Domesticity, Domesticity

This has been an exciting week around the New House™. Last week I planted our three apple trees in the front yard. I’m not saying that I’m going for an orchard, but given my disdain for mowing the lawn (even with the fun of doing it on the riding mower), I wouldn’t mind if this became the case. Two of the trees are mini-dwarf so they should be around 3 feet tall when mature and the third is semi-dwarf which might be two whole feet taller. The Mrs got me a Pristine, a Honey Crisp, and a the Frankentree which has four types (Ashmead Kernal, Dayton, Belmac, and Liberty) grafted together. Even though I know it will be years before they bare fruit, I have been reading up on pruning and watering and who knows what all else.

The other big change to the front yard is that we had a bunch of crushed asphalt delivered for the driveway. Woo hoo!

In other exciting news, I just racked the first batch of mead. After four weeks the specific gravity hadn’t changed so I’m pretty sure that fermentation is complete. I transferred the batch off of the lees (the used up yeast) into a new container where it will sit and clarify for a while before I move on to bottling. I snuck a taste and it’s not bad, considering how young it is. If I did the math correctly (which is a pretty big if), this batch of Jörmungandr ended up with an ABV around 14% which is ridiculous. We’ll have to keep that in mind when it comes time to start pouring. There was very little loss so I should be able to fill five of those 750ml bottles we inherited when we moved in.

That reminds me. I need to buy corks in the next month or so.

Moving on to not really related but sad news, in just over two weeks Mixtape Massacre will be closing their doors for good. They are the creators of wildly entertaining board game of the same name and all of its add ons. For those of you who have asked about my “Rated R for Violence” and murderous movie snack tee shirts, they are associated with this game (although it looks as if they are sold out of this merch). The games are heavily discounted right now. I recommend picking them up before 13 June when you will lose the chance forever.

Listening To: After finishing Monstrilio by Gerardo Samano Cordova (an excellent but emotional read), I needed something lighter as a palette cleanser. Fortunately my library hold for Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson came through yesterday. I thoroughly enjoyed Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things, and Broken. I’m only about an hour in and already chuckling (while doing housework, so you know it’s good).

Currently Reading: Sadly, I haven’t had much time to sit down and do any reading lately. The new Stephen King novel arrived yesterday (Never Flinch) but I’ll have to read Holly before I start that. I also have a couple others on the TBR that I’ve been dying to get to.

Current Obsession: Mead recipes. I’ve been going a little nuts with the YouTube videos.

The preview page for the Nightmerica Kickstarter is up! It will be launching in a week or so, but early backing really helps make the campaign visible. Please sign up to be notified upon launch and back on day one. This will push us up in the algorithm. There are also some Early Bird rewards that you might want to snag.

We have the Nightmerica manuscript in hand and will be moving on to formatting as soon as we finish this post.

Work continues on the cover art for Some People I Have Killed.

We are pleased to announce that we have added another appearance for the year. On 18 October, Dragon’s Roost Press will be participating in the Spooktastic Haunted Book Fair in Flint, MI. Click the link for the details.

As mentioned above, I have been obsessively looking at mead recipes. I’m really looking forward to the next batches. I still have those blueberries in the freezer from last year which will, in all likelihood be the next small batch I try.

A number of the recipes I have looked at have been on-line. Specifically, I’ve been getting a lot of information from the City Steading Brews YouTube channel. The hosts are great, they explain things really well, and they are just lighthearted enough to make everything fun to watch.

After my umpteenth video, I started to feel bad that I was doing my research this way instead of pouring through books like I was trained to. I finally decided that this was actually a goofy thing to think, especially since I was also spending time rereading my notes from my reading of The Compleat Meadmaker and comparing recipes found in Big Book of Mead Recipes and Make Mead Like A Viking.

Yeah, when I jump in to a hobby, the first thing I do is buy a bunch of books.

It’s usually the third thing too.

There is still a part of my brain that says that all primary sources should be written material, but I have spent a huge chunk of my life online (I’ll skip the “I was born before the World Wide Web” rant). It is only natural to use stuff available online in both written and video formats. It’s like interviewing an expert on a topic and using that in your research.

Right?

Then why do I still feel so guilty about it?