Update, now with more Kitten!
The interesting (to me) things in my life haven’t changed all that much, but their proportions probably have. Ergo, you get an update!
Chickens: The chickens are egg-producing MACHINES right now. In the month of September they laid us 71 eggs, which is an average of 2.36 eggs per day. So almost every hen laid an egg almost every day in September. And get this: we have had 3-egg days for the last NINE days straight. We’re pretty much out of egg cartons at the moment. Anyone with spares, feel free to send ‘em our way.
Brewing: I have a lot of 2-gallon batches in the pipeline right now. I have a Blonde Ale almost done bottle conditioning, a Bock in bottles (needs a couple more weeks), and I bottled a Pale Ale last night. I also have a California Common and an Irish Red fermenting. I also have 1 gallon of Mead still fermenting. However, I’ve decided that I’d get a lot more reward for my labor if I were doing larger batches, so I’m planning to move up to the “standard” 5-gallon batch size in the very near future. It involves buying more equipment, of course, but it has it’s upsides. For example…
Kegerator: I’ve decided that I’m going to build a kegerator this autumn. I’ll be able to keg my 5-gallon batches in old 5-gallon soda kegs and serve them on tap right from home. I’m thinking three taps is a good starting point, since it’s nice to have a little variety. I have a basic plan for the kegerator in place, so now it’s just all about buying supplies and building the thing. It’s gonna be epic, folks.
Running: Just 10 days before the Des Moines half marathon! I’m so close, I can taste it. And it tastes like anxiety. But the running has been going well enough. Amanda and I ran a 9-miler on Sunday, I ran a 2-miler over lunch yesterday, and we have a 7-miler tonight. Then another 2-miler on Friday, and a 10-miler (our longest before the race) on Sunday. Then we take it relatively easy race week, running a 2 on Tuesday and a 5 on Thursday before we tackle the big 13.1 on Sunday morning.
Hapkido: I’ve had to cut down on the hapkido training in the last couple of weeks, as hapkido and jogging both strain my knees but in different ways. I was worried I was going to injure myself right before the race, which is unacceptable. So I’ve only been doing hapkido once a week for now. Next Monday will be my last session with them until probably the Wednesday after the race (since I’ll probably be too sore the Monday after). But since I’m still going semi-regularly, and since I’m not planning to test again until February, it shouldn’t be a big deal.
Kittens: Olive has managed to wiggle her little way into our family. She gets along adequately with the other cats, though it was touch-and-go with Smaug at first. But it turned out that Smaug had an infected paw ($275 of infected paw), which was probably making him more grumpy than usual. There’s still a lot Olive needs to learn: 2am is not play time, faces are not for sleeping on, the dog’s bed is not a litter box, legs are not for climbing, etc. But she’s sweet and cuddly and pretty much all that you could ask for in a kitten. So we’ll keep her.
