Making, baking, and (un-)breaking things in Southeast Michigan.
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This is what results when you ferment five gallons of unpasteurized cider from Rochester Cider Mill with a pound of Honeyflow Farm‘s honey, rack it, then let it sit for a year in a cool basement. It’s really, really, really clear.
As mentioned previously, this is the cider that I hope to bottle on Tuesday. I really, really hope it’s good. I’ll be quite disappointed if it isn’t.
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Tonight’s beer is Founders’ Centennial IPA, a nicely hoppy 7.2% IPA. I like this, although I think that I may have liked the Sierra Nevada Southern Hemisphere Harvest a bit more.
Speaking of alcohol, today I was hoping to bottle some cider which I’d put to age almost a year ago. It’s become completely clear simply from settling in the carboy and hopefully will be good. Because it’s clear, when bottling it I’m going to have to add some yeast so that it’ll carbonate properly. Because Cap’n’Cork was closed when we got there I wasn’t able to get the yeast and thus the bottling has been put off until Tuesday. (They are also closed on Mondays, and I need some nice flavorless champange yeast for this task.)
Hopefully sometime around the end of next month I’ll have two cases of nicely aged hard cider available. I’m sure Danielle will love this.
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It seems that some gnomes introduced a bit of entropy to the rock garden in The Pines at Stony Creek. When riding through there this evening I fell, hit my left knee (it doesn’t seem bad), and broke my brake lever. Good thing it’s just a cheap Avid FR-5, for which I can get a replacement from REI for $14. I have to place an order with them for a large size yellow jacket to replace the too small medium one I’d purchased, so I’ll just throw this on the order as well.
Also, coming around a corner while riding trails in the dark and suddenly seeing a child-sized silhouette in the trail with glowing eyes staring at you is a bit disconcerting. Riding alone in the woods in the dark is a bit odd and worrysome. Even the normally-cute deer are a bit frightening. I was really getting a feeling for how lost/scared one would feel if hurt out there.
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Yesterday I took off riding towards the Macomb Orchard Trail head at 24 Mile and Dequindre, then started down the trail towards my parents house. It was a good ride, except for the cold making my exposed knees cramp up a bit. I was also wearing the likely too small Canari jacket, which kept wind off of me, thusly keeping sweat from drying. Not that I wanted the 15 MPH cold headwind on me much…
After a bit over 32 miles I arrived at my parents house. My mom made a pizza then waited for my dad to get home from work. After dinner and some visiting they drove me back home, as I really didn’t want to head back out for another 30 miles in dripping wet clothes and < 50°F weather, right as the sun was setting. I should have done a GPS plot of the route I took so that I could display the route, but I didn't. So, here's the two maps of the trail (1 · 2).
As the Macomb Orchard Trail wasn’t finished properly in quite a bit of its rural area I cut off a bit of distance by taking 33 Mile Road instead of the route up to Armada. This was a nice, albeit a bit washboardy rural road, with barely any traffic on it. I would normally have just taken the trail, but the contractor for it has laid the wrong kind of gravel on the trail making it nearly unridable. This gravel is loose, doesn’t pack, and one sinks through it and tires just spin. Here’s a photo of my wheel in one of the worse parts.
Here’s the route I took:
· 22 Mile to VanDyke
· VanDyke to 23 Mile
· 23 Mile around the curve to Dequindre, to the start of the Macomb Orchard Trail
· Macomb Orchard Trail to 33 Mile
· 33 Mile to Macomb Orchard Trail
· Macomb Orchard Trail to Richmond
· Main Street / Residential Streets to My Parents House
Here’s photos taken along the ride:
2 Comments· Pumpkins growing at a farm along the Macomb Orchard Trail.
· Lengthy, straight section of Macomb Orchard Trail west of 32 Mile. It was very windy here.
· Approaching the new Macomb Orchard Trail bridge over M-53.
· Looking out at M-53 from on the new Macomb Orchard Trail bridge.
· Looking at the Ford Romeo plant from the new Macomb Orchard Trail bridge over M-53.
· This bridge along the Macomb Orchard Trail is closed, but not very well. Everyone takes it anyway.
· Cows along 33 Mile Road, seen from the closed bridge.
· Crumbling footings on the closed bridge.
· This bridge is closed because of the crumbling footings. It’s part of the trail route.
· The gravel on the Macomb Orchard Trail is very loose. It needs to be replaced.
· The point where the east part of the Macomb Orchard Trail meets back up with 33 Mile Road.
· The end of the Macomb Orchard Trail in Richmond, MI.
