We had a busy, but fun first weekend of May. On Saturday morning Matthew, the kids and I went to the opening day of our farmers market in downtown Hillsboro. I was a little disappointed because there weren't many stands, but it was still fun to look at the few there were. There were a ton of plants for sale, I cant wait to get stuff growing in our garden...next weekend I think! Matthew also stopped by the beer supply store and bought two cases of new glass bottles. We have been saving the ones from our store bought beer, but in two weeks we will have 5 gallons of beer....so we need a LOT of bottles!
We spent the rest of the morning lounging around until 4 when Aimee, Dave and the boys came over for a Cinco De Mayo dinner. We made tacos and burritos for dinner, and after dinner Aimee and I made some apple empanadas. They were SO easy to put together, and a big hit with everyone. I want to try some this summer with other fruits and berries! The kids had a great time as usual, and I had a lot of fun cooking with Aimee. We have talked about having bread baking days this summer and getting together to make other things like pasta. I really enjoy having another mama to cook and chat with, it makes it so much more fun, plus you can learn a lot from the other persons cooking experiences! Its something that women used to do all the time, either of of necessity (thinking pioneers and early day Americans) or just out of enjoyment (thinking 50's and 60's, when cooking was a more social event). It seems like getting together to cook or do tasks around the house is practiced so much anymore, but its something I would like to do a lot more of.
Sunday morning Rowan woke up at 4am, and didn't go back to sleep until after 7am. It was a little crazy after a while, she was complaining about everything from being hungry (fed her) being cold (gave her more covers) her ear hurting (nothing I could do about that one) and then she moved on to more obscure complaints, like that she was out of Easter candy (she was crying big tears over it too)! It was challenging to remain calm after being awake for 3 hours with her, but she finally fell back to sleep between Matthew and I and we all slept in to an unheard of hour - 10am! The weather man had forcasted rain all day, so we lounged around inside for a few hours until we realized that the rain wasn't coming and that we had better get off our butts and get something done!
Matthew and I worked out in the garden for a little bit, getting the raised beds raked together. We are about halfway done with the beds, and then the area near the fence should go much faster since we are mostly leaving it as is. Just have to make a walkway back there, and put in the fencing so we can put up the netting for the vining plants. I think its looking pretty good but it will look even better with plants :)
Matthew also got his beer off to its next step! He opened the bucket that it had been fermenting in for the last week:
And siphoned the beer out into the next container called a Better Bottle:
The beer has a pretty amber color, and the siphon keeps all the nasties that were leftover in the bucket from getting into the new bottle:
Its a good thing too, cause look what was at the bottom of the bucket:
Eeeewwwwww. It doesn't show in the picture well at all, but it was this brownish grey mass of spore looking clusters. Very gross, and something I for sure didn't want to be drinking! So now the beer is in its new bottle, where it will sit for a week to let any sediment settle. Then it will be the next step....bottling!!
We spent the rest of the morning lounging around until 4 when Aimee, Dave and the boys came over for a Cinco De Mayo dinner. We made tacos and burritos for dinner, and after dinner Aimee and I made some apple empanadas. They were SO easy to put together, and a big hit with everyone. I want to try some this summer with other fruits and berries! The kids had a great time as usual, and I had a lot of fun cooking with Aimee. We have talked about having bread baking days this summer and getting together to make other things like pasta. I really enjoy having another mama to cook and chat with, it makes it so much more fun, plus you can learn a lot from the other persons cooking experiences! Its something that women used to do all the time, either of of necessity (thinking pioneers and early day Americans) or just out of enjoyment (thinking 50's and 60's, when cooking was a more social event). It seems like getting together to cook or do tasks around the house is practiced so much anymore, but its something I would like to do a lot more of.
Sunday morning Rowan woke up at 4am, and didn't go back to sleep until after 7am. It was a little crazy after a while, she was complaining about everything from being hungry (fed her) being cold (gave her more covers) her ear hurting (nothing I could do about that one) and then she moved on to more obscure complaints, like that she was out of Easter candy (she was crying big tears over it too)! It was challenging to remain calm after being awake for 3 hours with her, but she finally fell back to sleep between Matthew and I and we all slept in to an unheard of hour - 10am! The weather man had forcasted rain all day, so we lounged around inside for a few hours until we realized that the rain wasn't coming and that we had better get off our butts and get something done!
Matthew and I worked out in the garden for a little bit, getting the raised beds raked together. We are about halfway done with the beds, and then the area near the fence should go much faster since we are mostly leaving it as is. Just have to make a walkway back there, and put in the fencing so we can put up the netting for the vining plants. I think its looking pretty good but it will look even better with plants :)
Matthew also got his beer off to its next step! He opened the bucket that it had been fermenting in for the last week:
And siphoned the beer out into the next container called a Better Bottle:
The beer has a pretty amber color, and the siphon keeps all the nasties that were leftover in the bucket from getting into the new bottle:
Its a good thing too, cause look what was at the bottom of the bucket:
Eeeewwwwww. It doesn't show in the picture well at all, but it was this brownish grey mass of spore looking clusters. Very gross, and something I for sure didn't want to be drinking! So now the beer is in its new bottle, where it will sit for a week to let any sediment settle. Then it will be the next step....bottling!!