Anna Timmerman

We tried one of Desmond's beers last night, not bad, just needs more time to prime. Looking forward to it next week. This morning the neighbor kids were feeding the chickens marshmallows, which they didn't eat. Ended up putting three eggs in a carton for them. Spent a good part of the hour researching growing hops in  containers, think we'll do it next year. Yesterday I brought home a lemongrass plant from work, thinking of good recipes for the weekend. I've also got a pound of garlic chives so thinking of some vegan buttermilk biscuits for later. A few days ago one of the baby house sparrows fell out of the nest under the eaves, the cats were all over that so now we're feeding another Steve every few hours... Tomorrow I'm driving Cassidy to Ox-Bow, looking forward to seeing the people there and hitting some farm stands and wineries on the way up.

Despite being crowded in with about eight other sunflowers in an old car tire, meaning there's about two cubic feet of soil in there... this guy made it!

So tonight we're bottling about fifty bottles of a nice American ale. We hope to make this a weekly beer thing. Josh got the blueberry wine going, turns out there's an enzyme in the berries that makes it take a year to mature. So we've invested in future good times. There's several gallons of mystery wine ready too, all I know is it has the champagne yeast in it so it's a higher alcohol content. Most yeast dies around 14% but this kind goes up way further.

The quail have arrived, there's seven Coturnix and nine Chinese Painted, they should be laying in a few weeks. The flies are getting to be a problem in the kitchen just like last year, all the fermentation and composting is creating a perfect storm of flies and fruit flies in the kitchen and backyard. The chickens have been eating them as fast as they can snag them out of midair.

The garden really fried in the heat last week, but things are recovering and I'm gearing up for some new plantings of cooler weather things. I'm sad to report we lost the perpetual red romaine lettuce. It lasted over two months, which is crazy.

 Just another day.

Yesterday we inoculated the rye berries with spore syringes. I tried to keep everything super sterile so we'll see how it goes... Also made three quarts of kimchi, which I forgot to rinse before adding the chili pepper paste. Oops. Multitasking isn't great in the kitchen. 

Today we're going up to Michigan to pick 20 pounds of blueberries. I checked the website of the farm I always go to and they are $1.34 a pound. That is INCREDIBLY CHEAP. 10 pounds of them are going into wine tomorrow and the other 10 will be used fresh and frozen. If I'm feeling ambitious tomorrow I might make jam. We'll see how tonight goes, it's the AHHH! Pilsen Music Fest and one of the roommates is playing at midnight. 

Also today at 5pm we are picking up our Coturnix quail just north of the blueberry farm. Very excited! 

Desmond started brewing up a nice summery ale today in the kitchen. Should be ready in about three weeks. Cassidy and I hit the Home Depot for more florescent bulbs to get the second rack in the grow room in production. Today I pan fried the pea shoots we harvested in scallion infused olive oil with a fried egg on top, very tasty. Dr. Beverly Crusher got a new cage today, she doesn't like other chickens very much (chases people though, loves to hang out on the deck and in the kitchen...) so she is officially a house chicken. Check out other indoor Chicago poultry here: http://www.indoorducks.com/. These people are great, we ordered the chicken shoes custom made for T-Rex when she was having feet issues. I don't think we'll spring for the chicken diapers, that still seems a little weird. 

7/26: First tomatoes and hot peppers harvested at the rooftop garden at Clark & Illinois above Frontera and Topolobampo. Red, Yellow, Orange heirloom varieties, the Purple Russians all cracked for some reason, possibly the seven inches of rain last Friday. Gourmet mushroom spores arrived in the mail today, still awaiting new quail coop. 

7/27: Harvested first pea shoots from the grow room. Planning on using that and baby bok choy to make a killer stir-fry later. Replanted several trays for next week. Picking up ten quail in Michigan on Saturday, also picking blueberries for freezing, making jam, and for a blueberry wine homebrew. Trips today include a stop at Chicago Foods Korean grocery store for dinner supplies, Belmont Feed & Seed for poultry food and straw to use as mushroom substrate, and Brew & Grow for some supplies (we're doing five gallons of ale now that the weather has cooled off, got to fill those growlers!) and some champagne yeast for making plum wine later today.