I spent my Sunday morning brewing some beer. This one will be ready to drink in about six weeks, which will put us right in the middle of October. That’s the time of year when something like Maple Porter sounds like it would be great.

There it is in the primary fermenter where it will spend the next two weeks before being racked into the secondary fermenter. It will stay there for two more weeks, then it will be bottled. After two weeks in the bottles it will be drinkable, but a month will make it fantastic. I’m really looking forward to this beer. I spent a good bit of time finding just the right recipe and I actually did some tweaking of the hops, yeast, and syrup I used thus kind of making it my own recipe.

Filed under:
News, Pictures by Jack

The week before last Jess and I took a trip to New York state’s wine country with a couple of friends, Jamie & Tammy Vacula. The only complaint we have is that we didn’t spend enough time there. We hit the road on Tuesday morning heading for Chautauqua County. We spent a day there and on Wednesday we drove east to the Finger Lakes region. We stayed there until Friday. Good times were had.

I am going to format this post as a big run-on series of the pictures we took there and will caption each picture (or group of pictures). Continue reading for all the pictures.

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Pictures by Jack

I haven’t updated this site in a while because I wanted to complete my current project quickly and post a complete pictorial of the process. We’re building a garden shed. We started it over the Independence Day weekend and I hoped to have it done in a few weeks. But, unfortunately, as it neared the home stretch so did the project we’re working on at work. This means I’ve spent all of my free time working and the shed project has gone on hold.

I’ll be able to get back to it soon to finish it up, but for now here’s a picture of it almost as it sits now:

In the picture you can see through the front door and out the other side. That’s not the case now because I’ve installed homemade barn doors on the end wall, but I don’t have a picture with those installed.

What’s left to do?

• Hang the door on the front wall. We saved our old kitchen entry door and I’ll be using it here.
• Trim the corners, around the doors and window, and along any seams in the siding.
• Paint.
• Install a vented soffit underneath the overhang.
• Install aluminum fascia on exposed fascia and along rake soffits.
• “Prop up” the overhang with vertical 4x4s. This will be decorative, but will give the shed a more substantial look.
• Landscape, including installing a small patio under the overhang.
• Build a ramp to the barn doors on the far end.
• Come up with a way to hide the foundation blocks and keep animals from creating a den underneath.
• Put stuff in it so that stuff is no longer in the basement, thus allowing me to get back to work on the basement.

Oh yeah, in case you don’t know, I’m finishing the basement. It’s nearly fully framed. Once the shed’s done I can finish the framing and start wiring. I’m looking forward to getting back into that project.

Filed under:
Home Improvement, Pictures by Jack