Sunday morning experiment...

These pictures don't need much explanation ;) I've a recipe for refrigerator dough that I use for pizza crusts...well, the recipe also comes with a recipe for the following, using half the batch. So, Friday night I made pizza and with the leftover I made these delicious lovelies. YummmmmY!

Waiting to rise...

Fresh from the oven...

Turned out on a plate...

Ready for serving!

They were absolutely fantastic. Definitely something we'll have in the future!

So I went to collect eggs...

...tonight, just like every other night. Trudge out through the snow(still falling) feed the rabbits and make my way into the hens' side of things. I toss out some food for them, fill the water trough and turn my attention to the nesting boxes.

Peek in the first and EEK! There's a freakin' opossum grubbin' on eggs!! Talk about a nasty surprise!

looked something like this!

So now what do I do? Well, the barn's at least a hundred feet from the house, the wind is howling and, of course, everything's closed up tight. No chance I can yell and get Mike's attention.

Now, picture this, okay? I'm standing in the middle of the hen house, chickens scratching about my feet, seemingly oblivious to the fact that there's a PREDATOR IN THE BARN!

Ok. So I have a water bucket and my egg bucket. No help there. I stand back, keeping an eye on the little bugger. Thankfully it IS a little bugger and it looks like it's hoping like hell I don't realize it's there.

Well, I have to do something. Hoping for some inspiration I go back to the rabbit side of the barn and look around. Finally I decide I'm going to see if I can get the blasted thing into the water bucket so I can take it up to the house and get Mike's help.

With heavy gloves and an empty feed sack in hand I head back to the hen house. The thing's still in the same spot, in fact it looks like it's cowered even further into the back of the nesting box.

Now, I'm really not all that keen on getting bit, and I can't seem to see anyway around that. 'Possums have killer teeth and the gloves I had weren't 100% leather ones.

Okay.

*deep breath*

I turn the feed sack inside out and bunch it together in my hand. Carefully I stuff it in the nesting box, figuring if the thing was going to attack me it could attack the bag instead. Thankfully it didn't! Taking the bull by the horns I reached in and grabbed it with the bag and yanked it out. The front of the box turned the bag back over it and I was able to drop the critter into the bag like some crazy ass Crocodile Hunter.

Well. Phew. Okay, that part at least was dealt with. Holding the bag(with the opossum in it) in one hand I fished the rest of the eggs(the whole ones at any rate) out. With the 'normal' chores handled I made the trek back to the house, water bucket, egg bucket, and 'possum filled sack in hand.

So now what the hell do I do?

Well, thankfully I was now close enough to get help. Mike fetched the .22 and shortly thereafter there was a dead 'possum.

Now how's that for some mid-week excitement?

Spring Fever?

This last weekend Jen and I decided to try something we have both been interested in some time, home brewing. We bought each other kits for Xmas this year and finally got around to playing with them.

This is Jen's kit. It came with instructions (all 5 steps). Just grape juice, yeast, and toasted oak chips (for those of us who don't have wine barrels at home, I presume).

Here is the wine-to-be all mixed up and on it's way to being White Zin. The peat mossy looking stuff on the top is the afore-mentioned oak chips.

Here is Mikey's kit. Notice the number of ingredients. (Beer is much more complicated than vino - as evidenced by the 25 step instructions that accompanied the kit).

Here we are after the grains have been steeped, malt and bittering hops added. Boy did that smell like heaven. Btw, this is a brown porter that I'm working on.

Here we are on Sunday. An hour or so before the Super Bowl, Jen tells me that we have grape juice on the office floor as her wine decided to "explosively ferment" (no shit). So we transferred her brew from the carboy into an extra fermenter (positioned next to mine full of "sweet wort") and both have been bubbling along happily since.

So, after two weeks, Jen has to transfer hers over into the carboy for another 12 to 14 weeks before it can be bottled (and needs to wait for another 3 months to age). Mine will go into bottles with corn sugar (to provide carbonation) for another two weeks before it is ready to drink. I can't wait.