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Harvest - Early September

tomatoes, peppers, and our first turnip greens of the fall

Concordia Mera

We've been making wine from kits for a few years now, and one of the big things we've noticed is the variability from bottle to bottle of wines.  In our experience with beer, you get a good batch or not so great batch, but bottles from the same batch are pretty much identical.  

I have worked professionally doing cell culture;  I am really, really careful with our wine and beer making.  We are super careful with our bottle cleaning and sanitizing procedures.  We have tried a variety of corks including natural cork and plastic.  Nothing has seemed to solve to bottle variability problem.  We've even noticed the problem with home made wines from other homes - not just out own.    

Abram did a bit of poking around on the internet and decided that our problem was likely sugar/alcohol content that was slightly low allowing for undesirable growth of "bugs" after bottling.  

Our solution was to start from grape juice and yeast (the main ingredients found in any kit).  There are two ways of achieving the desired starting gravity SG (related to the concentration of sugars);  you can dilute grape juice to the right SG or you can add sugar (known as chapitalization).  

We ordered enough Concord grape juice from a growers co-op in Massachusetts to make about 10 gallons of wine so that we could try both processes.  The first batch had just grape juice, water, and yeast.  We diluted the grape juice to an SG of 1.090.  The second batch had water, grape juice, sugar, and yeast.  We diluted the grape juice to approximately the right volume, then added simple syrup until the SG reached 1.090.  

Today, almost two months after we started it, we bottled it.

We like to taste it at each stage just to see what it is like.  Usually, wines are not drinkable even at bottling, but this one was.  We noted a big difference between the fermentation time of the two batches (chapitalized went much faster and did not achieve quite as low a final gravity, FG).  Batch #1 was much better at this stage (and at racking about a month ago) than batch #2 (chapitalized).  We suspect a difference in other factors besides sugars.

To some of the bottles we added a bit of oak, stripped and baked at 425 F for 15 minutes.

Here's batch #2.

And here are all four sets of wine (non-chapitalized with and without oak and chapitalized with and without oak)- 51 bottles in all.

All gone.

Time to rest and reset,

and play a bit after all that hard work.

We'll let you know how it tastes after a bit of aging.

The New Rockerboard

I've been seeing the ultra-simple rockerboards around the internet for a bit, and have been convinced that they just might be one of a few perfect toys in the world.  A few weeks ago, I showed them to Owen to see what he thought.  He gave an enthusiastic, "Yeah, that does look like a fun toy."  There are just a small handful of producers of these, and I was pleased to order one last week from Larry at the Fellowship Community.  

It was supposed to be a Christmas present, you see; and I was getting ahead of things by ordering it now.  

When we arrived home today from a lovely romp along the Greenway, in a creek, and at a park, Owen announced there was "a package the shape of one of those cool rocker things we saw on the internet by the front door" - you know, the front door that might as well not even exist because I have only used to twice in the year that we have lived here, the one that is almost not visible from the driveway as we pass by.  

I knew the board was supposed to arrive today, but certainly hadn't made any announcements about my order or the impending arrival.  I certainly didn't expect the package actually to be the shape of the board.  

Owen is a keen observer.

By the time we made it in the door, Owen was carrying the rockerboard shaped package, and the boys commenced to play with it still all wrapped up: 

 If they are willing to play with a packaged toy, who am I to say it should wait until Christmas?
I did convince them to get it out of the wrapping, and it was still loads

and loads

 and loads

 and loads

 of fun.

I suspect it might really be one of the few perfect toys, and am looking forward to watching them enjoy it for many months before Christmas arrives.

The Not So Itsy Bitsy Spider

We have a rather large garden spider that has been living outside our back door this summer.  For reference, those clapboards are about 3" wide.  She is a really beautiful critter.  Owen was rather frightened of her for a while and wouldn't turn on the water faucet under her web.  Caedmon has been fascinated with the "piduh" since we first noticed her.  We now all watch her daily to see how she is doing and how big she has gotten.  

 This week, we noticed something above her. . .

 . . . an egg sack.

 When I went out to take pictures of it, she felt rather protective of her thousands of babies.  Don't worry, pretty spider, we are looking forward to seeing some of your daughters in the spring.

Pork Roast With Apples and Onions

I really love to cook yummy food.  I enjoy cooking for my family daily, and occasionally, I get to cook for other people too.  This week, I cooked for a friend who recently had a baby girl.  On the menu were green salad (with fresh tomatoes and green onions from our garden), deviled eggs (with our eggs and fresh chives), sauteed green beans (from our garden), and a really yummy pork roast (from a local no chem. farm) with apples (from Ma's tree) and onions.

Thank you to the Pioneer Woman for the recipe.  It was super yummy, and from what I can tell surely makes good milk!

A New (To Us) Table

I keep a lookout for certain items that I'd like to have that aren't priorities.  I've been scoping Craigslist for an outdoor table since we moved.  I was looking for: metal, 4 chairs (or more, hey a girl can dream), decent condition, fairly close to home (since I'd be asking Abram to pick it up), and under $100 (preferably cheaper).  That's quite a list of requirements, but after a year of waiting, it turned up last week.  Abram picked it up after the boys went to sleep, and they had breakfast there the next morning.  Breakfast looked like a lot of this:  

and this:

We've enjoyed a few meals outside already and look forward to more as the weather cools off just a little.