A How to Guide for Peep Jousting

Are you looking for a how to guide for Peep Jousting!  Look no further!

Peep Jousting Materials:

  • 2 Easter Peeps
  • 4 toothpicks
  • 1 microwave
  • 1 person  with nothing else to do

Step 1.  Remove from package and insert 1 toothpick into each peep. (Where the joust should be located!)

Step 2.  Place peeps on microwaveable plate and insert a toothpicks in their behinds.  I’m told this is so they’ll stay standing.  I guess I would stay standing too!

Step 3.  Put in microwave and set timer for 45 seconds.
Step 4.  Determine the winner.  I suppose you could eat them now.

It was fun for a couple of minutes.

 

 

2012 Michgian Winter Beer Festival

I’ve not always been a beer fan and I’d have to say I’m still more of a fan of the culture than beer. This was my 3rd Winter Beer Festival and the Michigan Brewers Guild’s 7th.  Over 6,000 tickets were sold this year and in record time.  It was the largest crowd to date.

Part of the the charm of the Winter Festival is the weather.  Rain or shine, sleet or snow the festival goes on. This year WIND was added to the mix. I have got to say, I was not a fan of the wind.  It forced more people to huddled inside the tents which made getting your beer sample a bit of a hassle. It was unanimous decision on the way home to become “Michigan Beer Enthusiasts”. The Beer enthusiasts get into the festival an hour early.  We would avoid standing in this line!

The lines were long, but expected for Dark Horse, Bells and Shorts.  There were 61 breweries and 452 beers to sample so there were plenty of options if you didn’t want to stand in line.  We discovered a new brewery, the Greenbush Brewing Company.  I suspect they have a metal fan on staff.  Check out their beer names:  Anger Black IPA, Rage Imperial Black IPA, Retribution Belgian Hybrid, Pain Imperial Cream Stout, Delusion Barrel Aged Imperial Cream Stout, and Barrel Aged Retribution.  I honestly can’t remember which one I tried but I do remember liking it.

We found Wiggs,the Brewery Operations Manager from Dark Horse in the crowd and he recommended, that Cotton Pickin Beer (cotton candy beer).  It was gone before made it back to their table.  So I tried Sarsaparilla Stout instead.

While standing by the fire we made some new friends.  I didn’t catch their names but they were cute!

Chuck is a hops fan.  He thought the Juicy Tree IPA w/spruce tips, juniper berries, and cranberries and Hopstache IPA w/grapefruit zest from Shorts Brewery were really good.  I’m a stout fan and preferred the Cup A Joe Coffee Stout from Shorts.

Chuck gave this years “Best Beer Award” to Odd Side Ales for their Fussy IPA.  He has already “Friended” them on Facebook.

This year’s take home message for Chuck limit your cheese intake.  Chuck ate a bag of pretzels and pound of cheese this year and was asleep by 7 pm.

Michigan State Parks Program Needs Volunteers

Feel like spending some time in the great outdoors and doing good for Michigan state parks and recreation areas?

The Great Lakes Gazette posted the following:

The Department of Natural Resources has lots of opportunities for volunteers to help clean up, spruce up, and restore natural habitats at 17 sites across

The state as part of the new Volunteer Steward Program.  You can participate in a group Stewardship Workday to join others in eliminating non-native and invasive plants and shrubs from prairies, forests and dunes; pull on your work gloves and waterproof boots and check out the calendar of Volunteer Stewardship Workdays.

If you like to work on your own you can take training to perform tasks such as mapping invasive plants, collecting native seeds, monitoring insects and redistributing the Galerucella Beetle to combat the invasive purple loosestrife.

For more information and to register for a workday contact Laurel Malvitz-Draper at malvitzl@michigan.gov or 248-359-9057 for southeast Michigan, and for southwest Michigan contact Heidi Frei at freih@michigan.gov or 269-685-6851 ext. 147

A Recreation Passport is required for entry to State Parks and Recreation Areas. Annual cost for Michigan residents is $10 for motor vehicles/$5 motorcycles. They’re available when you renew your license plate and at park entrances.

Michigan Dog Woes

Charlie is a Michigan dog with a problem. First he doesn’t like to get his feet wet. Second he is anxious (look for upcoming article on the “Thunder Jacket”) and third he is a hoarder.  He hides his things in Isaac’s closet, under pillows, in the corner (where everyone can see it so is that really a hiding place?), behind the stereo and in Chuck’s chair (not a good idea!).  But the ultimate hiding place is to bury his new prize in dirt.  Apparently dogs bury their bones to avoid waste.  It is an ingrained habit of canines to hoard their food by burying it. Yeah, yeah, yeah this is great if you live in South Carolina or Georgia, where it doesn’t snow.  It is a serious problem if you live in Michigan and hate for your feet to get cold or wet.  I have to give Charlie credit, he is creative.

 

Kitchen Origami

My home is a lovely 1950′s ranch and I love it, I really do! but the flipping cupboards have got to go. The cupboards are not really deep enough to fit our dinner plates and the space shortage requires us to keep the can goods above the stove, which can only be described as living dangerously for those under 5 feet 3 inches. But it is the Tupperware drawer that earns the kitchen origami award.  If the contents of this drawer are not stacked, folded and placed precisely right in the drawer, FUBAR!  Raise your hand if there is a space in your house that earns the origami award.

Eden Foods – Chocolate Pudding Fruit Parfait – Recipe

I’m always on the search for non-dairy dessert recipes.  These are not always easy to find.  Eden Foods in Clinton, Michigan has thousands of recipes on their site including this delicious recipChocolate Pudding Fruit Parfaite for chocolate pudding.  You need kuzu root starch.  Sounds scary but it is just a Japanese thickener for sauces, gravies, soups, desserts and beverages. If you use soy sauce you could probably be adventuresome and try kuzu root starch too!

To find recipe click here: Eden Foods – Chocolate Pudding Fruit Parfait – Recipe.

Come back and give me a review if you try it!

Looking for Maynard on Route 66

While scanning our entertainment options on Netflix, Chuck and I stumbled upon the documentary, Blood into Wine.  It is a crazy video about Maynard Keenan from the band Tool and Puscifer making wine in Arizona.  I love wine and Chuck loves Maynard (well, he loves metal but Maynard sounded better).  A trip to visit Maynard’s wine tasting room at Caduceus Cellars was underway.

We landed in Las Vegas so we could spend time with family and friends for a few days before  locating Route 66.  Yes, that is a restroom and yes I went into it!  Route 66 is blast into the past (and the desert, blue skies and cactus) so for Michiganians (is that even a word?) it is was a whole new world.

Our first stop was in Oatman to hang-out with the donkeys. I mentioned (perhaps shouted loudly) that donkeys bite and we shouldn’t touch them!  Chuck clearly ignored me and was not bitten but he was just lucky.

We left Oatman and traveled along Route 66 to a pub in Prescott, Arizona.  If memory serves me, Chuck enjoyed a Pondersoa IPA and I had my first Achocolypse (a very dark beer). We bought Isaac a very cool gift from a second hand store and set off for Jerome.

We drove through the mountains and eventually the pass into Jerome, Arizona. We didn’t find Maynard but we did enjoy a glass of wine from Caduceus Cellars. We hung-out for a while but Maynard wasn’t there so left and journeyed to Cottonwood.  We had a great time at Arizona Stronghold Vineyard.  As the sun was rising the next day, we were also on our way to Sedona to spend the day hiking.

Red Rock Secret Mountain Wildness, what an amazing place to spend the day hiking! We located a crazy little brew pub for dinner that served VEGAN hotdogs and tasty beer.

We soldiered on to Flagstaff where OMG!  Chuck said! “We must stop at the best preserved meteor crater on earth.” It should have said, “Don’t miss the best preserved tourist trap on earth!” Seriously what a waste. I’m too ashamed to share how much money we spent to look in a hole in the ground.  It made Chuck happy and if he is happy I’m happy.  The next day we hiked the Mt. Elden Trail in Flagstaff and it nearly got the best of us.

We should have looked at the description closer before we leaving the trail head.  It read, “Challenging!”  I think it should have read, “This hike is FUCKING HARD!.” We headed back to Las Vegas, toured the “Damn” and enjoyed a Black Canyon Stout and High Scaler IPA from the Boulder Dam Brewing Co before heading back to Michigan.

I’d recommend this tour but I’d skip the hole in the ground.  Arizona has some great beer, wine, food and trails for hiking.

 

Running 16 in 16 Degrees

Seriously, why run 16 miles when it was only 16 degrees? Well because it was on the training plan.  I have a theory that many runners are recovering Catholics. Instead of going to church religiously, we go for a long run and if we don’t run we have something to feel guilty about.  Plus you can do your penance at the same time.

This cold, Michigan morning offered many opportunities for penance.  There was more ice inside my windbreaker then on the Huron.  And, and I had a serious equipment malfunction! The forecast was pretty simple. It was going to suck, the potential for it to be wet and windy was high.  Keeping my hands warm has been an on-going issue this winter, but I had a plan and it required a trip to REI. Clearly a new pair of Black Diamond, wind-resistant gloves would fix the problem, right? No not right. Sadly, the decision to wear liners was not good. My hands were HOT.  Seriously, about 5 miles into the run my liners were soaked as were the Black Diamond, WIND-RESISTANT gloves. So not good, layering was a very bad idea.

“So how long does it take to run 16 miles?” It is a standard question I get or “How many miles is that Marathon?”  Well it takes me just under an hour to run 5 miles.  I run a mile in about 11 minutes so do the math.  And all marathons are 26.2 miles. (By the way it is really hard to do math after you’ve been running, try converting kilometers to miles after you’ve run 3.5 hours, not happening.)

I’m not a fast runner but I’m fun! I have great tunes on my IPod, take pictures, talk on the phone, pee in the weeds, share shot-blocks with other runners and I have an endless list of things to tell my running partner. My running partner did a quick stint at a seminary when he was a young lad so there is a confessional quality to my stories. He always has good advice and he often blesses me with a prayer when he can sense that I may lay down in the road or throw up.  It goes,  “Head up, shoulders back, arms relaxed, knees bent! Remember to keep the imaginary string from your head to your toes straight. Wiggle your fingers, wiggle toes and engage your core!”