Hoerman's House

It’s spring….I want it to act like it.

Yesterday was the first day of spring.  How are we going to celebrate that?  It is going to snow!  If I just pretend it isn’t going to happen, it won’t right?

Now I realize I shouldn’t be whining about a mere 1 to 3 inches of the white crap.  However!  This weekend we are in for a “significant” weather event.  I am so very ready for winter to be over with.

Birdie Appointment

Lila has an appointment at the vets tomorrow.  She is going in for a talon trim, but she also has to have some blood drawn.  A few months back she tested positive for Avian Bornavirus.  We are having her tested again at a different lab to make sure it wasn’t a false positive. 

Racking The Wine

Sunday it was time to check the gravity of the wine. If it tests within a certain range it is time to siphon it off the sediments into a clean secondary container.

Here is the wine in the fermenting bucket.  The yeast and grapes have been very happy together.

Here we are testing the gravity of the wine.  It tested perfectly, so we siphoned it into a clean secondary container called a carboy.

Glug, glug, glug….

This is the sediment that was left at the bottom of the fermenting bucket.

The wine has to continue to ferment in the carboy for another 10 days when we will test it again.  So…..stay tuned.

It was a long week!

I think this picture sums up how last week treated us.  It seemed like it took forever to get to the weekend, and once it got here we were all too tired for any Saint Patrick’s Day shenanigans. We did enjoy the traditional corned beef, cabbage and potatoes.  Hoping everyone else had a good and restful weekend….and if not restful, I hope you had a ton of fun.

A Dog With An Agenda

Glen took this picture while I was at work.  Not sure what he was doing, or why he had this gun on the sofa.  Lucy however, looks like she has claimed it as her own.  Not sure how I feel about this picture…..I am even less sure how I feel about the look on her face. 

We’re Whiners….I Mean We’re Making Wine!

Glen and I decided to try our hand at making wine. 

I am thinking that the UPS guy hates us right about now.  That is about 120 pounds worth of “stuff” that we ordered from a company called Northern Brewer.  They have everything you need for both making wine and beer.

This is what it looks like unpacked.  That is a lot of “stuff”.

First step in the process was sanitizing everything.  Lilly was very interested until she realized water was involved.

Here we are mixing bentonite with some distilled water.  Mmmmmm, muddy water!

I selected a California Pinot Noir. 

Adding the concentrated grape juice to the muddy water.  We also added a couple of gallons of distilled water.

As much as I love those grapes, yeast is really the star of the party.

Just sprinkle the yeast on the top of the juice, put the airtight lid, (equipped with an airlock), on the fermenting bucket and wait for the yeast to get wild and crazy.  By the next day it was burbling away.  We will test it next Sunday, so stay tuned.

Broke Beak Birdie

I didn’t realize the tip of Eva’s beak was missing until I looked at this picture. It isn’t really broken, just chipped from chewing on her toys.  She will be an extra busy girl getting it back into shape.

Eva:  Let me out…I want out….let me out….I want out….let me out….I want out!

She Gets Desperate Sometimes

Lucy crawled over the end of the couch, over Petey who was already snoozing, to get to Glen for some lovin’.  I don’t think either dog was comfortable, but neither was about to move from their spot.

Caviar Dreams

I unexpectedly had the opportunity to try caviar.  One of the officers I work with gives his zone a large gourmet foodie basket for Christmas.  After they have gone through it and taken what they want, communications is allowed to “scavenge” the remains of the basket.  One of the operators I work with managed to get her hands on a jar of caviar.  None of us had ever tried it….we were skeptical, but adventurous. 

I have to say, we were totally redneck in our approach to eating it.  I brought cream cheese to the party, but forgot to bring any crackers.  So….we went to the vending machine and bought baked Lays potato chips.  We tried it, and surprisingly liked it.  I was even brave enough to try it plain.  It was not as salty as I expected, nor as fishy.  If you chew them they do pop, which could potentially gross you out.  I wish I had taken a picture of my teeth before I rinsed my mouth, because I had black specks between every single tooth.  Classy!  Maybe someday I will be able to try the good expensive stuff.  Will have to add that to my bucket list 🙂

Our Girl…She Likes Pillows

We have noticed that our Lucy girl likes to lay on pillows.  Whether they be throw pillows on the couch or our pillows on the bed, she likes her pillows.  So….I decided to give her 3 pillows that were old and deemed worthy of the trash bin.  I slapped some really ugly pillow cases on them and bam!….instant happy dog.