Brewing experiments

Hello, everyone.

DH is a beer maker, as our friends know, and he's been taken with the urge to use up grapefruits this year. (With two mature trees, we have a lot of grapefruit to use up!) He dug up some information about grapefruit wine making online and got  yeast and suchlike supplies from the local brewing supply shop. Then picked about 60 fruit to squeeze. The juice marinated for a few days and then he, following the directions, put the yeast, sugar, and water in. It took almost two days to start bubbling, but then it was a champ!

Today he moved the grapefruit juice mixture to the secondary fermentation carboy, and covered it with its carboy jacket.

Then he started making one of the little one-gallon beer kits that were on special at the Giant Book Store that is more interested in selling non-book stuff. I knew he'd started that when he turned up in my sewing room with the small carboy in his hand. (Think of a 1 gallon moonshine jug here, in clear glass.) A new, small-sized carboy jacket was needed.

I pulled out a piece of stash fabric: polished cotton from the dining room window swags. Added the back half of a stained linen top, which was still black. Cut both to size and attached at the bottom edge.

The jug is a smidge less than 21 inches in circumference, plus seam allowance gives 22"

Base of jug to neck is around 11 inches--the neck itself will stick out a bit.

Bottom seam pressed open. 

 I had cut the lining piece a little shorter than the outside piece, so the selvage you see at the seam is folded up in the pressing.

Bottom folded up, sides sewn together and serged to prevent fraying. The layers are treated as one piece from now on.

The next step was to sew the short sides together to make a tube to fit over the jug. Then press that seam open, so it wouldn't be a big lump inside the cover.

Sewn into a tube. 

 The top edge was folded down and pinned for a casing. A piece of stash ribbon (1/4" or 3/8" wide satin and about 12 inches long) was used for the drawstring.

Sewing the casing with a 1/2" seam.

 Threaded the ribbon through the casing with the always-useful safety pin, then sewed the ends together so it would stay threaded.

Completed carboy jacket!

Father-and-son carboy jackets

 The fermenting grapefruit wine is in the 5 gallon carboy in back. The 1 gallon carboy in front is ready for action.

Little updates

Hello, everyone.

It's been chilly here the last couple of nights, with yesterday bottoming out in the mid 30'sF (about 2 or 3C) as dry cold fronts wash over us and the clear night sky radiates out all the warmth that builds up in the sunny day. We did get perhaps a quarter inch of rain on Wednesday this week.

Baby broccoli (gai lan I think it's also called) are beginning to really produce. Arugula is still ahead of me and the loads of dill that God planted are almost ready to run the row of cabbages out of town on a rail. Some beets are making roots now, and the Natasha endive is trying to make heads...very tiny heads at this point, but that's more heading out of lettuce than I've ever had before.

And there has been some sewing on little things inside.

Mug rugs!

 Mug rugs are all over Pinterest these days, and they're a great way to use up some stash.

One of the night blooming cacti is trying to make a fruit.

This cactus has tried to fruit several times over the years, but I've never seen a ripe, red one on the plant.

Winter in South Texas

Hello, eveyone.

The Chamber of Commerce down here will probably love me for this post. But I saw a bird--while holding a camera--the other day, and also took some other pictures.

Sunshine coming through the branches of the Olmos tree.

 The Olmos tree hasn't dropped its leaves yet, because it waits until the new leaves come out in the spring to do that. It's fairly fast-growing (with water) and the birds love to perch in its branches.

"Are you looking at me?"

 The mockingbird is the Texas state bird. This one looks like he's a little suspicious of that strange human with the camera.

A rare bit of leaf color in the Valley

 This little Red Oak isn't growing very fast, but it did color up this winter. Behind it, the grapefruit trees and the tangerine tree. DH is going to try and make a batch of grapefruit wine this year.

Curly-leafed kale

Beets

And a couple of things from my cool-season garden. There is also a row of arugula that is going crazy. I'm trying all kinds of things to use it up!

Thank you St Nick

Hello, everyone.

St. Nicholas was very generous to me this year.

This is the new sewing machine, which has *adjustable presser foot pressure.* It doesn't have a zillion computerized stitches and I have to manually move the needle up and down if it stops in the wrong level, but it does hum in a way that's unbelievable.

Also visible is the really neat add-on lighting kit: a set of LED bulbs attached to stickum, with their own on/off switch.

It's been getting its first workouts on the bibs and now on some mug rugs. Next up, either going back to R's dress--coming up on its finish date now--or starting the pink/blue/white quilt that has been going through square choices recently.

More on those lovely Michael Miller charm squares

Hello, everyone.

It's been a while since anything was said about the charm pack.  In fact, other than the pitcher mat, nothing has been done with them. Christmas, of course, takes over in its season.

The squares were not forgotten, of course, and they sat there in their color groupings until an opportune moment arrived. Now the blues have found a place to be, and a lot of new friends to be there with.

The squares ready to be sewn into half-square triangles.
(the gray and the bluebirds from stash, as also the white that is out of sight.)

Counting squares, playing with color. (Pink squares from stash)

Final layout, labelled

The layout gets its labels when the color choices are firm. The MM charms were fleshed out with the two grays and with the blue birdies and the blue with white stars, plus the pinks and whites. They all go together nicely and DH wandered through and expressed his opinion that a graphic design like this suits him. (This is a lap/baby sized project, but still, it's nice to know his tastes.)

When pressing the half square triangles with the little blue birdies, I discovered that the print is directional. The change in orientation at the bottom right keeps the birdies upright, which pleases me, even though it is a switch from the rest of the design. It might still change a bit...this orientation switch had escaped my attention earlier.

After Denver, a half day or so drive up to Miles City, Montana

Hello, everyone.

Miles City is a biggish town in eastern Montana. It at one time had a railhead that gathered sheep for shipment. Now it's pretty quiet, though there's supposedly a big horse sale there every year. It's in convenient driving distance of the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Ruins near the old sheep pens outside of Miles City

Old Tourist Court (early style motel) in Miles City

IIRC this was a creek in the area, which drains into the Yellowstone River.

 In this picture you see why Montana calls itself the Big Sky Country. It just goes on and on, and it's usually blue like this.

Oenothera species blooming on the prairie.

More on the trip to Montana: Colorado

Hello, everyone.

I started with pictures from a drive to Montana in the last post. The pictures there are from the first day's drive.

Today a little bit from the trip up the Rockies stopping off at Colorado Springs and at Pike's Peak.

The Garden of the Gods is a spectacular set of rock formations that, in 2007, was almost inside the city of Colorado Springs.
By now it may have been enveloped. 

The park is very popular with local people and with tourists.

 We also drove up Pike's Peak, and saw the view that inspired the famous poem, which begins:
O beautiful, for spacious skies
For amber waves of grain
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain....

View from the road.

 We had to change a flat tire before beginning, and the park staff insisted that each vehicle driving up have at least half a tank of gasoline. We didn't understand why until we came back down, and the tank gave a false reading of "almost empty" because of the slope!

At the top, even in June, there is snow. It was about 80F at the bottom, and about 40F at the top.

Not much grows at the top of the mountain where it's pretty chilly all summer and really cold in the winter. Plus I think there isn't a whole lot of water available for the plants.

Pike's Peak also had a train ride up and back. It was tough enough on me to ride in a truck--the (14,000 feet?) altitude at the top was like about 3 stiff drinks. And we had stopped from time to time to take a picture as we went! There was a little concession there that sold hot chocolate, which helped a lot. I was still woozy. But it was beautiful to be up there.