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!