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5/31/2010 09:11:00 PM

Homemade Alcohol

I got a wild hair to start making my own wine not too long ago and so I researched and read and went down to the not so local home brew store and bought my basic equipment.  I decided to start with apple and then went on to white grape cherry and white grape pomegrante. All turned out very well, I am proud to say.

Then my husband found out about a meadery that was a little out of town but an easy drive so we headed down there.  The man was happy to give us a taste of all types of mead. Dry, semi-sweet and sweet, melomel and metheglin and a few others.  He gave us some tips on making mead and so we bought some honey and some wonderful honey pecan jelly and headed home to start out batch.

We got our single gallon of mead started and it is fermenting nicely.  We've nearly finished the mead we purchased that day and mores the pity because we, and all of our friends that have had it, have thoroughly enjoyed it.

I'm very much looking forward to this new batch!

5/22/2010 03:38:00 PM

Whew!

Did I mention being unemployed can really give you a lot of time to work on those projects you didn't have time for before? I have been working on my garden, disheartening as it may be that I don't have a job at the moment, but I've been working on it. We put up the gazebo, built a raised bed, I've done a lot of container gardening, too. I've done a lot of herbs and they are doing so well. My main problem has been pest management because, again, it rains for three days and then we have three days of nice skies, then it rains for three days again. I've been really on top of getting the DE on the plants and keeping it on them. But I'm still seeing the signs of my leaves being eaten. Worse, slugs and snails have moved in. I've been battling that.

But we're counter balancing. I put the bird feeders near the garden and I'm seeing a sharp decrease in insects. The ground squirrels are entertaining as they forage through the little existing bed the bird feeder sits in. The bed is very old but the soil in it is actually pretty good.  I've got some things planted but I don't think they are going to do anything. There is a huge tree shading that spot so I'm going to be getting some shade loving flowers instead.

I've been doing a lot of research into aquaculture the past three weeks and this guy:



is amazing.  He has built a system in a greenhouse, wrote software to monitor it and has it almost completely automated.  Wow.

I'd love to build one.  But for now, I'm going to keep on with my cucumbers and onions with broccoli and herbs.  My cat is evil as she destroyed the okra, cauliflower, and tomato.  Ahh well, there is always next year and indoor gardening.

I'm Green Inside!

I'm Green Inside!
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