Peaks & Valleys: Homebrew Halloween

Homebrew, pumpkins, and 'maters...OH MY! I 'll keep this short and sweet with lots 'o pictures! A few weeks ago, Nathan bottled his first batch of homebrew and his Dad was here to help him bottle it. This time around, he needed an extra set of hands and I was the man, er, woman, er, only person available for the job! I've gotta say, the process is really interesting and I'm excited to be his helper the next time. It was pretty awesome. Since this batch was a pumpkin brew and they had black bottle caps I named this one Witch's Brew :)

The big glass jug is called a carboy. When the initial "cooking" process is finished, the goods are strained
and placed into that guy. Then it ferments for, I dunno, a pretty long time in a cold, dark closet. Then, it's
time to bottle!

Bottle capping the beerskis!

Sterile bottle caps.

Dishwashers! They're not just for dishes anymore!

Happy Beer Boy

'Twas the night before Halloween and our poor round friends still had no faces! We waited until the last minute to get our carve-on because the damn squirrels eat the pumpkins out here!

So happy, right?

Not sure which is bigger...the jack-o-lanterns or my own pumpkin belly.

Me and Baby E!

Did I mention that we got another foot of snow this week?! Uh, yeah. Nearly two feet of snow in as many weeks. Nice to see Colorado winter has decided to give me a nice warm welcome. I love the snow...I'm just not a big fan of being cold. If we could just have the snow with 75 degrees, I would be a happy girl. I know, I know. But a girl can wish.

Since the snow kept me in the house for most of the day yesterday, I decided to be a little constructive. Nathan's colleague, Drew, gave us about a half a bushel of tomatoes from his little organic farm. They were close to going bad, so I blanched them and threw them in some jars yesterday! So pretty!