Grapefruit!

     This week, I decided to take care of some of the grapefruit on my (overabundant) tree. So, with the help of my sister, I climbed up there, and filled a laundry hamper with grapefruit. Then, I promptly ran out of time for the day. Oops.
     The next day, I found an hour to myself, during which I juiced all of the grapefruit, and gathered two and a half gallons of juice, which you can see in the picture on the right. (sorry about the bad pictures, one of these days I'll get a camera, and dazzle you all.) Then I added the rest of the ingredients to the jug. Here's the recipe, for those of you playing along at home:

2.5 Gallons of grapefruit juice


4 pounds of cane sugar


1 cup fructose


1/8 cup grapefruit zest


     The only tricky ingredient is the fructose, which I got at Henry's market. Basically, it's fruit sugar, which I was using to make up for the extra sour fruit. I shook it all up, and tied a rag over the mouth of the jug to keep bugs out.
     Now, let me warn you all, this is an experiment! I didn't really follow a particular recipe. As it turns out, grapefruit wine recipes range from "use a hydrometer to gauge the acidity, aiming for a relative gravity of 1.25" to "mix juice and sugar in a jug, wait till it's wine and enjoy." As a simpler kinda guy, I'm going with a jug of juice and sugar.
     According to my dad, his dad used to make the best damn wine, and if I am to get this to work, I am going to need some raisins. Apparently, raisins help kick over the fermentation process and get the wine really liquoring up. I'll be adding those as soon as I can get some, about a handful.

    So, that's the latest adventure in kitchening here, I'll keep updating about this as it goes onward, And letting you all know if it turns into wine, or just a big fat jug of bad smells.

     Also, for those of you with a sweet-tooth, I took a bunch of the peels of the grapefruit and candied them! I peeled them with a vegetable peeler, boiled them four times in fresh water, to rinse out all of the bitterness, then boiled them a fifth time, with about two cups of sugar on them. I let them boil ligthely like that for about two hours, then put them on a hard boil to thicken up the sugar syrup. After it started to get pretty thick, i laed the peels out on a lined baking sheet, ad let them cool before shaking them up in sugar. Apparently, by the way, shaking them up in sugar was a bad idea. They're a bit too sweet for just about everyone, but the flavor is fantastic!
So, that's what I've been up to this past week, What about you? what sort of experiments have you done in your kitchens? Let me know in the comments, I'd love to hear from you!

The Amberwine Case

     As you may have noticed, I am the kind of person who likes to have a couple of projects bouncing around. That way, if i hit a roadblock on one, I can hop to something else to keep my mind busy while my subconscious sorts out the problem with the first project. To that end, I have started a second blog, entitled "The Amberwine Case".
     The Amberwine Case is a serial adventure with heavy elements of mystery, which hopefully, will keep you guessing. The story takes place last year, starting in June, and plays out as the main character, alias Allen Bishop tries to tell his story, before he runs out of time to do so. It should be a pretty exciting adventure, and I'd appreciate anyone who reads this blog checking it out. It's very  different from what I am doing here, but i think it's pretty interesting. If you agree, please subscribe to it, and recommend it to friends! Also, if you are as in to Alternate realities as I am, don't tell them it's fictional! I'm doing my best to incorporate it into real-world locations and events, although some of the content is guaranteed to be a bit sci-fi! so check it out here:

http://amberwinecase.blogspot.com/

And tell your friends!

ALSO! don't forget about the contest I am running on this blog!
CREATION CONTEST!
I am taking entries until May 31st! That's one week from tomorrow, so don't forget to enter!
Thanks everyone!

Creation Contest!

Here's a question: Why does it seem that in every video game (okay, not every one, puzzles games are pretty good about it), but in most games, at least, there seems to be a strong element of violence? Anything medieval HAS to have a sword, anything modern needs a gun, the future needs lasers, but most games out there don't ask you to use a hammer and nails. Most of them are about destruction, rather than creation, and i think society reflects that. That's not to say that violent video games Cause violence in people, but rather the opposite. Art, including video games, is a reflection of ourselves, and our violent nature is reflected in video games. So, to that end, i propose a challenge:

I am looking for a short video game project, something simple, and something based around pacifism and creation. Anything at all. Share this around with your friends, and have anyone you know who might have an idea for a game like this post it in the comments of this blog. On May 31st, i will read through every comment, and select a game to make. Remember that the idea should be short, simple, and about peace and creation.

After i have chosen a game, i will sprite it, program it, and make it available for download here on the blog, with credits given to the person who created the concept.

Remember, any questions you have about this, ask in the comments, and i will clear them up.

Now, get in there and get creative!

Old Mess With New Life

A few weeks ago, i decided to take up a new project, using old junk and trash from around my yard and house, and rebuilding it into useful, appealing items. So, as my first step in the project, i found in our yard an old couch, which had been (quite unfortunately) ruined by cats. Normally, we would have to wait for our local big trash pickup day to get rid of something so large. But, as our big trash pickup is in January, that didn't strike me as practical. Instead, i decided to dismantle it and re-purpose it. I started by removing all of the fabric i could, and threw it away. Underneath all of the gross fabric, there was a great deal of really nice wood, a lot of which was made up of curved boards. The biggest trick of disassembling the couch was figuring out where it had been glued together or stapled, or sometimes screwed together. Identifying the fasteners, and then removing them was kindof a pain, and i definitely broke a bit more of the wood than i meant to, but in the end, i pulled a bunch of boards out of it. Then i just had to decide what to do with them. Ideally, i would have created the whole thing only out of boards i had scavenged from the couch, but that proved impractical. But, inspired by the curved boards from the couch, and supplemented by a few broken half-barrels i found in the orchard, i got to business, and built a pretty rustic arbor.

Which, if I do say so, worked out pretty well. Add in an old bench, and a large bush, and in no time, you've got a cozy little spot to have some iced tea and talk about the good old days, before the kids started listening to that Rock and Roll music, or their Hip and Hop.

The Curved top is made out of couch pieces, and so are the black curved frames at the bottom. two long boards running up the back round off the couch parts. the weird (rustic) latticing on the side is made up of oak slats from half-barrels, the type used to plant small trees. The bench was just something i had floating around. In the background, you can see Gus and Sasha making a big fat hole in the ground, which of course i love. SO, what do you think? A successful conversion of junk to treasure? any suggestions for projects you'd like to see? Let me know in the comments! And thanks for reading!

The Sky Boom!

I realize that this picture is neither incredibly exciting, nor clear, and yes, that is definitely my thumb, but what you are looking at is an awesome rig I built for watering my garden, and I am going to teach you how to make one!

Imagine a crane that follows you around your garden, but instead of a cable for lifting weight, the crane has a hose attached to it that lets you water your entire garden without fighting the hose. That is the SkyCrane. last year, we put soaker hoses through the entire garden, one in each of the raised beds. Unfortunately, the soaker hoses decided that one year of soaking was enough, and that from now on they are Spraying, leaky hoses. Obviously, I needed to find an alternative, so I decided to run a hose and water my plants by hand. It would give me a chance to get in there and notice the plants individually, and since I already had a garden hose, it wasn't going to cost anything. Perfect!
Then I tried lugging the hose through the garden, around the corners, and getting snagged on just about everything. That wasn't going to work for me. It was about then that I invented (okay, maybe I stole the idea from a self-serve carwash, but it definitely has a cooler name now) the SKYCRANE! (yes, I know, the skycrane is a heavy-lifting helicopter, but my nephew thinks the name is cool, so we're going to go with it.)
SO! Here, essentially, is what the Skycrane is: a T-shaped boom made out of lightweight fence-pipe, a set of counterweights, and a hose wrapped to the end, all supported by a fence post on the edge of the garden. It was incredibly simple to make, taking only about twenty minutes to put together, and because I built it out of scrap from around the yard, it was completely free.

Since I am not entirely convinced that my description is concise enough for you, I present a very technical digram rendered in exquisite detail:

Hopefully that clears everything up, but if not, be sure to post any questions in the comments section, and I will answer them ASAP. Hope you like it!