Wood and steel, revisited

Tam sparked my intrigue with her Flat Black People Poppers posting. I've got a few of those squirreled away in the gun safes, but it does the heart good to see something in walnut and steel every now and again.

So, for Tam and all the others who can apppreciate such things, here's my restored Remington Model 1903A4 sniper, looking like it did the day it was handed to a GI during WWII or Korea. While overshadowed by the M1C and M1D Garand sniper rifles, it still did yeoman duty for its day:

First Blush!

The 2009 Baraboo Blush concord grape wine is now bottled. Here's the First Blush:


Behind it are the 2009 batches of Elderberry and Plum wines, bottled but awaiting labels.


Yes, they taste even better than they look!

Just a little snow...

Not a record, but we received upwards of 14" of the fluffy white stuff in less than 24 hours. I stayed home from work (They never opened, regardless) and hacked away at clearing the driveway and making a path through the back yard for the dogs. However, I ran out of steam when the county came through and plowed a huge berm right into my driveway's approach. I could swear the county snowplow driver had a big grin on his face as he buried us within mere minutes of us digging ourselves out earlier. So I refilled the tractor's gas tank, plopped #2 Son on the seat, gave him some rudimentary training, and let him take care of the problem. That's our mailbox I was in the process of digging out when my wife handed me the camera. The twin-cylinder Briggs, wheel weights, tire chains, and hydrostat on the Bolens all worked admirably in taming not only our driveway, but the two neighbors' properties, also.



I then went inside, drew a hot bath to take care of the frostbite I'd foolishly ignored during the day, and rehydrated with warm spiced cider. I'm still sore from shoveling and dealing with the frostbite on my legs, knees, nose, and ears. Vitamin M (Motrin) is the order of the day.

Tomato and Linksys WRT54G - 303 days and counting!

I've stayed with Tomato v1.19 on my older Linksys WRT54G v1.0 router, but so far, no problems. The router is on a 400VA UPS, so as long as the power doesn't drop for longer than the UPS can feed the little router, I have no doubt it can go another 300+ days or longer!

The colors of fall...

The maple trees in my neighborhood are absolutely vibrant this time of year:


Beauty is where you find it, IMHO.

Concord moved to secondary fermentation...

About a week ago, I took those 20 pounds of Concord grapes from my dad's farm and reduced them to approximately 2 gallons of juice and pulp. That then got put into a 6-gallon primary fermenter with pectic enzyme, tannin, yeast nutrients, sugar, water, and yeast.


Today, that young Concord wine got racked into the 6-gallon secondary carboy and topped up with a little water to prevent oxidation. It's sitting next to a 3-gallon batch of Wild Grape wine that's also a week old. Note the blush color of the Concord!


Now if I can just quit "sampling" the stuff this winter before bottling it...

I want a Chapman Stick!

But I also want to be able to play using both hemispheres of my brain at the same time, which one needs to do when both the melody guitar and bass guitar are situated on the same instrument. I've got about 30 year of regular guitar playing under my belt, but I am truly blown away by what folks do with this invention. The video below is Greg Howard and his band, playing "Still Water", with Greg on the 12-string Chapman Stick. More Chapman Stick videos later...