It’s Christmas Season 2025

Here is how you know that it is officially the Christmas Season.

Christmas Lights 2025

This is the day for the outdoor lights to go up. 

Up on the balcony, we have the icicle lights, the star projection light and the neon running light.

On the front porch, we wrap the pillars with white twinkle lights.

So, here we go.

Thankfully, it was a relatively warm day but the wind was gusting pretty good. We managed to get the lights up in no time at all.

We also got the lights on the balcony up quickly too. 

So now, we’re festive.

Turkey Soup Season

We are down to the best possible conclusion to the Thanksgiving Season. Turkey Soup.

The making of the Turkey soup is one of those holiday traditions that reminds me of my Mom. She always made the Turkey soup after the holidays and she made it with barley, rather than rice or noodles.

I think it’s the barley that brings me back to Mom more than anything else.

9:36 AM: The bird is in the pot and the pot is coming to a boil. Oh boy oh boy oh boy!

9:55 AM: The kitchen is already filling with the smell of Turkey boil. Yum!

2:00 PM: The carcass has been boiled and the broth is cooling. We are going to complete the cook tomorrow and have it ready for Karen and Randy when they come over.

Snow Snow Snow

We have received the first major snowfall of the year. It looks like we got two, maybe three inches and it all needs to be cleared from the sidewalks. I will get out there shortly.

The trick is to decide whether you think the snowfall will melt away naturally or it’s going to remain cold, with the threat of more snow on the way and you need to clear it now.

I have decided that this snow is going to stick around so it better get cleared. The forecast over the next two weeks does not show many temperatures above 40.

Thanksgiving Review

The turkey was pretty good. I didn’t burn it this year although I maybe should have left it in a bit longer. I pulled it at 165 and I should have left it in until 170.

Anyway, all was well, nobody got sick, at least not from the bird. Perhaps from over eating. We had a lot of food.

I think we have decided that all the extra work I put in to barbecue this turkey isn’t really worth it. The turkey was good, but so is a simple over roasted turkey. So this might be the last barbecued turkey for a while.

Now it’s time to turn to the Christmas Season. Susan will be wanting to start decorating. We need to have the house looking Christmassy by the Carriage Ride on the 14th…so we have some time.

Barbecued Turkey 2025

It’s barbecue day!

I just pulled the turkey out of the brine after an 18-hour soak.

It’s swimming in the sink for a 15-minute rinse.

We are trying something slightly different this time in order to get some authentic turkey gravy. We’ve pulled the wings off the bird and Susan is roasting in them in the oven. We’re hoping to get enough dripping for gravy.

1:15 PM: The starter charcoal has been lit.

1:36PM: The turkey is in. Here is the first photo capture of the Meater display.

I’m anticipating 4 hours for this cook. Let’s see how we do.

2:45 PM: The turkey has been in for just over an hour. When the time estimate first came up on the Meater, it estimated 3 hours and 45 minutes. Right now, it's saying it has one hour remaining. The temperature in the barbecue is up to 265° and rising. I have already closed the bottom vent a touch, but it looks like it needs a touch more.

This is a 14-pound bird, so I am not expecting it to be finished in an hour.

I have never found the Meater time estimates to be that reliable. I'm going to rely on the temperature of the meat rather than the time.

4:15 PM: We're getting down to the wire. As of this moment, the bird is at 158° with 18 minutes remaining in the time estimate. I haven't seen a lot of smoke coming out of the barbecue so I'm wondering if my wood chips were sufficient. Last year, my wood chips flamed up and burned the one side of the turkey. I don't think I soaked them enough.

This year, I thoroughly soaked the wood chips for several days and I didn't put them in as heavy as I did last time. Maybe that's why I'm not getting good smoke. I'll find out more when I pull the lid off and see how the charcoal snake is doing.

5:00PM: We are in resting mode. I pulled it off after 3 hrs, 25 minutes when it reached 165°. It ended up going about 35 minutes past the time estimate.

It looks great and it smells smoky. As soon as it's done resting, I'm going to start carving. We will cut it up tonight and warm the cut turkey tomorrow prior to dinner.

Turkey Brine 2025

Two days to go to Thanksgiving and my preparations are underway.

I have the pot full of my brine mixture on the burner heading toward a boil.

I was consulting this blog from when I barbecued a turkey last year and I found I had left some information out. Specifically, I had questions about the brining that I had not made note of last year.

Let’s start with the basics. Into the pot goes two gallons of water, three cups of apple cider, the peel of three large oranges, a cup and a half of kosher salt, two cups of brown sugar, 5 bay leaves, 4 tablespoons of fresh rosemary, 5 minced garlic cloves, and three tablespoons of peppercorns.

Susan bought fresh rosemary but I used the stuff in the spice rack. Oops! For garlic, we have a little jar of minced garlic and I put in a couple of spoons full. I used the apple cider I made the other day for the apple juice.

I’m boiling up the brine in the pot I use to brew beer. Once it boils, I am to let it cool completely before sticking the turkey in it. The turkey is to soak for 16 to 24 hours. My plan is the soak the bird in the brew pot. I hope it fits.

It took about 45 minutes to come to a boil. I let it go another 5 minutes just to ensure it was a brisk boil.

It is now cooling. I’m going to set the pot out on the deck to hasten the cooling process. It’s about 30 degrees out there.

In the meantime, I’m going to sit back, read the morning paper and enjoy a nice hot cup of homemade cider. It’s really good.

1:45PM: The brine is still cooling. I was hoping to have the turkey in the brine by now but I’m still okay. Even if I get the bird in the brine by 4:00, I’ll still get a good 17 hour soak out of it. That’s assuming I start cooking tomorrow at 9:00. I will probably end up starting later.

3:36PM: The turkey is in the brine. It’s going to be in there for at least 18 hours which will be plenty of brine time.

Okay we will be picking up the continuation of this marvelous story tomorrow.

Homemade Apple Cider

I’m barbecuing the Thanksgiving turkey this year. Here it is, the Saturday before Thanksgiving, and I am already prepping.

Today, I am making Apple Cider, which will be used for the brine for the bird…and a little left over for us to enjoy.

This recipe is pretty basic, which I like. It comes from the website, www.allrecipes.com. The ingredients are as follows:

10 apples - quartered with core and peel. (I’m going to cut my apples with an apple corer so I’ll get eight apple pieces per apple.

Place in large pot and cover with water, add about 2 inch coverage.

1 Tablespoon of ground cinnamon

1 Tablespoon of ground allspice.

3/4 cup white sugar

Boil for one hour, simmer for 2 more hours. Strain out fruit. Probably best to strain twice.

Can be refrigerated and kept for one week.

Okay, here goes.

I’ve got 10 apples that I got from my friend, Mark. I don’t know what kind they are but they taste pretty good, pretty sweet.

They are all cut up and put in the pot along with all spices, sugar and water. I put in 1 gallon of water.

It’s just now starting to boil so we have about three hours to go.

We’re about 15 minutes into the boil and the room is starting to smell of apples. It adds a nice autumn ambiance with a hint of cimanon to the kitchen. (Yeah, I know I misspelled cinnamon.)

I just had a little taste and as expected, it’s pretty weak. It has a hint of apple in there but I’m tasting cinnamon more than anything.

We have made it through the hour long boil and it’s time to simmer down now. The flavor is building but it’s not there yet. I’ll be back in two hours.

The simmer is over and we have apple cider. I had to strain out all the apples and then I strained it again through a mesh bag I use for brewing beer.

I got just over half a gallon. I need three cups for the brine recipe so we don’t have much to drink beyond the recipe.

I guess I’m going to have to make some more.

20 Year Old Time Capsule

I was cleaning out one of my dresser drawers and I came across this old receipt from 2005.

I’m not sure what the total of this order would be today, but I know an Ultimate Cheeseburger is about eight bucks today.

I just thought this was an interesting little time capsule to get out there.

Dump Run

We spent Saturday and Sunday working the front yard. We had a lot of leaves fall this week after several days of rain. Susan raked and I used the blower.

We have a crap load of leaves to take to the dump. I estimate we harvested about 40 bushels yesterday and probably an equal amount on Saturday.

We ended up with a pretty good system to get the leaves into a pile, then into a bag and finally into the truck.

I bought a box of construction grade leaf bags. These are thicker than the standard garbage bag and therefore reusable. I think the last time I bought bags was about three years ago.

The bags get placed in a garbage can and fastened tight around the top. I used a snow shovel to load leaves and Susan used the claws.

Getting the bag out of the garbage can was difficult. We had to put the can on its side while both of us pulled a groin muscle to get the bag out. Then we put it the bag on a hand truck and wheeled it over to the truck. We had a couple of milk crates stacked by the tailgate, which allowed us to lift the bag on top of the milk crates, and then the rest of the way to the truck bed.

It worked great for us two old people who have trouble lifting that much weight.

2:04PM: We have just returned from the Waste to Energy Plant,  otherwise known as the Town Dump. When we pulled into the gate, we discovered a line all the way back to the entrance. This was going to take some time.

It ended up taking about 17 minutes to get to the scale and another ten before we started unloading. It probably took us ten minutes to dump about 15 bags of leaves.

I apologize for not getting the focus better. It’s hard with the iPad when you get up close.

The grand total was $23.24 for 580 pounds.The dump fee was $20.75 and then they added on $2.50 which was designated as a “Transaction Fee”. I’ll bet a tenth of that weight was water.

Wine Update

I'm clearly doing a horrible job of updating the progress of the wine.

We ran all the grapes skins through the fruit press last weekend and ended up just short of six gallons of must. It continued to ferment through the last week and it appears to be complete. There is no action going on in the vapor lock.

I will be checking it out, getting a gravity reading and we will probably rack the must (wine) to a clean fermenter. At that point, we need to figure out if we should add wood chips for aging and flavor.

More to come. 

Halloween 2025

We have survived another Halloween and we are again asking ourselves why we put ourselves through this. It’s a lot of work and money. 

While we put out some lights and a few decorations prior to the 31st, the bulk of our decorations go out on Halloween and get torn down once we run out of candy…or choose to shut down, whichever comes first.

Generally, we’re all pretty tired by 8:30 and ready to call it.

Between 3:30 and 8:30, we had an estimated 1,500 Trick or Treaters. My main complaint this year, as last, is that there are some really old people out for candy. If you facial hair, you are too old.

But, we had a good night and we are glad it’s over and behind us. The rest of the Holiday season is going to be a breeze.

Cab Franc Day Four

The wine is churning away and we’re loosing some juice. The vessel we are using is a se7en gallon bucket. I wish it was eight gallons.

Above is a picture of the cap the must produces as the yeast is working. It pushes the grape skins up and they form a cap that I punch down several times a day.

Once I punch it down, it’s very foamy and the yeast continues its work. I’ll be back later to do it again.

Grapes and Pumkins

We have returned from our trip to Prosser, WA to get grapes and taste  some wine.

We got 100 pounds of Cabernet Franc grapes. It cost $115.00.

We crushed them yesterday and they are sitting in the Carriage House awaiting the pitching of the yeast. I’ll probably do that tomorrow.

It is also that spooky time of year as Halloween approaches. We have been decorating the house over the last couple of weeks and more stuff comes out every day.

The additional fun Halloween activity we have done is our annual entry into the Hub Tavern Pumpkin Coloring Contest.

Here are our entries. Susan’s is on the left and mine is on the right. We’re just sitting around now waiting for the awards.