35 and Counting

Happy berfday to me :)

Garden Growing

The beans and peas and garlic have sprouted, the greens and broccoli and onion starts are doing well!

Unfortunately, now I have a mysterious bug helping itself (themselves) to my veg!

 

Orchid Show

Aunt Pat, Uncle Bear and Carlean go to the annual orchid show in Santa Barbara to see the displays and pick up some new stock. This year they took us along. First things first, however. Lunch at Andrea's in Oxnard!

At the orchid show, the exhibition hall was very crowded, but the kids still did pretty well. There were a lot of displays to look at. One very creatively incorporated an old VW Bug. Abi's favorite was the observation "tower" in the middle of the room.

St Patrick's Day Dinner

Uncle Bear had a selection of movies for us this evening for St. Patty's Day - we ended up choosing The Fighting Prince of Donegal, followed up by RiverDance and then Over Ireland! For dinner, Carlean made corned beef and cabbage and potatoes and carrots. I brought beer bread (made with Guinness) and chocolate cake (made with Guinness) and ice cream (Salted Caramel and, you guessed it, Guinness!) And a good time was had by all. Eli even had green-frosted sugar cookies as a treat.

Picnic on the Lawn

I made some braised beef for sandwiches, a la Ina Gartner's recipe, and a tart with fresh berries. We had intended to prune roses and then have a picnic, but instead we just had the picnic - under the canvas in the yard. It was a gorgeous spring day. Abi even squeezed lemons with Aunt Pat's electric juicer and we threw in mascerated strawberries. We'll get the roses next time...

Spamalot!

Aunt Pat, Uncle Bear, Carlean, Shaun and I had a lovely lunch at Fabiola's today just before we walked across to the Pantges Theater in Hollywood to see the production Spamalot. So much fun! And what a great lunch. It was a gorgeous day in sunny SoCal.

Bottled

Shaun helped me bottle the beer today. It only made 10 bottles, instead of the dozen that the recipe stated. It's a little sweet with the added Belgian Candi Sugar, but that should help the yeast work to make it nice and carbonated inside the bottles. I need to get a specific gravity measure and a racking cane and real clamp before the next batch. This was kind of a mess this go-round. Time will tell if it was worth the effort though; we just need to wait a couple of weeks before uncorking.

Strange Brew...

Our first home brew batch! Shaun and I started a recipe for a Belgian-style ale called Rosemary Scotch, as it has rosemary sprigs added to the boil, and peat-smoked malt in the mash. It smells like it will be perfect for St. Patty's Day in few weeks :)

The fermentation is slow, as it's so cold in here. The major foam only lasted a day, and the bubbles really slowed to nothing after about 5. There's still the tiniest rim of them though, so I will let it sit another few days before we bottle. Then it will age in the bottles for 2 weeks (according to the recipe). Crossing my fingers!