Beer Update (and Thanksgiving)

Scott stopped over last night and we siphoned the beer out of the fermenting bucket and into a glass carboy. We will let it rest in the carboy for a week or so before bottling it. I had taken the fermenting bucket down to the basement on Sunday, so that sediment stirred up in moving would be settled back down before siphoning.

Here is the fermenting bucket after removing the lid. There was a very strong beer/hops/alcohol scent:

 Before we opened the fermenter we had already sterilized the carboy (again, since I had done it last week too) and the siphon tube and hose. We then started the beer into the carboy:

After it had run a bit we filled the beaker for the hygrometer so we could test specific gravity again. We tested it last week, and got 1.56:

 Now specific gravity was 1.011, with a quick calculation we know that the alcoholic content is almost 6%, which is right at the target for our recipe. We filled a mug and tried it. The taste is not overly “hoppy” and is very pleasant. We brewed using my hops that I transplanted to the back yard in 2011 from the ancestral family farm in NW Iowa.  Since the hops were likely a type of German Noble, they are relatively low in alpha acids, meaning they are not as bitter as many modern varieties. While the beer tastes and looks good, it does not have very much carbonation. That is what we will create when we bottle it, by adding just a bit more sugar to stimulate yeast activity.

So the beer is now in the carboy and in the back room upstairs to sit at a warmer temperature than the basement.

Besides beer activity, we hosted Thanksgiving as usual. We only had 10 on Thursday, the smallest group we have ever hosted. Several weeks ago, my Dad pointed out that the local grocery chain had a special of “buy a ham, get a turkey free.” I went and did that. The turkeys were small and the biggest I could find was 9 lbs.  While at the store, I noticed that they also had frozen goose, so I bought one of those too, and we are set for Christmas.

Imagine my surprise when I went to brine the turkey on Tuesday night and I discovered it was only half a turkey! The drumsticks and lower portion of the body weren’t there. If I hadn’t been so distracted by the goose, I might have noticed this when I bought it. So it was good we had the ham to go along with the white meat only turkey. Here it is before I put it in the basement oven:

While getting ready for Thanksgiving this year that I discovered that we have 4 turkey sized granite roasters, a smaller chicken sized granite roaster, and an aluminum rectangular roaster. I’d say we’re set for everything. I made one version of stuffing in the chicken roaster and used the most interesting looking turkey roaster for our half bird. Here it was after 2.5 hours of cooking:

And after carving:

We used our special Thanksgiving tablecloth and got out the good dishes and silver:

So the near record highs on Friday allowed me to get out while everyone else was shopping to put away all the summer porch furniture and rugs, and allowed me to even wash the porch floor before winter:

I even put up Christmas garlands on Sunday in my shirt sleeves, I’ll need to get a picture of them later.

Christmas in the 'Teens

I went through more old photos today. The scrapbook I've never looked at too much is the one that covers the era before our house was built. Helen, who we knew for nearly a year prior to her passing away, was born in March 1911. Every Christmas after that her mother, Bess,  took her picture in front of the tree. Since Helen's father was a doctor they were relatively well off. For the first 7 years the pictures presumably are from their home in Waucoma, Iowa. In 1918 they were in El Paso, Texas, at Bess' sister's home. At that time Bess' husband, Walter was a captain in the U.S. Army stationed at Ft. Hood, Tx, prior to going overseas.  So here  is Helen from her first Christmas to her 8th:

 1911, 9 months

1912, almost 2

 1913 almost 3

 1914 almost 4

 1915 almost 5

 1916 almost 6

 1917 almost 7

 

1918 almost 8, taken in El Paso Texas, with a cousin?

A couple notes:

• The morris chair to the left in the 1912 picture is currently in our library. 
• The wicker rocker (1912, 1913) never seems to have been moved to Foxcroft, nor was the "death's head" tabouret table in the 1911 picture. 
• "Bill" was the dog's name.
• I think the number and type of presents indicates the relative wealth of the family. 

Looking at the pictures in full scan is wonderful for details, the wallpaper (1911-13) is phenomenal. I don't know if they moved the tree location or painted?

Also the rug in the 1917 picture is the same from the 1930 Christmas picture, the first one I can find  at Foxcroft, even though they moved in fall of 1928:

I wrote more about this picture here:

Christmas Then and Now December 13, 2005

Post Holiday Update

Greetings. it's time to update on what happened, house-wise, over vacation. The answer is "not much." We spent most of vacation visiting my dad who spent four weeks, Dec. 3rd through 31st, in UI hospitals. He was dismissed to rehabilitation in Cedar Rapids on New Year's Eve, and continues to make good progress.

I did manage to surprise Lisa with her Christmas gift. Some time probably in the 1940's Helen made a needlepoint picture of Foxcroft, which she promptly then attached to a folding camp stool. Wouldn't you do exactly the same? We bought the stool at the house sale, 5 years ago this coming March. I took it to our favorite framer, (and A&C maven) Kathleen Rash, at the Art Mission. Here is what she did with it:


Here is a close up of Helen's needlework:


The house also got a gift this year. The phone niche in the dining room once again has a candlestick phone in it:


I put the decorative grill back below the phone niche, I'd found it when we emptied out the attic, put it in the basement and forgot about it. The label on the top of the grill contains Foxcroft's original 4 digit number 4452. Anne, Helen's cousin who was her resident caretaker here, still has that phone number.

My much appreciated house related gift this year was a new pair of overalls, which I will probably wear out next summer as I continue to paint.

Hello Noel, Good to See You Again!

Our old buddy Noel showed up last night, like he does every year about this time. Noel's been around long before we came to Foxcroft, easily 20 years. Here he is:


Noel came in a box of other goodies I bought at an auction. I referred to some of them (the plastic stars) last Christmas in a post here:
Ghosts of Christmas Past Part 2

Noel is made of felt with sequins. I think he was a home project, my guess is maybe from the 1940's? To me has has that era's look. We are lucky to have a front door so similar to the one at our old place, so he fits as well here as he did there:


Merry Christmas

Ghosts of Christmas Past (Part 2)

From when I was born in 1960 until 1969 we went to my grandparents’ home in northwest Iowa for Christmas each year. For several years we flew (Ozark Airlines DC-3 propeller planes Iowa City to Sioux City) because it was much easier than trying to fight snow and ice for a seven hour drive.

My grandparents always had long needle pine Christmas trees. The tree was always set up in the parlor off the living room, a room whose only other regular use was to provide a place for Grandpa to take his after noon-dinner naps for 15 minutes before going back to work as an independent electrician. What made their tree spectacular were the lights. The lights on their tree looked like glowing snowballs. They were enormous and multi-colored. I didn’t know of anyone else who had lights like them.

In 2005 when we moved in here at Foxcroft my dad gave me an Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice box and said he thought I would appreciate the contents. I opened it up and found this:



And these:


All together I have over two dozen bulbs. Now they are on our tree:


I think they look great, especially since to go along with the snowball lights, we have these behind our regular lights:


That make this:



I had bought a huge box of old Christmas stuff over 20 years ago at an auction, and 15 of these were in there. I’m embarrassed to admit it took me three Christmases to figure out what they were.

In an age where we are buying incredibly expensive, but reputedly long lasting compact florescent lights, why are these lights all working nearly 50 years later?

Ghosts of Christmas Past (Part 1)

I don’t know why I started in the north corner of the attic when I began cleaning it out in December of 2004, shortly after Helen’s death. Perhaps it seemed the least daunting. There were a set of wooden shelves built into the eaves, and one of the very first things I found there, as I started going through, was a wooden block that had been carved to show the front of the house:

It was in a box with printer’s ink and rollers. I saved the wood block away and thought it was cool. I knew that Helen was a very accomplished artist, and knew it was her work.

Three months later, while STILL working to clear out the attic I found a hand printed Christmas card/booklet. It was tied together with a fancy green, red and gold string. The front looked familiar:

At the bottom of the card is printed:

This is the house our jack built

“Jack” being a slang term for money

This was page two of the card:

This is the Cat that lives in the house our jack built

Page three:

These are the people who care for the Cat who lives in the house our jack built

Page four:

This is the greeting card sent by the people who care for the Cat that lives in the house our jack built “A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to each of you”


And in the manner of Bess' and Helen's verse, I humbly add the following:

And this is the story made by the people who lovingly cherish the greeting card sent by the people who care for the Cat that lives in the house their jack built

2008 Update: This post was written for Houseblogs.net as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by SC Johnson’s Right At Home cdate:ontest:
http://www.rightathome.com

2019 Update: Some time around 2010 a whole lot of images from this blog disappeared when my ISPcrashed. I'm slowly trying to replace them. The originals above were shot BEFORE we mounted the block and card, which have hung year-round in our dining room since probably 2011 or so,

Christmas Gifts O. Henry Style?

Lisa and I always seem to be on the same wavelength when we give each other gifts. A typical example: for our 5th anniversary Without either of us knowing what the other was planning I gave her an outdoor chimney, and she bought two cedar yard chairs. This year's Christmas gifts were not complementary like those, but still were oddly parallel.

I had been thinking about a picture for above the mantle, and bought one through Friends of Historic Preservation. This picture was in a house that the City of Iowa City had condemned, and FHP bought to restore. The painting is an original oil of a coastal landscape. It looks like northern California to me. Lisa is very much a "water person" and I knew she'd like it. I had it framed by the local A&C picture person, and it looks great. I had it hanging in my office for a month and really liked it. I gave it to Lisa on Christmas Eve so we could have it up when the family came for dinner, it got many compliments.

Lisa then gave her present to me early, so we could also use it on Christmas Eve: a new digital camera, so that I can record our family and our house projects with better quaility than I have been. So here I am using my present to show hers: