It's been a busy week at the Toye homestead.
I finally finished my mash tun construction project. A mash tun is a vessel in which crushed grains and hot water are combined to convert the starches from the malted grain into sugars which the yeast will be able to ferment. It took 4 trips to the two hardware superstores in town because neither could manage to carry all the parts I needed. So after getting the braided hose, barbs, fittings, washers and valves and after 2 leaky tests, I now have a vessel that I think will work! This is in anticipation of my switch from extract to all-grain brewing. Next I need to procure a 7-8 gallon pot to boil the wort that is made in my new mash tun and a burner to heat it with.
I organized the garage, for the most part. This involved a lot of making shelves out to the roof joists and putting stuff we won't use much, like all the Xmas decorations and the camping stuff, up there. I also went through a bunch of boxes and found a few things that I thought we had lost forever, so that was very encouraging. I wish I could say this was just because I decided that the garage needed to be clean, but I wanted things that could be ruined by water/melting snow up and off of the floor. I also wanted the place cleaner so that when it does get to be brewing time, I have less work to do. I am banished from the house due to overwhelming fumes reminiscent of green bean and whoppers when I brew. I also fixed the window that I broke while breaking in the weekend Heidi drove off with the garage door opener for 2 days. I felt productive at least!
I also got a chance to go out with Heidi on Saturday night after work. We went up to Cedar Rapids to catch an Inch 75 show. Actually I would not have gone except Heidi got there and the doorman wouldn't let her in without ID. So she had to trek all the way home and by that time I had gotten a chance to eat and change. It was a good time and Chris and the guys always put on a good show.
Tonight though was a proud papa night. Syd has hockey every Monday night and she has been really reluctant to let go of the chair and skate on her own. She was one of two last time and tonight still using the chair. Tonight however was the first night that they actually had pucks out there. Syd looked as though she decided the security of the chair was not as important to her as the fun of knocking around a puck. She made me really proud tonight and given the chance to use the chair again later on she said she was done with it. Go Syd! I am going to try to attach a crappy cell phone video of her tonight below.
This is not the only proud dad moment. Ian came home and he had a 100 on his Algebra midterm and a 96 on his American Studies midterm. He really seems to be happier in High School and his grades are much improved. Go Ian!
Video hopefully:
1 comment:
That's so awesome that the kids have come so far!
And I've got a 7-8 gallon pot for you. I don't have a lid for it, so you'll have to find one of those, but I've got the pot for you. It's a HUGE soup pot and will need to be scrubbed down, but I got it from an old restaurant that went out of business. Hope you can use it because it's just collected dust and cat hair around here.
:)
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