An Accidental Sparkling Mead....

We've been making mead for 25 years now. But 2009 marks the first time we've ever made a champange mead, also known as a sparkling mead.... Unfortunately, that wasn't what we intended to do.

We were sitting in the front room the other night when we heard a "whump" in the kitchen. Edward got up to look, only to see a cork had popped on one of the bottles of mead that we had in the wine rack. It was foaming out all over the rug.

Back when we were living in Maryland, back when we knew others still making mead, we'd gotten a bottle from a friend. It was corked and labeled and set on it's side in our closet off the living room. We noticed one day that the cork was pushed out somewhat. We pushed it back in and thought "we should keep an eye on that..." Time passed, it pushed out a little again every once and a while and we pushed it back in. Then we went away for a weekend.

When we got back we noticed that there was a heady, sweet smell in the living room that got stronger the nearer you got to the closet. When we opened the door we knew why immediately. That bottle had popped it's cork and about half of the mead in it had spilled onto the carpet on the floor of the closet.

Back in those days we didn't have a carpet cleaner. Back in those days all we had were towels and warm water. We soaked and scrubbed and rinsed for a long time. It didn't really help. The mead had had enough time to soak well into the carpet. From that point forward, whenever we opened that closet door, you could smell, ever so faintly, the rich aroma of honey... It was forever dubbed the Mead Closet...

We've never had this happen before. At least not with one of our bottles. Which is why we were somewhat embarrassed when this bottle popped last night.

We like to share our mead. We gave away nine bottles this year. Several of which have turned out to be of the sparkling variety. At this point, all the bottles have been accounted for, and the current owners duly notified. So far, three bottles have turned out sparkling, another sparkled only barely. We poured some from the bottle that popped. It looked like champagne. All we can figure is that it must not have died completely and when bottled, it started a secondary fermentation. We do use champagne yeast, which may have had something to do with it, though as I said before, we've never had this happen. The last two bottles we filled were the two that we kept ourselves. One of those popped.

The good news was we heard it pop and Edward got to it before more then about a glass worth spilled. He quickly grabbed the bottle and used his thumb to stop the flow. I started grabbing towels and throwing them on the spill. There was mead on the carpet, on the wine rack, the kitchen floor and island and the bottom of the barstools (four feet away). We don't think it soaked too far into the carpet. We had to get out our big carpet cleaner and run it over the whole area. We can only hope that we got all of it up.

We opened the only other bottle we had left from that batch that night as well. As soon as Edward broke the seal, we could tell it was under pressure and it started to bubble. Who knows how long it would have been before it popped as well.

For years we've thought about trying to make a sparkling mead... the operative word being "trying", not having it happen accidentally. Thus, we have a small stock of champagne bottles, plastic champagne corks and few of the wires to tie them down. Why not try to bottle up the remaining sparkling mead in a bottle designed for it? So that's what we did. We cleaned and sterilized a bottle and cork, then carefully transferred the mead to the new bottle. It foamed just like champagne. Then, we carefully corked the bottle and tightened the wire over it. We even had a spare label. Hopefully, there will be enough carbonation (or additional fermentation) to keep it sparkling when we open it again.

We've kept a record of all the batches of mead that we've made since 1990. We've added a note that the most of the 2009 bottles have come out sparkling. There wasn't much indication that this would happen when we bottled back in November, but we should have known something was up when the first person to open their bottle reported a pop and "magical smoke" rising from the neck. Luckily, no other bottle has popped, especially during shipping. That could have caused more trouble then I care to think about.

Maybe we'll try to make a sparkling mead again. We have more champagne bottles and a few more corks, but we'll have to buy more wires. We've kept them in case we needed them. We just didn't realize we would need them this year.

How did the mead taste? Wonderful. Magical. Dry, but not harsh. I wonder if we can do that again if we tried. Maybe next time we'll try to do it on purpose, instead of accidentally...

On A Cold Winter's Night...

OK, technically Winter hadn't started yet... but it sure felt that way. Winter was less the 24 hours away. And for the first time in 372 years the Cold Moon occurred on the Winter Solstice, passing through the earth's shadow for a total lunar eclipse.

Normally, a December night in Florida would be clear and mild. This year, we had a cold front pass by just two days ago. After 3 days of overcast, an unusual event in Florida when not associated with a tropical system, Monday turned clear and cold... for us. Monday night was going to be even colder.



When I was in college I had an attachment for my old Pentax K1000 that let me mount it on my old refractor telescope. I can remember sitting in the doorway of the garage in Massachusetts trying to stay out of the wind so the telescope would stay steady. It was winter then, too. Back then I only had 36 odd chances to get it right, and I didn't know if I did until about a week later, when my film came back from the developer. I got one shot right that year. I still have it.


A few years ago I bought an attachment for my new telescope, so that I could shoot pictures through it with my new camera, a Pentax K10D. A new generation of Pentax. Much to my chagrin, the attachment did not work all that well. My first try went fairly unsuccessfully as I tried to focus the camera through the telescope. Mounting the camera where the lens goes results in too long a focus, and as a result I have to disassemble most of the eyepiece holder just to get a configuration that will let me focus the light on the camera's image plane. The mount it self is only a tube. With no aperture controls, so I only have the shutter speed to control the amount of light.

Earlier in the week, I got the telescope out and started playing with the configuration. I wanted to see if I had missed something in the dark the last time I tried to shoot through it. I set up the scope in the living room and shot down the street. Once I figured out what I was doing, I took it out into the front yard. I had it working well enough that I felt I could at least try, provided the weather cooperated. At the time I wasn't sure it would. But Monday dawned clear and cold. The weather was going to be perfect. The only problem now... the eclipse didn't start until 1:30 am. If I did this, it was going to be a long night.

At about 9:00 that night I decided this was an opportunity I shouldn't miss. I got the scope out and set about configuring it. Then took it out got a few test shoots. The moon was full and bright. The show hadn't started yet. My plan was to set the scope up and leave it in the garage. The space right outside the side garage door was going to be perfect. By the time the eclipse started, the moon would be right over head, in the gap between the trees. I just had to remember to stay quiet as that put me literally three feet off my neighbor's bedroom window. I moved everything into the garage, the camera, the camera charger, and computer. I wanted to check pictures and things progressed. Then I locked everything up, and went to bed.

When the alarm went off an hour and a half later, it was already cold in the house. Edward was still sleeping, so I got up and headed out. By the time I got outside, the show had started. The moon was just entering the umbral shadow. The dragon had taken it's first bite. We were on our way.

It's easy to focus on the moon when it's big and bright. So I took lots of pictures, bracketing the shot solely by the shutter speed, so that I got the right exposure. Then I took the camera inside to look at what I got.

"Inside" was a relative term. The computer was set up in the garage on the work bench, only minimally warmer then out by the telescope. I could bring the camera in, download the pictures and have a look. I couldn't do that 30+ years ago. I knew right away I was getting good shots. I was psyched. I'd take 10 or 12 pictures, take the camera in, look at them, pick the best and post it to Flickr. Then post the link to Facebook. Then back out to the waiting telescope for more pictures.

As the moon got closer and closer to totality, my shutter speed got slower and slower. With the promise of an orange moon, it was going to get pretty slow. The good news was, there was no wind that night to shake the telescope, or feel even colder to me.

My telescope has a polar mount. That means you set it up with one axis parallel to the north star and you can track objects in the field of view with just one knob. Unfortunately, that knob is relatively close to the focus knob and just as the moon reached it's dimmest, I grabbed the wrong knob, and lost focus. That meant I spent the next hour of totality trying to find the right focus. I got close, but I don't think I got one that was really crisp. Chalk it up to a learning experience. Next time, get it focused, then tape down the knob so you can't mess it up.

I got Edward up at 3:00 am, right before the peak of the eclipse. He came out to join me for about an hour. The moon didn't pass through the very heart of the earth shadow, so there was a brighter side that seemed to rotate around the limb of the moon. Slowly at about ten minutes to 4:00 the moon began to peak out from the umbral shadow. Totality was over. The good news was I had something to focus on again.











I watched the end of the eclipse posting pictures as it continued. That's when I discovered just how many other people I know were also up watching the eclipse. Some across town, some across the country, a few on the other side of the world. Some I knew were going to be watching, others I didn't. As it turns out, a friend in Seattle couldn't see the show due to cloudy skies. So instead, he watched through me, and the pictures I posted. Then he posted my Flickr link for others of his friends to see.

I finally wrapped things up at about 5:20 am. The moon had slipped out of the umbral shadow, and only the keenest eyes could tell that the eclipse itself wasn't over. All the friends I'd seen on Facebook had fallen silent, probably smarter then I, having already headed off to bed. As for me, the cold finally caught up. It was around 43F and I'd been standing outside for the last 4 hours in my sneakers. I probably should have put on warmer shoes. It took until about 11:00 the next morning for me to finally feel like I'd shaken off the cold.


Was it worth it? Oh yeah. Got some great pictures, enjoyed posting them for others, and got to see an event that won't happen again until 2094. Sure there will be other total eclipses, and plenty more winter solstices. But not at the same time, at least in my lifetime. I'd do it again, too. Because to tell the truth, I didn't feel cold until toward the very end. I was too excited about watching the eclipse on our special holiday, the Winter Solstice, when a cold, dark winter's night marks the start of world's slow march toward warmth and light again.

Composite image:

Maintenance...

Drove the Jeep to work yesterday. That's cause I dropped the Rav4 off at the mechanic on the way home the night before. There'd been a soft thump, thump, thump coming from one back tire for a little while and I figured I better stop ignoring it. Their first thought was that it was either the tires going bad, or the wheel bearings needed to be replaced. After the mechanic heard the noise, he thought it might be the bearings, but needed to get it up on the lift and inspect the bearings and the tire itself. Since there wasn't a lift free it would be the next morning before they get a chance to look at it. Diagnosis: Bad tires, but only the two back ones. So we had them put two new tires on the the Rav, up front, and move the older front tires to the back. It's a front wheel drive. The good news is it wasn't the bearings.

While they had it, I had them change the oil and the air filter, and they said the power steering fluid was dirty, so they changed that, too. Other then that, they didn't find any problems. For an 8.5 yr old car (and a Toyota, no less, considering all the recent recalls) that's pretty darn good.

There was one other thing. The Rav came equipped with two cigarette lighter plugs. One traditional "cigarette lighter" plug in the dash and one "12V/120W" plug in the center console. I don't use either one very much. Which explains why I never tried to use the second plug until about a month after the warrantee ran out. That's when I noticed that it didn't work.

Being that the car hasn't need much work, it wasn't until yesterday that Edward reminded me to ask the guys at the shop to take a look at the plug in the console while they had it, but if it was going to be expensive not to bother. They took a quick look and said that they could see the bottom of the plug and it wasn't connected to anything. Someone at the factory forgot to connect that plug, most likely. I told them it was only worth about $40 (an hour's labor) to see if they could fix it, which meant they were taking apart the center console. He thought they could do that, and I said go for it.

When I picked up the car I had two new tires, a new air filter, clean oil and clean power steering fluid... and for the first time since I bought the car... a second working cigarette lighter plug. Now I can plug in both the Ipod and the Iphone if I want to. Sad to think it only took 8.5 years to get it fixed.

Sanderlings

You've all seen them. The small gray and white shore birds that flit and skitter along the beach in front of you as you walk along the waves. They're cute, quick...

...and tough to photograph.

You either end up focused on the sand behind them...
or catching them as they leave....
But while we were in Englewood this week, I managed to get a few good ones.

As well as the single birds, and a few pairs, there were several flocks of them along the shore. They would dash back and forth with the waves, searching for whatever tasty morsel they could find in the swash.









If we got too close, they would dash past between us and the waves..
Then go back to searching for that elusive meal...
And if you hang around long enough, you might even catch them resting on the beach...
catching a little shut eye....


while one of them keeps watch for beach combers.

Survivor....

My survivor's pendant.

For Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Edward and I have decided to publish his writing from the time when I was undergoing treatment "The Chronicles of Karen: You Are Always the Hero of Your Own Story" is a combination of updates to family and friends and Edward's exercise in creative writing about what we were going through. The "adventures" portion of the posting is all of the treatments and trails, re-imagined in a fantasy setting. They helped me get through treatment. All the messages, save the Introduction, were written in 2007.

To read the Chronicles please visit the Blog:
The Chronicles of Karen: Tales of a Breast Cancer Survivor
the-chronicles-of-karen.blogspot.com/

Gator Aid...

Yeah, that's an alligator... sitting in the middle of the road in front of the house. He's fine, just out for walkies.

Edward and I were sitting in the front room the other day when we both looked up to see an alligator nonchalantly walking across the front yard. Yes, the front yard. He was about 2.0-2.5 feet long. He must have decided to go for a stroll from the ditch in the back.


Now what? Edward ran to get his shoes on, and I went to get my camera. Someone has a little bit skewed priorities here, but we won't mention her name. We had to do something to get this guy back into the park before someone got hurt.



He bolted toward the street when I opened the front door. Doh. Didn't think about that, the noise spooked him. Believe people when they say that gators can move quick. This one sure did. Then he decided he would lay down and hide... in the middle of the street. I walked around him to the far side. He watched me the whole way. I was hoping that if he spooked again at least he would run toward the park. We didn't want to have to call animal control. They would have taken him away. We just wanted to see him back where he belonged.

I stood in the street ready to block traffic, should there be any, in my socks. Like I said, maybe I wasn't the brightest one here. Edward came out with his shoes on, and two brooms.


We, rather Edward, started herding him back towards the house. He, the gator, wasn't to keen on that idea and hissed the whole way. He wasn't about to be rushed. In fact, he acted like he wasn't going to do anything he, or she(?), didn't want to do. More then once he hunkered down, trying to get an angle on the brooms from which he could defend himself. Once he did get a hold of one of the brooms. Better that then an ankle, or an arm.









Eventually Edward got him to go under the back fence and off toward the ditch. We didn't open the gate, but watched him saunter down the top of the ditch and eventually down the side out of sight, as if he owned the place.



Perhaps he did, who were we to tell him otherwise.

DragonCon 2010: Out of Context

"I can not English today."

Even the best of us stumble every once and a while. This quote was from a linguist giving a talk on how to develop your own language when writing a novel or screenplay. He was having trouble with his native language... He explained the principles behind the International Phonetic Alphabet, a universal phonetic spelling symbology seen commonly in Wikipedia these days. He showed how using those simple (?) rules, you can learn to pronounce anything in any language, whether it was Japanese, Elvish, Korean, Na'vi, Tanzanian, Klingon... or English. It was a fascinating talk about how languages are constructed, starting from the basic building blocks of a language, the sounds and how they are made with your mouth, to putting those sounds together to make words, phrases and grammar. He used real world examples as well as fictional examples from our favorite movies and novels. A "conlang", or constructed language, also has to have a context, a logical reason for existing, that will make your language, and your story, come alive. With out that context, you'll simply have a bunch of nonsensical sounds and phrases that will make it difficult for anyone to learn your language.

That said, some of us still have trouble. Perhaps more of the convention attendees should have sat in on that talk...


"I can't wait to take off these f*in shoes and put on my combat boots."

"Ooo... I have ice boobies..."

"When he's in his Manties, he's unreliable."

"Midgets are my worst enemy. I trip over those things."

"Brown people should not go window shopping at gun shops in Tennessee, no matter how road weary."

"She was acting like a prepubescent 48-year-old."

"Did you see her in that muffin-top corset?"

"Important safety tip: Don't ride-share in the car carrying the magic brownies."

"The monsters in my sketches always come out preciously horrible. They make you want to give them tea and cookies."

"With a skirt that short, yeah, all they are looking at is your hair."

"If you don't know how something is going to work, call it nano-material"

"How do you disperse a crowd? Naked fat guys."

"When you clone a whole army from one guy, you should at least pick one that can hit the target."

"Smart bullets. The problem is eventually they start arguing with you."

"That's the biggest damned yoda I've ever seen. MegaYoda."

"He's like an SUV waiting for a rollover."

"It was an MC Escher, Chthulhu-style dungeon."

"Hello, Master. I have something I need to tell you." (at the very pregnant, I Dream of Jeannie).

"Aren't you a little short to be a stormtrooper?" "I get that a LOT." (at the very cute, female stormtrooper with her helmet off).

"If I were a Tylenol or an Advil in this hotel, where would I be?"

"What's the difference between science and science fiction? Timing." - Lamar Anderson


Timing is everything......