2014 Hops

The cascade plants took off super early this year. And just like last year, the chinook were late bloomers. And now the chinook have taken over as this year’s darlings. I’m not quite sure what’s up with the cascade plants. 1) They have brown edges around the leaves and 2) something has been nibbling away… Continue reading 2014 Hops

Session IPA

For my very first all-grain batch, I opted for a nice, low gravity IPA. Gasp! There is some trash talk going around about the latest releases from craft brewers about their sessionable IPAs. I don’t see what the big deal is. I think that, to the purist, the IPA should never be session strength. But… Continue reading Session IPA

Benches

Last week I completed a refinish job on a couple of benches. We got these benches from the old location of Matt’s El Rancho in Lakewood. When they closed, the offered up a ton of furniture at fire sale prices. The benches were great! One was yellow and the other one was bright pink. All… Continue reading Benches

Flagstone Patio – Part 1

When Joslyn and Bryan re-made their back yard last summer, they had some left over flagstone. And they offered it to us; we are 100% grateful to have it! We borrowed their mantis (which is a totally kickass landscaping tool, btw) this weekend and got to work. So our Sunday consisted of 2 trips to… Continue reading Flagstone Patio – Part 1

Hops Update

I shot this photo a couple of weeks ago. And now that I’m out of the woods on a massive work project, I’m finally getting around to posting this picture. So this was shot June 23rd (ish). Yesterday I added expanded shale and compost to all of my beds. The soil is so loose and… Continue reading Hops Update

We Can Pickle That

At one point, we had so many cucumbers that we didn’t know what to do with them. Correction. We know what to do with them. We pickle that! I looked up a few recipes for fridge pickles and tweaked to make it my own. It’s not precise… and that’s the nice part.

Hops Growth – 7 Weeks

The cascade and chinook hops I ordered from Homebrew Headquarters are doing great… other than some pesky teeny tiny black caterpillars that keep munching on some of the leaves. They have made excellent progress over the past 7 weeks. The image in this post shows first sprout up to May 31, 2012. I’m not sure… Continue reading Hops Growth – 7 Weeks