Monday, September 29, 2014

Making Wine

My husband came across an article in our local paper which featured three local wineries. One of them talked about having volunteers come in and help with the harvest, so he signed us up to go. Despite the hot weather, hard work, and sunburn, we had a great time. 

There were about 20 volunteers and we picked for almost three hours and got a lot of grapes. I am not sure, but I think the woman told us it was a half a ton, but it could have been more. There were lots of yellow jackets flying around, but they were more interested in the grapes than us.

As a thank you for picking , we were given a wonderful lunch, a t-shirt, and a bottle, each, of wine. We have not broken into them, but we had a sampling of some at the winery afterwards and they were very good. The winery is located in Douglassville, and they have a website. https://www.manatawnycreekwinery.com/


Monday, September 8, 2014

Fresh Coffee

Over the last weekend I happened to catch a Ted video done by Asher Yarin from Bali talking about coffee (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JaQNy0Ef4YY). It was quite inspiring and I learned a lot about one of my favorite drinks. I then went online and purchased a pound of green coffee beans, which came mid week.

This weekend, I had the chance to do my first roast. It was very simple. All it did was take a pie plate, put a cup of beans in it and set it on the stove. I cooked them, stirring the whole time, until they were a dark brown color, let them cool and out them in a jar. They should rest for about 24 hours and then they can be ground and brewed. The coffee was very good, but the first batch was a little weak because I had forgotten the beans to ground ratio from when we used to grind beans a while ago.

If you have a chance give it a try. There is nothing like a really fresh cup of coffee, hot and black. Even thougbit takes a while to do it, I am kind of hooked.

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Technology Failure

First of all, my apologies for not posting until now. Life has intervened.  But I digress. As you may know, last year I purchased a table made by Samsung which is made to compete with the iPad. It costs almost the same, has a few more features that I like, and was working well until just recently. I am not sure what is wrong, but I think I have to do a factory reset. It was becoming so sluggish it is unusable.

My job as a council member afforded the ability to use an iPad because it was loaned to me for the length of my term. All I can say is wow, this thing rocks. It is fast, responsive and the resolution is beautiful. I was trying to put off buying Apple products because of all the hype but quite honestly I am sold. I may almost break down and get an iPhone when my contract is up on my phone. Not sure I am going to get a Mac to replace my laptop, but maybe...

It is very refreshing to work on something that works the way it is supposed to. The things it says it is supposed to do, it does, and the technology is incredible. There is not too much that disappoints with this thing. It is frankly a better product than the Samsung, and if you are considering a tablet, the iPad is the way to go.