike a mini-dragon.

OK there's always been the divide between roasted or boiled peanut fans, but this one was news to me! I had to try them, and they are amazingly good! (sorry for the blurry photo, it was taken after we got home from the long day of driving). Just another example of something you wouldn't necessarily find traveling the interstates!

After having put 2,708 miles under my butt, in only ten days, it felt good to be home again. It has been a fun and monumental trip. I was able to shed the feelings of "wanderlust" once again and it's back to work tomorrow. Although I wonder where the next road trip will take me (rumor has it that it might involve a Jeep), but for now I at least know where I'm going to end up, on a little 3 acre slice of heaven!

Road Trip - Days 7 and 8 (Cedar Key, and more)

Aha, I woke up before Vader (the Rooster) and had thoughts of sneaking our to crow at him first, but then had this horrible thought that it would scare him to death and then how would I explain that one to FC. So I just laid there for a couple of minutes relishing in my victory of being up before he woke me. Hey wait a minute, that's not actually a victory after all!

No property to look at today so after I blogged yesterday's post it was off to Cedar Key! I could smell the salt mash before I could see it. Finally the site I've been waiting for, Cedar Key.











I took the advice of my friends and stoped at Tony's to grab a bite for lunch. I opted for the fried oyster sandwich and Red Stripe. That's a full dozen oysters piled on that baby, and it was quite possibly the best fried oyster sandwich I've ever eaten even though I did break the rules about eating shell fish in a month without an "R" in it. Although if you pronounce it like a pirate it works out Aurrrrgust! ;-)







Then it was back to the PF HQ to get the wings going for dinner.








Here's the wings after draining off the secret marinade

Where there's smoke, there's wings!

And the finished product, Mmmm tasty.

Oh I almost forgot to mention, as of about 8:30PM last evening I became a full fledged Florida property owner! Yep, I found our little slice of heaven, just take a look.

Well I must say good bye to my dear friends because it's back on the road again for the long trek back north, so I'll finish the stories of the trip once I get back home.

Last leg of the road trip to come.............