FULL ON FEBRUARY BLUES!!!

As predicted February Blues is hitting hard this year. I was out blowing my driveway (which I love to do) and I took a hard look at my overfill area (the area I keep clear for blowing snow, piling snow and to allow of some extra winter parking). I cleared it but this might be the last time before my "give a damn gets broken!" I have already abandoned the mailman's path (the shortcut I was keeping open for the mailman to be nice and save him some walking). This blues is SO BAD that we are due for "Warm" (33-35 degree days) next week and I'm dreading it more than looking forward to it. Because I know all this is going to accomplish is push the frost-line deeper and ice up the road because the road commission is already out for lunch on trying to keep the roads up this winter. My goal for next week is to find something to get me out of this February induced SLUMP.

Evil Brew is now Bottled!

After one last test with the hydrometer confirmed that just about all the sugar was converted to alcohol I set about bottling the brew. I should hit my goal of 15% alcohol with this batch. I did sample some of it while bottling and it is sweet and a bit cloudy but I'm hoping that after some conditioning in the bottles that will decrease. I'm a little nervous that this batch may become over carbinated and I may even be risking some exploding bottles. Only time will tell! But to be on the safe side I'm going to start up a regular batch of cider this weekend.

The dreaded FEBRUARY!!!!!

So I'm guessing most of you are looking at me like I have a third eye right now. Some of you are even saying "WTF winter is almost over be happy!" Well unlike 80-90% of the USA in the U.P. February is on average the coldest month of the year (thank you Lake Superior!) Yes we are getting less snow by now but we have more ice, higher heating bills, and even though the days are longer we still don't see the sun much (and when we do it makes us snow blind)! To add some salt to the wound right now the rest of the USA is post and blogging about ramping up for growing season. Some people are even starting to talk about planting some of their starts already. Well not us! We are running winter carnivals and snowmobile races. This is literally 28 days of suffering. By now we have run out of place to put snow, wood piles are being rationed, stored food is being rationed, and cabin fever is starting to look like the "Shining"! Then throw in a healthy helping of tax season and company deadlines and it is amazing the December still edges out February as the most likely month to commit suicide! But I have lived up here for over 30 years now and.... ok I still haven't found a way to fully cope yet. Global Warming had such promise but thank you Al Gore for getting my hopes up (@$$hole).

Thankfully this year I have 3 kids that LOVE SNOW (the forth hasn't voiced an opinion yet) and their excitement is infectious (so are the colds they keep getting) PLUS this year I have to give a HUGE THANK YOU to my friend Kasey that is sponsoring a fun photo contest!

SO in closing RED RUM... I mean summer is just around the corner (some where)