From Beer Making to a Bird Rescue (Walter Mitty Probably Only Dreamed This!)

This was the first of two consecutive days when all of our meals were at Patty and Dan's house.  I had Tuesday night's kielbasa and sauerkraut with sides of cottage cheese and cheddar and Gorgonzola cheeses in hot dog buns for lunch.  It was just as tasty as it was three days earlier.

After lunch, Dan, Bob, and I went to Homebrew Emporium in West Boylston, MA to pick up some blueberry extract for his homemade beer.  We toured the store and learned from Dan and Pat the Clerk about various aspects about beer making.  I was interested to learn that wine making is "easier than beer making, though the fermentation usually takes longer.  I wish that I remembered more details.  In addition to the blueberry extract, Dan came home with more supplies to make beer.

We came home.  Remember the mystery in the stove pipe?  It turned out to be a live bird.  Dan and Bob were able to rescue it.  A laundry basket was used to trap it.  (Yes, Patty authorized this action.)  The bird flew away.  Miracles do happen!

After the fun with the bird, Patty, Bob, and I visited Wal-Mart Supercenter and Aldi in Leominster.  Cough syrup and eyeglass lens cleaner (I thought that I had misplaced the lens cleaner when I was unpacking, but it turned out that we left it at home.) were our goals at Wal-Mart.  We did not see the cleaner with the free refills that we normally use, but we found an 8 oz. bottle that would turn out to be beneficial for Dan after we came home to Cleveland.  Patty found the cough syrup which had the same retail price as it did in the Cleveland area.  We then "cleaned out" Aldi.  Aldi was not super crowded, even on a Friday afternoon.

After coming home,  Dan prepared the beer that he had started weeks earlier for bottling.  Dan was in charge of bottling.  Bob handled bottle cap placement.  I packaged the beer.  Forty-nine bottles of beer came out of almost five gallons of beer.  (A small amount was lost in the production process.)  I hope that the beer was a success.

Eventually, dinner was prepared.  Grilled hot dogs, cheese tortellini salad, and baked beans were on the menu.  In addition, Dan made guacamole and blueberry pie to round out the meal.  Multigrain scoops accompanied the guacamole.  The guacamole was okay, but the blueberry pie was delicious.  Vanilla ice cream supplemented the pie.

After dinner, we watched The Secret Life of Walter Mitty from Netflix.  The movie did not merit the hype.  The rest of the evening was spent relaxing.

This day was very educational and exciting.