Top Fuel Dragster on a Green Light!

Between the weather and the garden, it's been pretty difficult finding time to get the jon boat out, actually a even a little embarrassing.  Last Friday was interesting as my good friend that I met at work, Kevin Sonsalla had tickets again to attend the Lucas Oil NHRA Nationals at Brainerd International Raceway.  It is always a fun event as Kevin has some connections with Don Schumacher Racing out of Illinois.  Schumacher is a famous name in both the welding and battery charger manufacturing in the US and Kevin used to represent certain products he would sell to them.  Eventually he would help out at their race events and today they still treat him pretty nice.  His tickets get us into the event, access to reserved seating, as well the hospitality tent where we can watch them rebuild the engine after each run, have a nice meal served, as well as free soft drinks.  It is a lot of fun as this was probably my 6th time going and it is quite amazing to see those cars go from a dead stop to 1000 feet in less than 3.8 seconds and over 330 mph.  That is moving! One of the things I found interesting was a display by a local General Motors dealer selling the latest in V8 motor configurations.  They had 6.2L (378 cu in) V8's that would turn out over 600 hp, and I often talk about the good old days of cars, those days are here!  Thanks Kevin for a great day again!

Fermentation Crock

So a couple of things, my fermented pickles are absolutely delicious.  They have cured into a great tasting deli style pickle and of course I think they are pretty good.  My neighbor Lynn Brasel took some of my cucumbers from the garden and made crock pickles as well, her's were pretty good, maybe more polished.  She used vinegar and I just used a salt brine so maybe in a contest she would have taken a blue ribbon, never the less, I reminded her that they were my cucumbers!  Both are still quite tasty although she did give me her recipe.  We are at the end of a nice month long harvesting season for the cucumbers and maybe I will have enough to make another batch soon as I expect to empty this fermentation crock within the next couple of days.  One has to daily skim off the white mold that forms on the top of the liquid, not the worst job and it gives one the opportunity to taste the brine, which is packed full of the new craze in dietary supplements called Probiotics,  a great boost to ones digestive health.  It's actually pretty good.  I bought some 1 gallon plastic square containers which work pretty well for the refrigerator however I have already ate a gallon.  With about 5 gallons of pickles fermenting in crocks now I should have enough to take me through ice fishing season, not even counting on trying Lynn's method.  Lynn's husband Lory stopped by last week and we picked 10 gallons of summer crisp pears which he will make into pear wine.  Our plan is to use our still and make pear brandy soon.  He

A Raccoon's Banquet!

has some chokecherry brandy that we tried and admittedly it's pretty good as well.  Cured in miniature charred oak barrels and blended with the right amount of flavorings and cut to a reasonable proof (80) I was very impressed and am looking forward to see how this will turn out.  It is also time to harvest the sweet corn however the raccoons have decided the same.  I wouldn't be so angry as not to share some of my corn with them however they tend to be real pigs about it and knock down the stalks, take a few bites out of a cob then move to the next one.  They took out an equivalent of a half a row of corn with most of the cobs having just a few bites out of then.  Frustrating for sure.  There is a live trap waiting for them with a nice can of tuna cat food, hardly something a nice raccoon cane pass up but no luck.  Maybe the corn wasn't quite ready and they have decided to come back in a week when it will be!  Either way I'll be waiting.  I did get a chance to fish on our neighbor John's dock on Sunday night with Limo Joe, his son Jake, his neighbor friend Aaron, Big Jake and his son Elijah.  Nobody was really set up very well so my job was to reconfigure each pole with the right hook and sinker, added some nightcrawlers to the hooks and in addition we tried a line with Doc's Catfish bait but it wasn't a good night for fishing.  The excuse might be that this was the first time fishing on John's dock so it might take a while to get to know the best place to cast.  Anyway it was fun hanging with the kids and teaching them not to stick one's finger in the Doc's Catfish goop, it is pretty gross!