Home Repair: It always breaks on a Sunday

Isn't it always the way? You're relaxing on a Sunday afternoon when you discover a critical part of your home has broken and few stores are open and repair people charge triple. In this case, I heard water running when I was doing laundry. I thought I might have had a burst outdoor faucet. The shutoff for that is in my furnace room. Upon turning on the light, I see water all over the floor and my expansion tank hanging down instead of pointing up.

Fortunately, Home Depot was open and had exactly what I needed. This is what $33 will buy you:

It's a fairly simple fix. You spin off the now full 4.7 gallon steel tank. A couple wraps of teflon tape go around the threaded end of the tank. For good measure, I removed the elbow and put more tape on that part. It was a good idea because there was no tape on the threads which were engaged. The new tank spins on and then is adjusted for position. It took about 10 minutes plus another 20 to go to Home Depot. It's good to be handy. 

Beer Brewing: Phase 1

I brewed beer once before, but most of the equipment belonged to a friend's father. Over the last 5 years or so, every so often, I've had the thought that I would like to do it again. The last time I did it was during the '90s home brewing era. There were about 2 dozen dedicated stores within a 40 minute drive of my house. Now, there are a couple small places 40+ minutes away with limited stock.

Fortunately, my father-in-law has the equipment and got me an extract kit for Christmas. Otherwise, I would still be considering and dragging my feet.

The instructions were great. You start by bringing some water up to 170°. You add the bag of grain and hold the water between 150° and 160° for 30 minutes. 

After that, you add the 2 cans of extract, the package of malt and the bag of hops. You bring it to a boil and hold it there for an hour. 

The final part of phase 1 is adding the mix to the fermentation vessel (aka, a food grade bucket). You add a couple gallons of cold water, dump in the mix and the add enough water to bring it to about 5.5 gallons. A quick trip outside into the snow brought the temperature down to 75 degrees. At that point, I added the yeast, and closed the lid for a couple weeks.

Gardening: The Real New Years Day

To the average citizen, the New Year begins with a turn of the calendar, a glass of champagne, fireworks or a kiss. To a gardener (well, this gardener, anyway), it begins at the start of the growing season. For me, today was that day.

I got some trays of starter soil ready, pulled out my bags of disorganized seeds from previous years, added this years seeds, and pulled out all the things I needed to start. In this case, I need to start onions, leeks, parsely, butterfly weed* and yarrow.

I have been getting better and better with onions each year. I usually do medium to large yellow storage onions. This year, I decided to expand my planting to grow red onions and leeks. Last year, I had great results with my relatively small planting (100ish plants) of Pontiac onions. They were a medium-large onion, uniform in size, that lasted from Aug. to Nov. before we used them up. There were only a handful of small ones despite weeding neglect and none went soft or started to turn black.

I decided to try to have a repeat performance with Pontiac. In addition, I selected Red Bull (a red storage onion) and King Richard leeks. I got one packet each with 250 seed per packet. They have a 75-85% germination rate and I usually get a third of them are too runty to plant. That means I should get 133 red, 133 yellow, and 133 leeks. If I had more space, I would probably plant 5-10 times as many yellow, and twice as many red. But, I work with what I have.

Planting is simple. I filled an open flat 2/3 full of seed starter mix. I made straight rows, 1/2" deep, 1" apart. I wasn't too particular with where the rows start or end with the onions. I made sure to only do complete rows of leeks. I marked them, and covered the flat with plastic. I ended up with 7 rows of onions (finished with some leftover seed from 2 years ago) and 2 full rows of leeks.

Tomorrow, I'll get the parsely, yarrow, and butterfly weed seeds in the dirt. Next week, I might start some spinach, lettuce and peas to put in a cold frame. I usually start both of those too late, so I'd like to get a jump on them this year. 

* - Butterfly weed (aka Pleurisy root or Orange milkweed) is a pipe dream for me. Every year, I try to grow it. Every year, it fails to germinate, dies at transplant, or, in my most successful year, doesn't flower and dies in the Winter. Still, I have hope.

Random Thoughts: Maintenence and Repair

Did you know that you are supposed to have your oil furnace cleaned and tuned every 12-18 months? I did. I'm also really lazy and forgetful when it comes to doing things which require me to spend money and give me little to no return for that investment. Every year in June, I get a call from my furnace people. They leave a message and I intend to call them back. I put it off until the heating season arrives and then I think, well, another few months wont hurt. I'll do it in the Spring.

The last time I had it cleaned was August 2011. I finally decided, "Screw it! I'm just getting it cleaned." It cost me a little over $200 due to the extra labor because the thing was so dirty. Still, it's usually $135 per year, so that's better than the $450 that I would have spent doing it annually. However, that savings was obliterated.

A couple days later, the furnace shut off. I restarted it, but every time it started up, it was misfiring a few times before it finally stayed running. So, assuming something was screwed up from the cleaning/tuning, I called them back. The guy tells me the power venter is shot, and it's shaking the vacuum safety switch, causing the misfires. Oh, and also, the circulator pump isn't working at all. The new power venter is $355 and the new circulator pump is $170 and the labor was about 2 hours. I didn't even stick around for the bill. I made my wife pay it. So, the long term plan is that I am going to put a chimney up and eliminate the power venter entirely. These things crap out every 5 years, and just provide something else mechanical to fail. Since simple is usually best, I opt for simple. Now, how do I come up with a non-hideous installation of metal chimney pipe right in the middle of my deck?

Random Thoughts: Lost Youth

Recently, I have lost a small piece of my childhood. Well, technically, it was a piece of my barely-into-adulthood. When I was just shy of my 19th birthday, I got my ear pierced. It wasn't an act of rebellion or anything. It just seemed like a thing to do. In addition to the piercing stud, I bought a pair of gold continuous hoop earrings. After the minimum waiting period, I put in the hoop. Between normal wear and cleaning and having to twist it to keep it from sticking, I managed to warp the first of the two hoops. After some amount of time that I can't recall, I switched to the other hoop. I have warn that every single day, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week with very few exceptions. I took it off for job interviews and I took it off when I was working in a factory one Summer. The last time I took it off was probably 7 or 8 months ago.

Well, the other day, I was taking the lights off the Christmas tree. Rather than walking around it, I was tossing the strand up over the top and pulling it around. On one fateful toss, a light managed to catch my hoop, pull it off and toss it into the abyss. OK, not really the abyss. It probably landed in the Christmas tree, although it's possible that it landed in any number of other locations in that corner of my house. All I know is that I shook the heck out of the tree, sifted through the dropped needles, and looked carefully in, around and under anything that could be concealing it. I even went so far as to get out the metal detector to sweep the tree, but it was too small and the rope and chains which hold the tree up provided too much signal to search the bottom half of the tree. I officially declared it lost.

I really haven't though about my earring much. However, now that it's gone, I feel naked and self-conscious and a little lost. I keep reaching up and touching my ear, somehow the hoop to be there. Sadly, it's gone. So, I ordered a new pair of hoops to replace my nearly antique jewelry. The first set lasted 20 years, but the first one had a short life. It is my hope that this pair will last at least until I'm 80. Then, the next pair should take me to 120, and so on.

Recreation: Astronomy

Space. The final frontier... Well, that may be true, but I don't see us (humans) tackling it any time soon. In my opinion, we have lost a lot of that explorer drive which drove us to all corners of the Earth and beyond. Now, it seems as if the only purpose that we have for going is to see if ants can sort tiny screws in space (Simpsons reference). Well, that and "climate science," which is 1 part science, 99 parts conjecture, supposition, and S.W.A.G. At risk of turning this into a post about Global Warming, it bugs me when people use a handful of years of data to say that we are making an irreparable negative impact on our global climate system. It also bugs me when people use a slightly different handful of years of data to say that we are having no impact on our climate system. It's akin to taking a single photo of a bunch of kids playing trampoline dodge ball and predicting, with absolute certainty, what kind of car that one of their great, great, great, grandson's talking pet chickogasaurus (cross between chicken, dog, and recreated dinosaur DNA) super-evolved tapeworm will fly.

So, Space. I have a passing interest in space things. I regularly watch the internet for astronomical events. I look up at the sky anytime I am outside at night. I'll even break out my telescope a couple times per year to take a look at Jupiter or Saturn or Mars. There's a "new" comet in the sky starting now and extending into next month. It is visible in "dark sky" conditions now and should be for the next 2 months or so. Of course, "dark sky" is the critical term. Based on its recent brightening, it's possible that it will become a fully naked-eye observable object from all clear sky conditions. However, my guess is that most urban and suburban locations will require binoculars or will just be SOL. All due to lack of dark sky and it makes me sad.

The waning interest in space exploration (including those aforementioned climate science probes) seems directly linked to the ability of people seeing the sky at night. In the ever-constant push to be more "green", we are encouraged to change to energy efficient lighting for the benefit of the planet. How about we start pushing to turn off the lights. To me, it is incomprehensible that some of the most "green" parts of the World are literally glowing bright enough to be seen from space. We have night sky conditions which range between limited to totally unobservable. Closed stores and car dealerships are lighting up whole city blocks. Street lights shine in all directions lighting up the ground, the sky and the interior of the front of my house. Meanwhile, I can't even point out the Big Dipper to my kids because the North sky is a diffuse, glowing gray-orange color. So much for my kids becoming astronauts or astrophysicists. So, for the good of the climate of the World or the future of space exploration or the reduced electric bill or just for the sheer enjoyment of the stars, please, please, please turn off your lights.

Hunting: Well, Sort Of...

Thanks to the awesome generosity of a hunting friend, I became the proud owner of two freshly shot Canada Geese. These creatures are the bane of golf courses and park managers and reservoir managers along the whole Atlantic Flyway. They are also delicious, nutritious, grass fed, cage free birds, killed by a quick death. If you object to any of this, or don't really want to know where food comes from, stop reading here because it's about to get bloody. Read along with me to see how I turned these feathered friends into food.

For goose #1, I plucked the feathers down the center of the breast from the bottom of the neck down to the vent. I took my knife (a Havalon, which is essentially a surgical scalpel with a knife handle), and made a very shallow cut through the skin to the breast bone. You can see and feel the bone, but the cut should be shallow. Once the initial cut is started, I turned the knife edge-up so that I wouldn't cut too deep. I cut all the way down to just above the vent. 

Here, you can see that I started peeling back the skin. Sometimes, the skin just peels. Other times, you have to barely touch it with a sharp knife to release it. 

I continued to cut/peel back until the entire breast was exposed. The breast will extend down to the wing on the top and the thigh on the bottom. Once fully exposed, removing the breast is fairly simple for anyone who has ever done the same thing with a chicken. The difference is that the goose is wider and flatter than a modern chicken.

It's a little hard to tell from the picture, but you cut straight down the sternum, peeling back the meat as close to the bone as possible. Near the neck, cut down along the wishbone. The objective is to free the meat from the bone alone the attachment points, in between muscle groups. As such, it's more a peeling than a cutting. 

You need to repeat the same thing on the other side. Now, it seems that the general consensus is that it isn't worth bothering with the legs. It seems an awful waste though. I cut back down to the the fat around thigh. I slid my fingers around the meat/bone to to release the skin. I cut the thigh away from the bone, until I reached the thigh joint. Once exposed, I cut the ligaments to release the bone. One of the legs was broken on impact, but the meat was intact. 

I decided to push my luck and see if I could get the wings off. That didn't go nearly as well. The skin got really thin at the wing elbow. As I got to the joint, I kept cutting through the skin. I manage to get some sinewy meat from the wing for a whole lot of effort. It was definitely not worth it to get the wing off.

I put the meat on a plate in the fridge to do a little dry aging. I'm not sure how I will prepare these goose parts. The second goose was hung, in feathers which I plan to pluck, but that is another post.