Flying Chaff

Another rainy, cold day.  The area trails were too muddy to be fun, so I walked again into Lodi and then back home again. The ground is still frozen so the water runs off the hills and collects in the ditches.  Just a little bit of snow left, and it isn't pretty.

I ran out of coffee this morning, so coffee roasting was on today's to-do list.  

 

In the commercial roastery, most of the chaff goes up from the roasting drum and through the chimney.  A small amount of chaff enters the air when the beans discharge into the cooling tray.  It's a relatively small amount of chaff because my commercial loads were 20 lbs of beans while my home roasting loads are only a pound.

Roasting in the bread machine is an open-air process, so when the chaff releases from the beans, it all tends to fly into the air. 

Roasting green coffee with a bread machine is as easy as it looks.  The chaff is fully released after about five minutes, more or less.  The beans turn a cinnamon color as they reach what's known as first crack, an audible sound similar to popcorn popping.  Most of my roasts stop just before second crack.  Roasting takes about fifteen minutes and then another four minutes for the beans to completely cool.

High Tech cooling tray

 

Dark roasts are usually taken to after second crack, which sounds like Rice Crispies and milk.  Coffee taken to French Roast is black and oily.  

At my coffee shop, the French Roast was called the BBB Special Blend.  It stood for badly burnt beans.  We still sold a lot of it.  People like what they like.

This isn't a fairy tale

 

It's the first of several consecutive rainy days.  I walked to town with Callie and managed to get to the north end before sprinkles turned into a steady rain. We were both soggy by the time we got back home.  I tried to shake off the rain like Callie does, but with less success.  The house was warm from my early morning wood stove fire, so I settled in for a day of reading.

I have two online newspapers that I read every day:  the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the New York Times.  I started reading the Milwaukee paper when I was in grade school and had my own paper route in middle school.  Delivery of the Milwaukee paper isn't available in my area. 

Newspapers are dying, and it makes me sad.  Reading a physical newspaper over morning coffee was a great personal pleasure for many years of my life.  The only physical paper available for delivery to me is the Wisconsin State Journal. Annual subscriptions are $268/year.  Over the years, its owners have shrunk the paper, the staff, and the news content, while growing profits.  

After reading the newspapers, I scan my newsfeed via Feedly.   I try to stay away from the news for the rest of the day. 

Most of the books that I read are fiction. I have about ten authors that I regularly follow.  These include C.J. Box, Steve Hamilton, Jonathan Kellerman, and Don Winslow.

I think I found another one to add to the list:  Noah Hawley, author of Anthem. I'm only about half-way through his recent book, but it's one of those rare books that has grabbed my attention.  He captures the conditions for the messed-up world that we live in perhaps better than anyone that I've previously read.  Here's an excerpt:

"...in the Age of Inverted Reality, the-stolen-cookie-that-was-never-stolen is now known as an alternative fact. Proof is irrelevant.  Reality has become a personal choice, denial of reality a weapon.  If a man gives a speech in the rain and later insists that the sun was shining the whole time, and if he then wages war against those who show him photos of the rain, calling them liars, branding them as evil, he is not lying so much as asserting power over truth itself."

The plot, involving a movement of thousands of teens committing suicide after the pandemic, is way out there.  Recommended.  There's a simple message on the back book cover:  "This isn't a fairy tale."

Throwin' Down Wood

I've been sleeping really well since the Daylight Savings' time change.  Several days per week, Julia gets up early at 4:50 a.m. and goes to her morning "Boot Camp" work out at the high school.  When I owned the coffee business, I woke at 4:50 every morning, but that isn't my preference anymore

I heard her get up and forced myself to go back to sleep--probably took less than three seconds.  I didn't wake up until about 6:30.  My first groggy thought was that it was raining.   Nope, she was back and had turned the shower on. 

This morning, I made up a batch of sourdough for baking tomorrow morning and then played a couple of hours of pickleball.  This afternoon, Callie and I hiked Gibraltar Rock.

There were a ton of people at Gibraltar.  Both parking lots were nearly full.  No off-leash dogs though, so it was fun to take Callie along.  On top of the cliffs, I walked by a large family, noticing there was a very special off-trail wheelchair with treads instead of tires.  When I mentioned that I had a son with Duchennes who would love "the nice ride," she let me know that her young son has Beckers muscular dystrophy and that the chair was the result of a lot of fund-raising.  It warms my heart when I see that families of disabled kids go the extra mile for special experiences.  

We didn't have a tank wheelchair for Justin, but he did have a lot of special experiences, including swimming with reef sharks in Bimini for his Make-a-Wish.  And we definitely took his conventional wheelchair to places that took it out of warranty coverage.  These days, we have a hard time getting him out of his dorm room, but that's where his tools are (computer, phone, tv) and where he feels most independent.  Everyone has to hike his own hike.

This afternoon, I spent a couple of hours in my woods, throwin' down wood.  It sounds a lot cooler than it is.  I cut up a fallen oak tree on our property a few days ago.  The rounds are way up the hill.  I threw the rounds down the hill until I could get them close to my woodpile. It's a whole lot easier than using a wheelbarrow. 

The rounds start where I'm taking the photo and are scattered up the hill from where I'm standing.  It only takes a couple of throws for the smaller pieces of wood.  The bigger rounds generally take three throws unless I'm particularly lucky in the way that they bounce down the hill.  Julia has her boot camp.  I have my wood throwing and processing.

While today was beautiful, rain is predicted for the next three days.  When it stops raining on Friday,  I will hand-split the rounds for wood heat during the winter of 2024-25. 

 

Next winter's wood is already in the pole shed.  I've got enough stacked and seasoning for the winter after that. 

Spring Creek: Spring

 

Spring Creek, Lodi, Wisconsin

 

Blogs are supposed to be fun.  I'm going to switch up the style of this blog a little. Shorter posts with more frequency.   The first day of spring seems like a good time for renewal.  

Callie and I took a long walk from home to town today.  This afternoon, Julia and I played pickleball at the high school.  Nine people showed up; this was the first time masks were not required.  

After a cold morning starting out at 27 degrees, the day has turned beautiful, sunny and near 60.  It's been a long winter, and I can start spending some time on the three season porch. 

Fort Collins: Fermented Paradise and Laundry

This post jumps back to our late spring trip out west.  Leaving the Vedauwoo Recreation area between Laramie and Cheyenne, we backtracked and drove southeast to Fort Collins, Colorado.

We had several reasons for making Fort Collins our destination. First, Julia has an optometry school friend who resides there.  Her husband is a lawyer.    And they both like to hike and drink good beer, so lots of things to talk about after not seeing each other for a number of years. 

Second, after a week without hookups, we needed to resupply, shower, do laundry, dump tanks,  and plan our next journey into the mountains. We checked into Boyd Lake State Park for a two day mid-week stay.  

All of Colorado State Parks are expensive for camping and charge an additional $10 each day for non-residents. At Boyd Lake, sites are tight. Coin showers with out-of-order change machines.  No firewood for sale. On the plus side, the on-site laundry facilities were excellent.  Also, it was very convenient to use as a base for our trips to the mountains to the west, and reservations were available mid-week during June. There wasn't much else available where we could get stuff done.  

 

One thing that we really enjoyed here were the afternoon storms. The sky would be just like the photo above, and then dark clouds would appear from nowhere.  The winds would kick up; the lightning would flash across the sky; and then maybe it would rain a little bit or not.  It was a total tease. 

Then the blue skies would return--just in time for us to go on a brewery tour with friends. Our first stop was Odell Brewery:  excellent beer, very enjoyable outdoor space. 

 After a long winter and spring being mostly cooped up without much social interaction, it felt great to hang out with friends and laugh over beers.

Next stop:  New Belgium Brewery.  I've had their beers before in Wisconsin, but there was a wider selection of draft beers at the brewery.  I tried the Belgium-style Kriek.  Delicious.

One of the ideas discussed that night was a recommendation to hike nearby Horsetooth Rock Trail.  Deanna  and Dan were working the next day and wouldn't be able to join us.  They warned us that the trail could be "snakey" that time of year, so to keep alert.

We didn't see any snakes on the way up, and the trail was beautiful.  We hiked up early in the morning to beat the heat.

 

Julia on a Horse's Tooth

During the hike down, the temperatures started to warm up.  While we were some of the first hikers up, a long line of people were below--just beginning their ascent.  Sleepy heads.  Three young women were hiking towards us about twenty yards away when a HUGE snake slithered quickly between them and then into the tall grass.  The woman closest to the snake  jumped about four feet back and two feet high while shrieking.  It was a big, non-poisonous bull snake and made for a interesting end to the hike.  Two of the women were laughing as we crossed paths.  The one closest to the snake was still a bit shaken.

A week later, we were back at Boyd State Park for more chores before heading into some different mountains for a second week.  This time, we headed to Verboten Brewing in Loveland.  Unlike Odell and New Belgium, Verboten is a small place and the type of brewery that I most enjoy supporting.  Excellent beer and staff that loves to talk about their beer and the community.

Covered outdoor space in front

Beer List

Perfect pour of Stealth Haze

During our resupply, we picked up several Colorado beers which I haven't previously tried. Juicy Bits is made in Greely.  This is my favorite way to enjoy beer. With sandals in a mountain stream.

The next post will be about our week in the national forest near Allenspark, Colorado.

November Update

 

A New Day

It's been awhile.  To be honest, I was on the fence for whether to continue blogging.  The original purpose of this blog was to write about travel, coffee, and beer.  Each of those subjects have taken a back seat in my life for the past six months.  Travel was to be a driving force for our early retirement, but it just hasn't worked out that way yet.

Turning 60 early this year also forced me to take a closer look at how my body was handling alcohol and coffee. An occasional problem with heartburn/acid reflux became more frequent.  I hadn't weighed myself for a long time and was disappointed when I weighed in at 191.

This fall, Julia went on a diet in hopes of losing a few pounds and lowering her cholesterol.  I decided to go on my own individualized diet and exercise program.  I knew that if I quit drinking on weekdays and exercised more, the pounds would come off.  Within a couple of weeks, I dropped to 180, and the heartburn went away.   I'm trying to stabilize at 175-180. 

To make sure that we stay on a healthy track, we are eating less red meat and more chicken, fish and vegetables.  I've found that one cup of coffee per day is just fine for me.  I'm still hiking at least five miles per day.  Julia does boot camp three days per week (getting up  at 4:50 a.m.) and swims the other two days per week.  Twice per week, we play pickleball together in local social leagues.  It's more fun than I thought it would be.

Devil's Lake State Park

 

The second piece of individual exercise for me has been wood harvesting and hand splitting rounds each day. 

Are you done yet?

So, I think the personal funk is over, and I'm ready to start blogging again.  My plan is to first document the rest of our trip out west from early last summer, and then a trip I took  to the Michigan's Upper Peninsula in August. We will see how it goes from there.   There are no trips currently scheduled, due to local commitments with Justin.  

Justin is finishing this semester at UW-Whitewater and then will move to Madison.  I'm proud of Justin for the four years that he spent in Whitewater trying to make college work there, but we've come to the end of the line in trying to make the available resources meet his increasing personal care needs.  

Before Justin started college at Whitewater, there was one personal care agency that met almost all of the disabled students' needs.  They stopped taking new patients just before Justin's first year and then moved completely out of that small market.  None of the remaining agencies filled that gap, focusing on private care for the elderly.  This year, every agency that we contacted  refused Justin due to "staff shortages."  At present, he has only two part time workers who moonlight after full time jobs.  That isn't sustainable, safe or fun for Justin.  He has raised the white flag. 

Julia is doing well.  Travel next year is one of our priorities.  I would like to hike in Scotland or Ireland. Julia has Machu Picchu on her bucket list.  If neither of those work out, there are Scamping opportunities nearby.  We've really enjoyed our short getaways to the banks of the Mississippi River this year.  Julia calls it her "happy place."  We've especially enjoyed the small towns on the Iowa side.  Iowa for natural beauty?  Yep.