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Along the Natchez Trace

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Blasts from the Past....

I guess the biggest event of the day is that we filed our 2013 income taxes.  Just on time... right?  Well, it IS May 15th...  only 1 month late.  Okay...  truth is, we were out of the USA until mid-March...  got back and went through 3 month's mail...  sorted out all those 1099's etc...  and sent them off to our CPA who is in Ohio.  We weren't real concerned as we'd paid estimated taxes throughout the year...  but... yeah... judgement day DOES arrive...  and this was the week.  We got lucky...  overpaid quite a bit so when it's all filed and in order today we have a some bucks leftover that the IRS can just keep and apply to this year.  

Whatever...  another year is taken care of.  However, the rental we're currently working on still requires a lot of work (translate that into $$$$) and maybe it will be a nice write-off for this tax year.  We'll see.....

As I've often said, when we left in 2001 we expected to return at the end of our year on the road.  We didn't bother to get rid of, properly pack, give away...  all those excuses....  all our "worldly goods".  We put a lot of stuff in bins and stored them in our barn. 
 A few days ago, our (greatest ever) renter, John, invited us up for some of his homemade wine.  WooHoo... really good.  He talked about making beer and wine...  something we used to do.  One of these days I should write a blog about when the State Agriculture Agent came out to inspect us....  

But...  back to the beer and wine.  That night I woke up thinking about one of the bins we had put in storage.  Hmmm...  cans...  lots of cans....  of malt mixes to make homemade beer.  Wonderful lagers...  pilzners....  stouts....  oh yes!  We'd never gotten around to making these brews...  hmmm...  those cans are in a bin...  um huh...  in the storage area.

Yesterday I got to poking around...  found the "liquor bin".  Yeah... the cans are there, but also various bottles of booze.  Grand Marnier....  Kalua....  Frangelica  ...  (heck, I can't even spell these)...  a bottle of whiskey that's never been opened... think someone gave it to Bill as a gift in the 1990's.  Hey... looky here...  a half empty bottle of Corby Whiskey...  belonged to my Dad who died in 1982 and I'll bet that bottle was 30 years old when he died.  I always did like the parrot logo on that bottle...  never did try the booze.

Oh... back to the cans.  Six of them!  Bet they cost us over $60 way back then...  but... oh no!  The tops and bottoms are both bowed out.  Not good...  about to blow!  What to do?  I sure as heck don't want to puncture them with a can opener....  I'll have malt goo everywhere...  and that's assuming I still have eyes left to see it.  

Brain storm!  Bill likes to target practice with his Ruger...  hey...  I'll set the cans down where we feed the deer....
Yes!  He can shoot them...  let off the pressure...  and the deer would love that molasses-like stuff (it isn't alcoholic at this point) to lap up.

Dawg!  It doesn't take much to entertain me!
Yahoo!
There goes the first can!  

I'll hurry this narration up a bit...  He did hit all six cans.  And lots of that gooey-ooey stuff drained out onto the ground.  He grazed one can hard enough to knock it over, but the bullet didn't penetrate the can.  Another one...  that yellow one on the right...  he hit... the bullet went straight through but the can never moved.

By the way, all those cans were seriously outdated....  we're just lucky they didn't blow while still in the barn.  Kinda reminds me of the time I started my own sourdough yeast starter....  it went real well until one night...  around midnight...  we heard this big explosion....  in the kitchen.  I think we scraped gobs of that off the ceiling, the cabinets...  well...  everything....for months!   Oh yes...  then there was the night the beer we'd brewed...  and bottled...  and apparently was still fermenting...  hey....  several bottle just exploded!  It ain't just bumps in the night around our place.....

That's All For Today!



14 comments:

  1. The sourdough yeast starter and the exploding bottles would be scary. Glad you all didn't hit with shrapnel. My father-in-law made really good wine. He had European wine grape vines grafter to American root stocks and put in a lots of vines. He made the legal limit of wine and Champaign. I always liked drinking the finished products but also the rejects, too. I gave up drinking alcohol of any kind twenty years ago. It contains a lot of mico-toxins.

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  2. There are many great stories about beer making. Explosions seem to be the most common.

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  3. All that nosie around the deer feeding area should save you some deer feed costs:)

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  4. Wow - exploding bottles?? That would get your attention for sure! LOL

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  5. HAHaaaaaa ... one of your best posts!

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  6. Good, funny post. . . . Becki

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  7. Bringing back more memories used to make beer and wine, the exploding beer bottles.
    Even had "swish" barrels way back when. Bu an used whiskey barrel for $20.00, add a few gallons warm water and kick around the yard for a month or so in the sun. Filter it and had a few gallons VERY potent alcohol! Then cut the barrel in half and sell then for planters at $10.00 each.

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  8. I've always thought you had an explosive personality...

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  9. Well weren't you lucky they decided to refrain from exploding!!! The deer will be happy!!

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  10. I made some dandelion wine, my first attempt at wine, from my neighbors crop. I'm about to make rice wine, as it looks really simple. I wanted to see photos of the malt explosions! Ah well. Hope the deer like your work.

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  11. That's exactly what my spouse would have done too!

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