Basement Brewing

Since I replaced our ancient cooktop with a glass cooktop I have forbidden Dan to brew beer on it. Brewing beer is a messy (but fun!) business. And since there is a lot of sugar involved and sugar is very very bad for glass cooktops. I nixed it. However, I have been working hard on turning a part of the basement into his brew area. It is starting to come along nicely, but is definitely taking longer than I anticipated. Our basement is unfinished but already had a cozy area to turn into a beer area. Mostly because there was already a deep sink there. I also want to replace the old nearby water heater with a vent-less gas water heater, which would free up enough electric for all the boiling that is involved in beer making. Anyway, I started painting last night and the sink turned out pretty well (in my opinion anyway). The exterior is a semi gloss orange (that Dan picked out) and the interior of the sink is now white enamel. looks waaaay better than it did. Unfortunately there are no "before" pictures, but here is an after picture :)

The list of things that have been done so far: 

- replaced plumbing to and from the sink (everything was frozen up and the lead pipe from the sink fell off when I touched it) 

-added wood trim around window (it was just insulation packed in around the new window which was smaller than the original) 

-painted the copper pipe to the sink white and touched up the wall behind the sink white
-painted the outside of the sink orange
-painted the inside of the sink with kitchen/bath white enamel ( it was just plain cement)
-cleaned the window (it was so dirty you couldn't see through it)

Still to do:

- panel ceiling
- paint floor white
- put curtains on window
- add a heat source for boiling
- finish blocking off the back of the steps and paint


Basically beer making needs to be in a very sterile environment so it needs to look clean, be clean, and be easy to clean.

More to come I'm sure!

Sparrows in the Run

There were birds in the chicken run, and I'm not talking about my chickens! I went out and some how two white-throated sparrows and one house sparrow were stuck inside the chicken wire of the run. Beats me how they got in if they couldn't figure out how in the world to get back out. I could hear the poor things hitting the chicken wire from inside the coop so i went to investigate. (The chickens were pretty amused at this point) I think letting the chickens into the run scared the crap out of the little birds though. Two of them managed to escape by dive bombing into the chicken wire with wings closed and feet stretched out then plummeting about two feet before opening their wings and flying on. The other one kept trying to do that but would chicken out at the last minute and bring his feet forward and land panting onto the chicken wire. Meanwhile the girls are trying to catch said bird as it flutters around because I am sure it would have made a tasty treat for them. So I went into the run. Rye and Cookie immediately ran out of the run to go frolic in the new snow. I immediately stepped into a puddle hidden by a thin layer of ice and got muddy, poopy, icy water all over my shoes. I shewed the bird toward the open door till it finally realized it was free and flew off. Beats me why on earth 3 birds went into the run on the same day... Needless to say- I was very late for work.

Seeing Red

Ever heard the phrase "seeing red"? As in being so upset you have lost all notions of reason beyond killing someone or something. Going crazy. Loosing it. You know. Anyway, the phrase applies equally to bulls... or chickens. When a chicken sees blood, it will peck what ever is bleeding to death (given the time and the scope of things of course).

Well or course it is Betty my lap chicken who got plucked on. My hens rip each others feathers out rather regularly (I think it is something of a past time for them) Well one pluck went to far and Betty got a bloody wound. When I discovered it after work I separated her from the rest (by letting her into the garage while everyone else was confined to stay in the coop part of the garage). I gave her food and water and she seemed perfectly unconcerned with her new arrangement and absolutely was begging for treats.

I went back out later, after the automatic lights in the coop went out to see where she had roosted for the night. They say chickens will roost as high as they can possibly get. Well this was no exception! It took me a minute to find her when I walked into the garage. do you see her? :)

Anyway by morning she had nicely formed scabs so I let her back in with the rest of the flock after caking some mud on her back to further protect the site. 

All is well in the hen house again.