One day, I signed out of Facebook and just never signed back in. This was an easy choice to make. Sure, the owners, advertising, and tracking all concerned me… but it was more than that. The entire community had become toxic. Even with a limited number of connections, FB would constantly push hateful and often […]

A family of scrub jays decided to set up a nest right outside our bedroom window. We managed to throw together a makeshift birdcam.

I try to climb Mt. Adams each year. It is a beautiful mountain and the climbing route offers majestic views and a reasonable challenge without being too technical. Last year, I decided to try a single day, car-to-car climb. This made for a very long trek: 14 miles, 7000′ of elevation gain and loss… not […]

I used to bake a lot of bread, but eventually got out of the habit. Then the pandemic happened… and like everyone else, I suddenly had the time and need to again bake. But… if I’m going to take he time to bake bread, I might as well bake beautiful bread. For the past few […]

Just keeping track of the initial sake experiments: Day 0 (2021-02-01) Preparing the rice. After a false start, I am planning to do things right. This time the rice will be soaked and steamed in preparation of day 1. 8pm – 2.5lbs of sweet, short-grain rice was rinsed and set up to soak overnight. It […]

Just keeping track of the initial sake experiments. Unfortunalty, this first attempt didn’t make it far. Feel free to learn from my mistakes: Day 1 9 cups (dry) of sushi rice was prepared. This took 3 batches in my small rice cooker: 3 cups rice + 3.75 cups water for a firmer rice. Why plain […]

I’ve been homebrewing beer, mead, and wine for a while now – but, the one item on my list yet to try at home is Sake. I am in no way an expert on the beverage, but I really do enjoy the dry/fragment beverage. So, let’s dive in… Overview For anyone who stumbles across this: […]

Been a few years since I brewed this wonderful CDA. Followed the 2011 recipe, but swapping out the Cascade with our own NHB115. The alphas are almost identical, so converting the recipe wasn’t a problem. Details The chocolate should be mixed with the light malt. However, the patent and roast need to be finely ground […]

I try to find time to climb Mt Adams each year. It is a beautiful mountain and the climbing route offers majestic views and a reasonable challenge without being too technical. In past years, I always opted for a standard two-day climb. During the first day you haul a heavy pack up the “lunch counter” […]

Let’s start at the end: while exploring one of my favorite caves in the area, we discovered a new, unexplored section. The size of the cave section was not immediately apparent as entering the area require ropes. Upon returning, we discovered that it was a single 20’x20′ room. Still, it was cool to be the […]