Cider Making

The more I travel to Europe, the more I enjoy drinking their hard cider.  It's something I rarely had until a few years ago, and now I think I enjoy it more than beer.  Unfortunately, it's more expensive than beer here in the states.  In the U.K., I can go to the corner store and buy a 2 liter bottle for about $4.50, what a deal! 

It hasn't been until the last 15 years that cider has become more popular in the U.S. which is a bit strange because our founding fathers drank cider regularly.  John Adams used to begin each day with a large mug of hard cider.

Last winter, Deeann and I brewed our first batch of beer at home, Puppy Dog Pilsner, and it turned out pretty well.  She started making a batch of wine a few months ago with a friend of hers, and just started making a batch of Amber Ale.  It occurred to me that I could try my hand at making my own batch of hard cider!  Yay for me! 

The process for making beer, cider, and wine is quite similar.  They all require fruit as the source of flavor, and tis also the source of sugar for the yeast.  Add yeast to your fruit juice, cover to keep impurities and unwanted bacteria from joining the party, vent it so the carbon dioxide can get out without causing an explosion, and wait for 2 weeks to 2 months for the fermentation to run its course.  The amount of alcohol produced is in directly proportional to how much sugar was in the original solution.  A hydrometer is a weighted glass cylinder that measures the specific gravity of a solution.  Water has a specific gravity of 1.0.  As sugar is dissolved into the solution the specific gravity increases and by looking at the various scales on the hydrometer you can determine how much sugar you need to have to have a particular percentage of alcohol.  It's like Betty Crocker and Chemistry class rolled into one!

I am extremely fortunate that I have an apple orchard only 3 miles from my house, and they were able to squeeze me 5 gallons of apple juice that had no preservatives and was unpasteurized.  This saved me a lot of time trying to squeeze all the moisture out of nearly 2 bushels of apples. 

We took a trip to the cities to a brewing shop to ask a few questions and pick up a few supplies like bottles for the finished product.  I would have liked to get some clay jugs so I could just hoist one up on my shoulder and have a swig when I wanted, but they didn't have any.  By the way, in case you were wondering (and I know you were) the X's on the jug were put on by the local brewer (moonshiner) to indicate how many times it had been distilled and filtered.  The more X's, the smoother and stronger it was.

My son, Brian helped me with the actual making of the cider, meaning he got to do all the heavy lifting and dirty work and I supervised.  He will be back in town for Christmas, and hopefully by then it will be ready to be bottled and consumed.  Who knows, it may become a new Christmas tradition!

The hardest part of the whole process may be deciding what to name my cider.  My favorite name  brand here is "Hardcore Cider" which I like on many levels, but would not feel right using.  I thought about "Sippin' Cider" because I like the way it sounds, but Deeann wasn't too thrilled.  The major brands in the U.K., Magners and Bulmers, are named after their owners but "Lufkin Cider" has no ring to it.  The other big brand there is "Strongbow" which is named after the region, but "Minnesota Cider", "Rice County Cider", and "Northfield Cider" have no pizzazz.  I've been doing a lot of reading lately, and I thought that maybe I could name it after an historical character or author.  After much consideration, I chose to name my cider after the author of some remarkable books, such as "A Tale of Two Cities", "Oliver Twist", and appropriately for the season, "A Christmas Carol".  Charles Dickens.  I have therefore decided to name my home brew "Dickens Cider"

I hope it tastes as good as it sounds.

7 Miles? Are You Crazy?

I have been dreading this day.  7 miles.  Holy Crap.  The most I had ever run before was 5 miles and I thought I was going to die.  I would have blamed it on the altitude, but I was 15 feet above sea level.  Hmm...must be me.  I was supposed to run 6 miles last Saturday, but I got assigned a 3 day trip for Friday evening.  Since I had already run 2 miles Friday morning, I went back out and ran another 4 just to get the mileage in, but even I know that's not the same as running 6 miles all at once.

The forcast was for a high of 45 degrees and 80% chance of rain.  When I woke up, I looked outside and the ground was dry and I even saw a patch of blue sky.  Things are starting out OK!  I had my standard "running breakfast" of Special K and a banana, got dressed, digested, stretched, and went outside.  I should have looked outside again.  It was 40 degrees, winds 10-15 kts. and raining.  Nice.  So much for things going my way.  Luckilly, my wonderful wife, Deeann, had bought me some cool cold weather gear, like a long sleeved running shirt, running pants, a wind breaker, and even gave me some light knit gloves just before I left for Newark, so at least I felt prepared...that is until I got about 100 yards from my door, then it got cold.  It is a half mile walk to the park where I run, which is a great warm-up normally, but my metabolism hadn't started up yet and I was freezing Menards off.

Oh well, since I was there I might as well get on with it.  Besides, running might warm me up!  My plan was to go slow and steady and get as many miles in as I could.  Time wasn't important, but of course I was going to keep track just for reference purposes.  Feeling a bit sorry for myself I began my run, but knew I would be able to get some sympathy later from Deeann or my friend Kari...oh wait, Deeann was running a 10K at the same time, and Kari was biking 150 miles across Oaklahoma at the same time...can't expect any sympathy there, I guess I'll just have to suck it up.

The park I run around is a rectangle that is .2 miles on 2 sides, and .1 miles on the other 2.  It actually works pretty well with the intervals I run/walk so I don't have to constantly look at my watch.  Like I said, I wanted to run slow, and particularilly start slow which is what I need to do for the half marathon.  It took me 8 minutes to finish the first lap: talk about slow!  It's a good thing I checked though, because it's hard for me to count too many laps, so if I lost count I could just divide my total time by 8 and know I would be pretty close.

After the first lap I started to warm up.  Off came the gloves.  After a mile, it was time to unzip the jacket.  At 1.5 the jacket came off, and I would have taken my pants off if I wasn't worried I wouldn't start again. I couldn't believe how much warmer it got outside in such a short time!  Why do I have all these stupid clothes anyway?  At 3.1 miles (5K) I checked my time and it was 39:45.  What?  I ran my first 5K in May and finished in under 35 minutes!  (It's about distance stupid, not about time)  True, but still a little disheartening.  Then I realized I probably had another hour to run.  This sucks.

It wasn't all bad though.  I knew Deeann was running at the same time too, and that was sort of cool.  The sidewalks weren't crowded.  I got to listen to lots of music at high volume.  At 5 miles, I still felt OK and realized that I had kept my intervals of run/walk constant as opposed to the last time I ran 5 miles and by the end was walking more than running.  At 6 miles, I realized I was going to make it.  At 6.2 miles (10K) my time was 1:19:45 only 15 seconds slower than the first 5K split.  At least I'm staedy!  Time to kick up the speed a bit.  At 6.6 miles, I had run half of a half marathon.  I actually ran 7.1 miles because I still had a little gas left, and my time for that last mile was 10 minutes.

Wow.

Walking back home, I was struck by how much colder it suddenly got in such a short time.  Thank God I had all those wonderful warm clothes!

I'm not sure which is more difficult: the physical effort or the mental effort.  It's a lot of work either way, but also rewarding both ways.  It's really nice to see the training paying off, and it certainly feels good to get that run behind me, and I also enjoy the feeling of accomplishing something I wasn't sure I could do.  The best part though; Tomorrow is a rest day!  Hooray!

RAGBRAI Thoughts

Wow! What an adventure, and I didn't even ride my bike!!!

Here are a few of my observations about RAGBRAI from my vantage point of being the support crew. This is not just a reminder to myself for when we do it again (and we will do it again) but also a list of tips to pass on to someone else who may wind up being the support dude.

Finding and setting up a camp site will be the most challenging part. The sooner your riders pack up their tents and get going, the sooner you can get to the next town and get set up. DO YOUR RESEARCH! Look at maps of the towns and their designated camping grounds and have a plan. Do you want to be near the entertainment or have peace and quiet? You want to be close enough to some toilets so you don't have to walk for blocks when you need to pee at 2 AM, but you want to be far enough away from them so you don't hear the doors slamming when everybody else has to pee at 2 AM. Know where the showers are, because your riders will want to use them, and it's totally worth the $5 charge. If you can arrange it ahead of time, make arrangements to stay at local residences or churches, it'll take a lot of pressure off you. Have a pile of stakes, a hammer, and some construction tape immediately available. When you find a good camping spot, stake out your area immediately, and take more land than you will need. You can shrink your perimeter later, but adding more space later may be impossible. It's survival of the fittest, and anarchy may break out at any minute, so stake your claim and hold on! Find as flat a space as you can, and look for shade whenever possible. An E-Z Up makes life so much happier for you as well as hot and exhausted riders when they get done.

Practice setting up your tent at home before you leave, you won't look so stupid in front of everybody else, plus you'll be sure you have all the parts. No mater what the weather forecast is, stake your tent securely and put the rain fly on! It's much easier to do in the daylight than at 2 AM with 35 knot winds, driving rain and hail (plus you probably need to pee). Have some sort of plan in case the weather gets severe, like a good ravine to roll into. Pack your stuff in something waterproof. We used Rubbermaid totes that worked pretty well. Others used giant zip locks or plain garbage bags. It will rain at least once, and probably more, so plan on being wet. Have clothes line with you to dry stuff later.

If you are cooking for the group, plan your meals/menu well in advance. Look at the ingredient lists, and buy everything that is non-perishable in advance. Do your shopping for the day after you have set up camp. Plan on going through 30 to 40 pounds of ice a day. Have a cooler to act as a "refrigerator", and keep it cool with ice in zip lock bags. Find out what others in your group like for breakfast and snacks, they will appreciate it. If you have coffee drinkers, a french press works well if you have a way to heat water. Use of generators early in the morning or late in the evening is discouraged. Have snacks and cold drinks immediately available for the riders as they get in. They will be tired, thirsty, and within 20 minutes of arriving, will be ravenously hungry. It doesn't matter what they want to drink: water, coke, beer, they need to drink something, so be a nagging "mom" and see that they do. It's not a bad idea to have a cold drink yourself by the way.

Be extremely careful when driving near bikers. Individually they are all very nice, but when a bunch get together, they take over the entire road, forget about traffic rules, and assume that there is a policeman at every intersection stopping traffic for them. They will not yield, they may not look, they may be in the wrong lane and texting. Do not, under any circumstances, drive your vehicle on the bike route. I guarantee you will regret it.

When your riders come back after a long day, they will be happy to see you (or at least relieved to have found you) and they will want something to drink, but they will not particularly want to talk to you. They are tired, and anything you did around the camp or grocery store won't compare to the 70 plus miles they just rode. Give them about an hour and a half, and they will be back to being the people you thought you knew. They will tell stories about towns they saw, riders they met, pies they ate, fun and quirky things they did on the way, and you will feel left out because you missed it all. Oh well. If it hurts your feelings too much, get off your ass, get into shape, and find some other sucker to be the support dude next time.

Be very particular about who you do this ride with. It is a lot of fun, but it is very challenging physically and mentally for the riders (and you too). The excitement will give way to exhaustion after the first day, and everyone will be in various stages of sleep deprivation. I promise you, everyone who does this ride comes back changed in some way. Friendships can be made much stronger, and friendships can end, but your relationship with every person in your group will perceptibly change. This includes spouses! During the week, there will be some drama, some hurt feelings, or misunderstanding. Be patient, stay calm, and do your best to smooth ruffled feathers. As the support person, you will be the de facto leader whether you like it or not, so do your very best to set the tone, stay calm, and keep the beer cold.

So, your finished the ride, congratulations! It is a remarkable achievement, and it is truly wonderful to see the mighty Mississippi. Dip the tires and relish the moment. By the way, I recommend leaving as late as possible on the last day. You probably don't need a campsite, and all the early risers will be long gone by the time you get there, so parking will be much easier. Do not be surprised by the emotional let down after you get home. So much of your lives over the last few weeks has been focused on training, packing, planning, and then the actual doing, and you will feel a bit lost, a bit disoriented, and definitely tired! It will take 1-2 weeks for you and the riders to bounce back physically and emotionally, but it will have been SO worth it!

My New Friend, Manny

I made a new friend in MANchester today. His name is MANny the MANchester MANtis...or at least that's what I think he said....

I was walking out of our hotel in downtown, going to the bus that would take us to the airport. You would think a bug 4 inches long would be a bit more obvious, but he was about 6 inches and 1/10 of a second from becoming a puddle of green goo. I'm pretty sure if it were a zebra, it would have taken me just as long to realize to adjust my step because it was completely unexpected and totally out of place!

Here are a few interesting facts about Praying Mantis's:

They are related to cockroaches and grasshoppers.

Some species can get up to 12 inches long.

They are the only insects that can turn their heads from side to side, and can go 180 degrees in either direction.

They get their name (Praying) from the benevolent way they hold their forearms together...that have spikes and barbs on them.

Mantids (that's plural for Mantisseses's) do not actively hunt, but wait for prey to come within striking distance.

Some cultures in Asia and Indo-China keep Mantids as pets for their children to keep them protected from poisonous spiders.

Large Mantids will eat frogs, snakes, small rodents, and small birds.

Their are no documented instances of a Praying Mantis attacking a human.

Female Mantids will sometimes eat her mate after, or sometimes during mating. This does not seem to deter males from reproduction.

Mantis comes from the Greek word for "prophet" or "soothsayer".

I've seen some oddball things that I didn't expect to see before, like Manny. I saw my first Coyote on a taxiway in Tallahassee Florida. I've seen a goldfish swimming happily in a lake. I once caught an 18.5 inch Rainbow Trout in a pond about the size of my house 1 mile from the closest road or habitation, surrounded by 10 yards of thistle (it was worth it!). I've seen Baptists at Keg parties, priests at strip bars, nuns in casino's, and I've seen Steve Day dance with a black woman.

When I was young and staying with my Grandmother Florence, and I was driving her nuts, as young boys tend to do, she would take me out " in search of adventure", and we always found it. I know that sounds innocuous enough, but as a boy, the opportunities were endless! Adventure was found in finding tadpolls, or trying to count the seeds in a cattail, or seeing how many trees we could identify, or finding a path that we immagined Indiands stalked. It was with her we saw a goldfish swimming in the lake.

She grew old and mean in her later years, but I will always thank and bless, and remember her for showing me that there are extraordinary things in the ordinary.

It's almost worth it to pay attention from time to time!

By the way MANny, stay away from the girls!

Random Thoughts About the UK

Any day that it's not raining becomes a holiday, and everybody goes outside.

The hotel maids are almost exclusively Caucasian.

Food here is expensive.

Nobody here is fat.

Very few people wear hats, and if they do, it is rarely a baseball cap.

Nobody here is bald.

Nobody here has a mustache without a beard.

Why do I feel like I don't fit in???

People here are surprised we don't all carry guns in the US.

In the US, something that was around in the 1800's is OLD. Here, something from the 1500's is a bit old.

People, especially girls/women can wear anything and get away with it.

The primary past-times here are: Soccer/Rugby, drinking, and smoking; in that order, and they are excellent at all of them.

It is impossible to find chewing tobacco of any kind here. (I guess you have to go to Copenhagen)

Dawn is right, the chocolate is better here.

Folks here are much better at standing patiently in line.

In all my wanderings around Europe, I have never heard anybody speak Spanish.

The only Mexican restaurant I have found was owned and run by Turks.

If I pay attention to conversations on the street, within 10 minutes I can hear 5 different languages.

The color of green in the fields is different here somehow, but I can't explain in what way.

Wireless Internet is an extremely rare thing, and anyone with an iPhone is a Yank....of course they are also fat, bald, mustached, and wearing a baseball cap....

In general, in the US, we walk on the sidewalks as we drive on the roads, to the right. Here, they drive on the left, but walk anywhere.

At Pubs here, people love Bud and Miller beers: they're imports and must be better!

They are better.

I like Hard Cider here much better than any beers, and it comes in 2 liter bottles at the convenience and grocery stores! I need a longer layover....

Ice machines at the hotels, if they have them, are meant to fill a glass, not a bucket or cooler.

If you order a coke at a restaurant, they will only give you about 2 ice cubes. The locals don't want to be gypped out of the proper amount of beverage with wasted ice.

McDonald's and Starbucks are everywhere. I think they are owned by a consortium that will one day rule the world....of course coffee and cheeseburgers do make the world a better place.

What is it about baked beans, mushrooms, and stewed tomato's that requires them to be available in great quantities for every breakfast buffet?

Orange juice is a rare and expensive commodity here, and is almost always bitter and pulpy.

Dogs are welcome almost anywhere, and I can't remember ever hearing one bark...I wonder if it would have an accent....

In many bathrooms here, there is an oval area above the toilet, divided (artfully) in half for flushing the toilet. I have no idea what the difference is, and I feel too stupid to ask.

No, it's not for the bidet, and no self-respecting guy would ever use one, even if he knew what it was. We think it looks like a drinking fountain for our dogs.

To turn the TV on using the remote, you have to push the "channel" button twice. I have no idea what the power button is for.

Gas here is $1.50...a QUART!!! OK, that's roughly $6 a gallon for those of you who are volumetrically impaired. Thank God the prices have come down!

Public transportation actually works here, and the subways and train stations are well lit, spacious, and don't smell like urine.

Don't even think about eating Haggis. A flight attendant asked me this morning what it was, and I told her "It's what's left over after everything edible had been removed from the cow (hearts, liver, lungs, plus suet, oatmeal and spices). She didn't believe me. After she had some, and thought "it tasted a bit weird", she asked the waitress what was in Haggis, and the waitress spared no details. The flight attendant left very quickly, and was not seen again. I think she will become a vegetarian.

I am extraordinarily fortunate to have the ability and opportunity to travel to foreign lands and see the sights and meet the people's that I have. I should be down on my knees every night thanking God for blessing me so much.

So those are my ramblings for today.

I have taken a great amount of pleasure over the last year or so reading Deeann's blog, and Kari's blog. What a great way to share information and thoughts with folks, without sending out a mass email to everyone! There have been times that I have felt like I have something to say, important or not, but didn't have the means to put my thoughts into words. Not that they were necessarily important, but sometimes I want to share my thoughts or insights or observations with someone, and when I'm on the road, I'm usually alone. Having a blog, I think, will allow me to share some of these things, but I think it will also force me to focus and crystallize my thoughts, feelings, emotions, and impressions into something more meaningful and substantial, that I can share with anyone who is interested.

If you're not interested, I totally get it! Half of the time, even I'm not interested in what I have to say!

I don't know how often I will blog, how good it will be, or if this is just a passing phase. In any case, thanks for reading this, and I will try my best!

Comments are always appreciated....