Buddies

Heath had a meeting at the end of the day so I left a little early and rushed over to get Peanut from school. It was my first time going from work and it was a terrible drive. I got there like 1 minute late, parked a block or so away in a line of other parents and walked over to the kindergarten patio. I thought I was late but waited about 3 minutes before his teacher came out and the kids all followed. Peanut saw me, told his teacher by and we headed home. Pumpkin and the Nanny were having a snack when we got home. I got started on dinner and Peanut watched March of the Penguins and played his DS. Pumpkin sat in the high chair and watched me cook. We cut up potatoes and got them cooking and started some pork chops marinating then cut up and prepared a bunch of veggies.

We had some time till Heath would get home so we grabbed Pumpkin’s sun hat and Peanut’s ball and went outside to play.

Peanut and I set up the recycle bins as little goals and tried kicking and throwing the ball into it. First I put on Pumpkin’s shoes and thought that she would run around on the driveway/yard with us. However as soon as I let her down she headed strait into the garage and climbed into her car.

So we brought her out and put her in the shade where she could see us. She was really happy sitting in the car watching us an occasionally honking the horn. After a while I was sure she was bored and took her out but she went right back to the car. We kicked the ball over the house and decided to go check on Berry.

He was happy to see us. We kicked the ball around a little while longer then headed inside to work on dinner some more. Heath came home shortly after and fed Pumpkin then we all sat down to eat.

For some reason I was thinking the dinner would be too salty. I was tempted to salt everything but the cantaloupe and instead decided to use no salt. I left the taters alone and we just ate them with catsup, I put some Parmesan cheese on the carrots and fresh green beans and I mixed a little light Italian dressing in with the cabbage. I marinated the chops in beer, soy sauce and mustard then basted them with maple syrup, marinara and bbq sauce mixed up.  Everything was quite tasty.

After dinner mom and the kids went to get Peanut’s hair cut and I started getting ready for a mini project with Jon. First I started clearing out this pile.

It’s in the corner of my yard and I let the weeds and brush grow crazy to hide all the treasures. I hauled away and stashed everything not on it’s way to Jon’s house. Then Jon came over and we pulled the pontoons out and moved the trailer around. Then we cut a pontoon in half with a jig saw for easier transportation.

We go lucky and the trailer still had air in the tires so we hooked up Jon’s truck and tried to pull it out. The ground was too soft and the trailer too stuck so we unhooked it and tried my 4 wheel drive truck. We got it out in a jif but hit the fence/wood pile on the way and had to spend some time repairing that. Then we piled the pontoons on the trailer, filled up the tires w/ more air and strapped everything down

Now that Jon is a little more settled in at the new house he is ready to build a little flat bed trailer for us to haul wood, scrap metal, hot tubs and other treasures with. The plan is to convert this old boat trailer for this. So we got it all secured and then I drove it home and I followed in his truck since there are no lights or anything legal about the about the trailer.

Jon backed it into the drive, around Amanda’s car, around the shed and right into the corner. We unhooked everything and unloaded all the pontoon parts then had a beer on the porch.

Then I headed home and was really itchy and a bit sweaty so took a quick shower while Heath got the kids in bed. Then I headed downstairs to play brewer and she worked on some school paperwork and stuff.It was time to make the apfelwein

I dumped out the chlorine in my bucket and cleaned and rinsed everything really good. I used super hot water and did my best to keep any bacteria away. Then I poured in a bunch of apple juice. I remembered reading somewhere that when you are brewing beer you should always be drinking a beer so I cracked one open and continued.

I added in all my dextrose and stirred it up really good until I was sure it was all dissolved.

I added more juice and mixed and then put my wine yeast into a 1/2 full bottle of juice. I mixed it in really good then put the jug in some hot water to warm it up a bit and hopefully get the yeast excited for the sugar party it was about to join. Then I put all the yeast juice and rest of my apple juice into the bucket. I attached my hose to the lid for ventilation and sealed it up. I got a glass and put the hose in it and poured in a bunch of rum. This will let the gas escape but no air get into my brew. The rum may not have been necessary but it will not let anything yucky grow in the glass.

I didn’t really expect any bubbles or anything yet but I watched for a few minutes and finished my beer anyway. Then I started carrying wine cabinet parts and tools upstairs. Heath joined me and we got it all upstairs and in place. We stopped in the basement for a while to talk about the apfelwein and what the plans were with it then headed back upstairs to get the cabinet ready.

I put the hinges on and Heath took the tape off the doors. Then we went to put the doors on and discovered the nice side with trim on it did not face out like the thought. Instead the plain side did and the doors would not fit in backwards. So our whole paint job was backwards on the doors. So we put the tools and door-less shelves out of Pumpkin reach then went to bed.