Hows my little updater?

April was a busy month, I feel like just in time for me to feel all nice and rested I would do something to get my body all exhausted again. It all began with a big load of shit.
Literally.

About 10 miles from our house is a sheep farm and their big thing is called ewe poo compost. So while we were borrowing my Dad's truck for the roofing supplies I figured I would dump a load into the garden. You can't get a much more organic fertilizer than grass fed sheep poop, right?

Contrary to what you might guess, the poop doesn't actually smell, and it's all dried out and ground down, its more like dirt than poo. But yes, I am standing in a big pile of shit...The things people will do for their garden.

If you're wondering about the hay, we cover our garden with landscape fabric and hay during the winter and that combination kills weeds like it's nobody's business. Last fall we expanded our garden by quite a bit (the diagonal fencepost in front was the corner from last year). We didn't turn over any of the grass or weeds and had almost none survive the winter!

That strip of hay was where I already had ewe poo, and had planted onions, which are growing nicely now!

One of the most exciting things from this month was FINALLY!!!! receiving my Blichmann BoilerMaker brew kettle. I bought this beauty back in January and due to some ridiculous manufacturer supply issues I didn't get it for nearly three months! I have yet to brew a batch with this bugger but I can't wait! Check out this beauty:

The only hiccup is I didn't really understand how all grain brewing worked when I bought this and now I've got a new project to work on to utilize the false bottom. Oh well... 

We also got the opportunity to check out the fantastic and mostly abandoned Fischer Theatre in Danville through the YPN (Young Professionals Network) group we meet with. I've got a soft spot in my heart for abandoned places, I'm not sure why. Abandoned and grotesquely dirty bathrooms are also really cool to me.

  

Jazz Greats like Duke Ellington performed on this stage. Rumor has it Gene Hackman got his start here as well.

Why is that tube there? I'm not sure I care to find out why the water is so brown.

The Fischer is spending their money on useful things first like roofing and cosmetics last, but this ceiling in the main entry has been restored beautifully.

Last weekend was the Illinois Marathon and boy was it a good one! This year Laura and I both signed up for the I-Challenge, we ran the 5K together and then both ran the half marathon the next day. Laura and I tied at the finish of the 5K with a time of 31:05, except I got 1570 place and Laura got 1572 place, apparently someone finished between her and I. The next day we were both not so excited about running the half marathon since on the drive over it was down pouring, windy, and the temperature was hovering right around 50 degrees. Lucky for us the weather broke and the wind died down, the rain stopped, but it stayed cold. I was fortunate to have dressed properly and my plaid tights really pulled through on this one, I got lots of good comments and jokes about them, and laughed at quite a bit too. I was pretty jazzed about my time I was hoping for even one second less than two hours but bested that by several minutes. My chip time was 1:52:35. This was Laura's longest run she has ever done in her life and managed a great time of 2:45:32. My Dad also completed the Half marathon, I apparently passed him in the last mile and he didn't even say hi! I spent like 11+ miles looking for him before I gave up. 

I-Challenge Hardwear. 5K, Half, & I-Challenge Medals.

This is our I-Challenge crew post race. Three first timers and two veterans.

On Sunday, while feeling only a bit sore (thanks to some good training?) I decided while the dumpster was still in our driveway from the roofing project I should take an old plugged up chimney out of our attic. This would make way for our big upstairs project should we decide to ever get around to funding it. This was only fun for about 5 minutes. Playing Jenga with 8 pound bricks that can crash through your floor/ceiling if you fuck up is not fun. Also climbing a rickety ladder with heavy 5 pound buckets over and over and over is a giant pain in the ass.

Yes that chimney is crooked and leaning on the top right.

I either raised a lot of dust or awoke a lot of orb spirits. Believe what you will.

So Life has been pretty busy. I should have warned you this was going to be a long one.

Hows my little roof?

Ever since we moved into our little home in Oakwood, Laura and I have said, we need to get a new roof on our garage. This weekend we made it happen. Holy Shit. It is expensive and ridiculously hard work. I now understand why people pay to have this done to their homes...and we just did our small garage!

Here it is in pictures:

This is why we reshingled. They were plainly in very poor shape. And a large patch was installed incorrectly as shown)

My Dad the hero with his roofing shovel/rake.

The roof shovel/rake thing was amazing, If you're ever going to peel off shingles from a house using anything that isn't this or hired work you're wasting energy and time. It has claws and a lever so it pulls up nails while tearing the shingle off the roof. We saw a couple of brands at the store and I recommend using the one that has the best leverage underneath.

Laura was the shingle redistributer/shingle maid

My Dad and I had clashing ideas on how to peel off both the top layer and the unexpected  second layer. He and Laura liked peeling them off one big chunk and layer at a time. I didn't mess around, if I had to bend over for this shit I decided it was all coming at once. The negative to my speed was I made a bigger mess.

Here is Laura fishing shingles out of our Dogwood bush.

"Laura, look like a badass with your hammer."

One fun thing when re-roofing is finding out what lies beneath. Turns out the gutter I hung a couple of years ago pulled the facia off the house a bit and a couple of main boards started to rot. Good thing I bought some extra boards just in case. This repair work slowed us down quite a bit on Saturday.

The hardest part is over! Getting 20 packs of shingles on the roof, via ladder.

I just posed for this picture, Laura and Dad did everything.

Day two Laura and I both woke up tired and sore. My Dad said his back hurt, and I was actually surprised that he showed up for a second day, he left us after day one looking just shy  of a zombie. We worked for 11 hours on Saturday and another 8 on Sunday. Laura's legs were throbbing from squatting to pick up all of the old and new shingles, and my shoulders hurt from taking so many pictures, and lifting my lemonade to my own mouth so often.

Progress! Cutting shingles around vents blows.

Before

After

So, if you need someone to help you re-shingle your house, call someone else. But! I will help you rip off old ones because that was actually kind of fun. As many of you know, I hate bending over. Squatting, crawling around on my hands and knees (unless its an obstacle course of some kind), and bending ranks right up there with listening to country music for more than 45 continuous seconds. On the bright side, the weather was great, it was sunny with temperatures in the high 50's and we actually wore sweatshirts for awhile each day.

We are both thrilled this job is behind us. Now it's time for bed. I'm exhausted.

Hows my little Jack Frost?

This week has been sort of a sad week for me. After much of March and February hanging out in record high temperature territory everything in our yard started to grow way earlier than usual. It was exciting and everything looked great! This week that all took a turn for the worse. The temps outside took a nosedive and for two nights in a row we had more seasonal temperatures of the high 20's.

This cold snap completely demolished one of my grape varieties (marquette), and at least gave a really good scare to the other variety (noiret).

The first 3 vines are Marquette. Lets hope they start pushing some new buds in the next few days!

These cute little guys are Noiret grapes, I covered them with a small towel and they were largely spared from the carnage.

This guy was the big survivor, probably due to its proximity to the house bleeding off enough heat at night to keep it alive.

These are our pathetic miss canada lilacs, every year they get some sort of fungus on the leaves and end up looking pretty much dead all summer, but they have such pretty pink blooms that Laura and I haven't had the heart to dig them up. If they don't recover we might finally have our excuse. This year we were probably just two days away from full pink blooms, that one on the right would have probably bloomed the day after the freeze :(

Notice there is like one branch that has some life on the bottom.

The cold damage was so bad it actually got our tree too. There was some good growth going happening this year and it zapped about half of our leaves. There is a really large Sycamore in town that looks awful, I hope it survives.

The vineyard was not spared from the cold either. Every year we always worry about frost damage but our cold snap actually didn't produce a hard frost, almost none at all. It was cold enough to pretty much freeze our new growth. The freeze killed off nearly all of the new shoots, as long as we don't get another one in a few weeks the vines should hopefully recover just fine just with a smaller crop. Regardless, the bright green nice looking vineyard is now pretty sad looking.

In exciting news I just planted around 100 onions! They should start sprouting in a few days, Yay!

Hows my little quitter?

Last week marked the beginning of an interesting challenge for me. In preparation for my upcoming half marathon and Tough Mudder I've decided to give up drinking alcoholic beverages.

At least that's how the idea started initially. Then after some thought on the subject I decided that was a bit extreme, after all why on earth would I give up something I enjoy so much? (spoken like a true addict!) So I revised it to one drink per week, which is much more reasonable. Kinda.

To a lot of people this wouldn't be a challenge at all, but I bet most of them are either under 21, scarred by alcohol abuse, pregnant, or really enjoy drinking pop or some other sugary beverage. I am none of those people.

Several years ago I pretty much stopped drinking caffeine, you might remember this post, and my heart has thanked me since then. Then more recently I solidified my distaste for soda when I began my vendetta against corn. You might be surprised to find out that after giving up soda for a long time it starts to taste pretty gross. This is coming from a former Mountain(MTN?) Dew fiend. Oh, if I drink too much pop my stomach becomes very difficult to be attached to, so that's a big deal too.

Part of my logic for temporarily giving up booze was to help me drop a few pounds before either event. That is a decent amount a daily calories I would be shedding from a typical week. But if last week is any indicator, it just means I'm replacing my drinks with juice, which probably has more calories per drink (not confirmed). Not to mention drinking too much juice (more than on big glass) lands me a quick unpleasant date with our toilet.

Milk is definitely out of the question.

So I'm not left with many choices, I guzzle water all day at work and as you can expect it gets pretty boring to consume. I don't hate it but, well I'm sure everyone can relate. Which brings me to why I enjoy alcoholic beverages in the first place. I spend all day drinking water and really nothing else, so coming home and cracking open a beer or a bottle of wine with Laura is a great way to kick off an evening. Somedays I switch to a glass of whiskey, or make cocktails or just stick with another beer, on occasion I don't imbibe anything all day. Usually I have 1 - 2 drinks at home, just like the doctors tell people. Trying new drinks is something of a hobby I've developed, in fact I love talking about it with people who share the same interest.

By now I'm sure most of you have started to wonder, wait a second. Doesn't this guy work at a winery? I do! So I have made a couple of exceptions, my second most important rule (after my one drink per week rule), I'm not giving my my essential work drinking. I will be giving up my nonessential work drinking though. Making wine does have it's perks from time to time. The last exception is I will be attending a bachelor party during my alcohol abstinence, this is my time to enjoy as many as I see responsibly fit.

So I'm a week into it...hows it going? It's a surprising challenge. Ever since high school I've always had some sort of beverage that altered my state of being in hand while hanging out socially. For a long time it was Mountain Dew, then in early college I jumped to nearly every energy drink that exists, and sometime after I turned 21 it was wine, then beer, and now its just about anything but tequila. I've been reading that us Gen Y'ers (or millennials) prefer to try new things rather than stick to one brand. This statement defines me, I love seeking out new interesting beverages, and talking about them with my friends and family is something else I enjoy. I've now interacted with friends and family socially on three separate occasions and already I cheated my own rule and had two drinks in one evening, we grabbed takeout from a place that had all sorts of good beers on tap and I couldn't just sit there and wait for the food, while my friend had a beer, then back at his place later I had another. But, I did good on easter, although the riesling would have gone much better with dinner than the lemonade. The hardest part so far is I've got some nice looking Homebrews from BockFest chilling and teasing me in the fridge, as well as a whole slew of Rye Whiskeys that I am itching to line up in a tasting.

I'm excited I'm staving off my imbibing for awhile, it thus far has been an interesting mental challenge I don't often get to put myself through. But I'm sure this is nothing permeant, I can't wait for those post-race brews after the Tough Mudder. Just 47 days to go...

Hows my little GoatFest?

BockFest 2012 has come and gone and it was a giant success by anyone's standards.

This year I was on top of things and spent a good amount of time working on my logo, I'm excited to say that this goat will be the face of BockFest for the conceivable future. I was very flattered when Chaz asked me to put it on a shirt, and then so many people bought shirts!

Little Jayda Mailey the cute rockstar, she is as big as my Stein.

We mixed it up and held the event at Sleepy Creek Vineyards. I think it was a good thing too, I think we had close to 40 people attend. Jon got the event started off with a bang, literally. One of his bottles exploded in the middle of the night before the event and shot beer and glass everywhere.

We kicked it off with a tasting of our NINE beers, that's right nine. I didn't have much to eat the whole day and I was certainly feeling it after all of those small tasting cups. As a whole we had a  great batch of beer, but the Winner was Zack and Michelle Frazier's RyeBock. Hopefully before BockFest 2013 I will have a nice stand with names made for the travelling Stein trophy.

The DoppleWeizen Laura and I made was inky black, boozy, and bitter. I learned a valuable lesson with this beer which was a little bit of dark roasted grain goes a long way. I used a pound and a half of dark roasted wheat, and should have used maybe a half of a pound.

Now seems to be a good time to mention that although I did carry my camera around with me I didn't snap too many pictures of the event.
My favorite part of BockFest is the obstacle course and this year we threw in a new twist. Having it at Sleepy Creek I felt I should embrace the location and we ran the course between two rows of vines. The course started with hatchet throwing and turned to a balancing act where we scrounged up some old railroad timbers over which we balanced, jumped, some fell, and laughed our way through the course. The champions this year were "Beej's & Cream 2" Brian Johnson and Jason Staab, which was shocking because they came in last place the year before.

Stick a hatchet, pour your beer in the cup, miss it and drink!

This is not live action, Jon managed to stick one this way, and yes it counted.

We can't forget the food, oh goodness the food...There was so much! Last year nearly everyone brought dessert, which was great, but by the end of the night no one wanted anything to do with sweets. This year Laura made some great brownies and cookies and everyone else made food that filled. There was Chili, Brats, Cabbage, Pretzel Bites, Rueben dip, different yummy breads, deviled eggs (with a green olive on top!), and more! For whatever strange reason I didn't feel like eating much of anything so I didn't stuff my face but everything I ate I loved!

The Penis stick made a triumphant return for caramelizing the beers at the fire pit and Zack's dopplebock cigars were a big hit.

Abby and Matt can stick hatchets in the dark, without seeing the target.

Everyone had a great time and I am looking forward to next year's BockFest (if the world dosen't end first). I want to thank all of our fantastic brewers for making a beer to essentially give away, all of the cooks of the delightful foods, Sleepy Creek for letting us overrun the place into the night, my friends who drove a long way, and my lovely wife for putting up with me constantly talking about the event and putting up with me in general.