HarvestFest at Raishland

HarvestFest at Raishland was suggested by my dad so we jumped at the chance to have another annual Raishland adventure.

first thing that happened when we got out of the minivan was BOOM cormac got bartlett's hat.

I rented a minivan from Laguardia airport which sucked going to pick up and drop off and we made it to Canisteo in time to throw these tin foil dinners into the fire

it started raining so we had a little pow wow in the party tent

harvest time. and segways

Our heirloom Northern Spie apples

after a few hour we had enough for 48 gallons of cider!

trying our 1 yr aged cider from last year, was kind of a little too alcoholic tasting and maybe tasted better after 2-3 months.

waiting forever to get our apples pressed at Lain's Cider Mill. We waited all day.

great cider donuts.

Mom stayed with the apples while we went down the road to cider creek to have a drink

a bunch of people wearing dusters and chaps and boots came in to cider creek and we all thought they were weirdos and lame but then we went outside and saw these horses and realized that they were the real deal horse riding and then they became super cool

Mary in the passenger's seat was trying to keep it together but kept giving side eye and being suspicious so I had to make her get out of the vehicle and put her paws on the hood.

finally our turn

i left a beef jerky stick in the car and the door open and some scamp of a dog got in there and made a mess!

We sent the crew home in the minivan so they could do archery etc while Jen and I stayed to get 48 gallons of cider made. This minivan had some new camera tech where it shows an overhead view like there's a drone flying over the top of the car. How do they do that?!

the archery setup. Later Cormac would bark at the pumpkin endlessly not knowing what it was.

mom found this letter we wrote negotiating for higher pay

drying out the tents. Also on this trip JB gunned it in the 4 wheeler and that caused steven to tumble out the back and one of JB's fireworks also exploded at Steven and Jen's feet. Jen said if we were kids that Steven's mom would say he's not allowed to play with JB anymore.

Steven claims this is a well known thing that Mc'Donald's bags are used to create a private eating space but maybe it's just cuz he worked at McDonald's in new castle as a boy.

not great fuel economy in the minivan.

Summer if Finally Over

fish tank at freddy's with gross flesh colored frogs

brainstorming and sketch sesh at freddy's.

E-Sports are real, they were playing this electronic sports (video games) tournament on the TV at Buttermilk.

cool looking growlers from Stacy

The Pavilion was gross people say and it's been closed for a few years so it's great to see that the Nitehawk Cinema is closer to opening by the park and its the closest cinema to us.

A more successful version of the Miso Tamanegi onion thing we had in Tokyo.  I'm taking notes and will try again.

Soyeon and Gabe's wedding in Fort Greene

was weird meeting Jen's Mom's sister

bees still going at it on the roof

i see you pecking at the net bro.  Also Helm's Deep has been desecrated, the squirrels have now learned they can chew through the net.  We saw 4 of them hanging out on each other twisting and folding into each other like a horrible infinity ball of squirrel. Everyday for a week I'd put a board over the hole they chewed and then the next day there's be a new hole beside it, and on and on so I gave up and will have to figure out something for next year. 

impromptu using left over jjigae to make some kind of braised chicken thing with butter

finally got this easel from Foo. I'm not foolish enough to say that it's on because I know life is busy and it might be a while til i get to painting.

Tompkins Square Bar, where they have cocktails inspired by famous authors.

Newest brew equipment, the HotRod heat stick from brewhardware.com it's a 1650w heating element constructed into this food grade stick thing that we use to supplement that gas stovetop to heat 7-8 gallons of water for all grain brewing because the stove top can't output enough BTUs of heat and the carbon monoxide detector went off after so many hours last time. I got the option with a GFCI circuit breaker in the plug cuz we don't have one of those outlets in the kitchen. It worked like a charm and even once the water was boiling we were able to turn off the gas and maintain a boil for the hour long hops boil.  So far so good.  Also had to buy 2 more Ale Pails buckets and airlocks in anticipation of a big cider haul at the parents.  Hopefully this will be all the equipment we need to buy for all time.

first brew sesh of the season.  We just did the 2 we always do to start things off, pale ale and session ipa. 2 all grain batches means 2 ten pound sacks of grains steeping for an hr each. We didn't hit our OG (amount of sugar in the water) so maybe insulating the pot as it sits with the heat off for that hour will help us extract more sugars from the grains. It bubbled like crazy in the 80 degree apt for the first 1.5 days then stopped making me think it was a stalled fermentation, especially since it usually goes for 3 days.  It's at 4% alcohol so maybe it really did do the job in 1.5 days and is just 4% instead of 5% cuz of our poor grain efficiency.

The Gobo vine did finally produce one tiny pathetic bitter melon. And now 2 weeks later it hasn't gotten any bigger. Go ahead you can laugh.