Suzy and Joel and Owen and Evie

The beer had to be siphoned back out of the carboy and into a bucket with a spigot for easy bottling. All the bottles had to be sanitized and the bottle caps boiled so nothing would contaminate the brew. A small amount of sugar was added to the mix and now the beer sits for three weeks to carbonate and let the flavor mature.

Now we wait and hope it doesn’t taste horrible when it’s all done.

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We got another winter storm last night and Joel is now manning the snowblower trying to dig us out. It’s really pretty out there and hopefully when it stops Owen can go out in the sled.

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It was time to move the brew out of the plastic container and into the glass carboy. There are many ways of making beer as we are rapidy learning, but the beer mix suggests doing it this way and it our first venture so we are following their directions as best we can.

Dave and Joel used a siphon to get the beer into the carboy and to prevent the nasty sludge on the bottom of the bucket from staying in the brew.

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We have been using iChat to talk to Rick and Anouk in Utrecht as well as Rick and Debbie in Woodstock. Owen enjoys seeing the faces talking to him on the computer and we are able to keep in better touch with the folks in Holland.

Last Sunday were the AFC playoffs with the Patriots going against the Colts. We used iChat to beam the game to Rick in Holland. (You can barely see Rick’s face on the computer watching us.) We put the radio in for the audio so we didn’t have to tiptoe around the TV and then aimed the camera at the TV. It was fun for all of us and pretty simple. Now Joel is hoping Rick can beam some cyclocross races this way over the Atlantic.

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Joel got me a really nice cedar bird feeder for my birthday. It had a pinecone that hung from the bottom and it was used by birds large (red-bellied woodpecker) and small (goldfinch) until last week when a particularily hungry squirrel knocked it off the hook and sent it crashing down at least 12 feet onto the driveway.

I still have hopes of gluing it back together, but in the meantime I had to help the birds through the cold weather so I bought the Eliminator. It has a perch, which lowers and shuts off access to the seed if there’s too much weight on it. Tough luck squirrels!

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