spring is in the air

Snow run from a few weeks ago on Riverview and the last house hit by the April tornado last year. Really need to get in the habit of grabbing the camera for some of the slower slogs.



Sunrise from a few weeks ago, that I just now pulled from the camera.

Paula and the boys have been sniffling the last few days. Don't know what's blooming other than weeds. Some of the trees have started to bud and the grass is starting to show some green, mostly weeds. Glad my allergies haven't started up yet. Was nice running in shorts yet again this morning. Here's to stowing away the tights again until the fall. (seriously doubt that will happen)

Rained last night and looks like more rain on the way. What's really going to suck is running Tom King in the rain yet again. Perhaps, we'll get it in between showers. I've only run it once in the rain, last year. The prior year I was out that morning in the rain and wondered how in the world they were going to have the race with all of the lighting. (evidently they didn't have as much in Nashville as compared to Murfreesboro)

Darrell and I brewed up our second batch of beer over the weekend. This one is a Anchor Steam clone or California Common. I've never had the Anchor, but it also compares with the Flying Dog, Old Scratch amber lager. We got the ingredients from Rebel Brewer in Goodlettsville. They have a storefront in the Space Park North business complex off of interstate 65. Little bit of everything in the store. They put together the beer ingredient kit as we waited. (according to the web they were out of the ready made kits)

The more I read about all grain brewing, the more I'm ready to take the plunge. Think batch number three will be all grain. Only thing I want to get besides the grain and ingredients is another bucket to sparge/mash. One of the better web sites I've found for research is Home Brew Talk.

One mistake we made with the first batch was dumping the entire fermented batch into the bottling bucket. The trub, left over grains and hops were a couple inches deep in the bottom of the bucket. That shouldn't have made it from the brewing kettle into the fermentation bucket. Ooops. That made our finished beer a little cloudy, plus we didn't wait but seven days to bottle. Perhaps this second batch we'll let settle for a little while longer until it clears completely before bottling.

Beer brewing bible, bottles ready to be delabeled/cleaned and ingredient kit.


Beer brewing kit from All Season in Nashville, plus brew pot.


One liter flip top bottles before bottling our first batch of English Brown Ale.



Dylan's lego castle.