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More photos in the Photo Gallery. The most recent set features photos taken during our visits to local state parks and natural areas during the month of October.

Tonight I posted some new photos of Garrison in the Photo Gallery for interested parties.

This past weekend Sarah, Garrison, and I flew out to Massachusetts to see some old friends. Some of Sarah’s friends from college were throwing a baby shower for one of their number, and we decided to go out as a family for a mini-vacation.

We stayed with my friend Mike and his wife Michele at their place in Winthrop. It is almost impossible to overstate how much more convenient it is to stay at someone’s house than a hotel when you’re traveling with an infant. Mike borrowed a pack’n'play from a co-worker so that we didn’t have to bring ours with us or rent one once we got there. We were able to put Garrison to bed in our bedroom on the third floor of the house, and stay awake with Mike and Michele on the first floor. If we had a hotel room, we likely would have been stuck sitting quietly in a dimly lit room once he went to bed since we probably would have had just one room. Mike’s place had a fridge where we could keep Garrison’s medicine, a comfy sofa on which we could sit, a sink in which we could wash the boy’s dishes, and numerous other little perks. Thanks again, Mike and Michele, for having the three of us.

We spent most of Saturday at the baby shower, where the new mom-to-be was showered with all manner of baby gifts. On our way back to Mike’s we stopped at Nick’s House of Pizza, and brought back a pizza and a pair of calzones for dinner at Mike’s. Nick’s was among our favorite pizza places when we were in school, so we always like to stop in and avail ourselves of their mouthwatering calzones whenever we have the chance.

On Sunday, we helped Mike and Michele install a new chandelier in their dining room, since the previous one was broken. In the middle of that process, we decamped to Plymouth, MA for a mouthwatering lunch at the legendary Lobster Hut. I ate both a fried scallop roll and a fried clam roll. It has been a long time since I’ve eaten at Lobster Hut, and will probably be even longer until the next time, so I had no shame about ordering two sandwiches absolutely overflowing with fresh, fried seafood. Mike and Sarah showed a bit more restraint, but everyone (with the exception of Garrison) left the lunch table stuffed full of fried seafood.

After lunch, we took a long walk on Plymouth’s Long Beach. Sarah and I enjoyed walking on the beach when we lived in Plymouth, and we still like to take walks on it whenever we get back to Massachusetts.

Some people might be wondering how Garrison did on the airplane flights. I would say that he earned a B, overall. He is just too independent-minded at the moment to enjoy being cooped up on our laps for long periods of time. He won’t nap when he’s put in stimulating environments like an airport and a plane. He often won’t eat when placed in those same environments. That meant that he was extremely fussy on that last flight home. Would we fly with him again? At this point, we wouldn’t consent to take him on a flight that lasted over two hours. That’s about his time limit. After that, he starts to meltdown and everyone on the flight suffers.

For interested parties, there are photos from the trip in the Photo Gallery.

Last weekend we were still enjoying a run of beautiful weather. Nearly every day dawned with some fog that cleared in the late morning. After that we had sunny skies and temperatures in the seventies until early evening when dark would fall and temperatures would head towards the lower fifties. For weeks we had no threat of rain, so every single day it was like living a California summer all over again.

We took advantage of that fact to get out several times over the weekend.

We started by purchasing a new baby backpack. Our previous model was OK for short jaunts around the neighborhood and smaller babies, but for actual hiking with larger babies, it wasn’t the most comfortable. So, we invested some money in a much more comfortable pack that is more appropriate for longer hikes with bigger babies.

We took the pack out to an orchard and Garrison got his first experience with apples fresh off the tree. There isn’t a large variety of apples ripe at the moment, but we plan on going again sometime in October. Interested parties can see photos that we took while apple picking in the Photo Gallery.

We also took the time for another picnic and hike. We went out to Governor Dodge State Park and enjoyed ourselves for another afternoon. Garrison got to roll around on the picnic blanket, suck on some more apple slices, and fall asleep in the new baby carrier. Dalla got to run around and look for critters to hunt (she didn’t find any). Sarah and I got out to enjoy some of the early fall color. Again, there are photos from the trip in the Photo Gallery for interested parties.

Sunday, Sarah and I both wanted to get out of town for a while and Sarah’s idea of taking a picnic to Devil’s Lake State Park won out. Sarah put together lunch while I loaded the car and off we went.

We stopped on the way and bought some cheese (for home) and some cheese curds (for the picnic). About an hour after we started, we pulled into the parking lot. The park can be fairly crowded in the summer as it is the single most popular state park in the Wisconsin. On Sunday, while there were plenty of people there, it was far less crowded than it often is during the summer.

We spread out our blanket in the shade under some trees and enjoyed a pleasant picnic. Garrison played with plastic lids and a carrot that Sarah brought along for him while Sarah and I ate our lunches. Dalla spent her time waiting for hand-outs and patrolling the nearby greenery for critters.

After an hour or so we brought our picnic gear back the to car, changed into our hiking boots, and hit the trail. Sarah put Garrison into a new baby carrier that she made and he was asleep relatively rapidly (he didn’t manage to take a nap in the morning so he was pretty cranky and tired by then). She hauled his sleeping self uphill for the better part of a mile as we climbed up the East Bluff Woods trail. At the top she transferred him to me and I put him in the baby backpack that we have. He spent the rest of the hike on my back and most of the time he was asleep.

The weather was extremely pleasant, with temperatures in the upper seventies and sunshine. A handful of trees were turning, and many of the plants on the forest floor were browning up, heralding the arrival of fall in the next couple of weeks.

After hiking for a couple of hours, we started back to Madison. Everyone, except Garrison, was tired from hauling water, food, and/or an infant on their back up and down the bluffs. We took the scenic route back to Madison, with the windows down the entire way, and took the Merrimac Ferry across the Wisconsin River. We had to wait twenty minutes or so to get on-board, but it made for a pleasant end to our trip.

There are a few photos from the trip in the Photo Gallery for interested parties.

This weekend I brewed my first all-grain batch of beer. I decided to brew up a pale ale, and after reading plenty of recipes, decided to brew this batch by the seat of my pants, went out in the yard, and started brewing. Six and one-half hours later, I had everything put away and a batch of beer in a fermenter. In the future, I expect it will take less time for a simple batch like the one I did this weekend, but given the complexity of the setup, I felt that that time window was not half-bad.

In the picture below, you can see 2/3 of my all-grain brewing setup. The hot liquor tank is on top of the propane burner on the left, while the mash/lauter tun is in the middle of the frame. The boil kettle isn’t shown, but it looks pretty much identical to the hot liquor tank. There is a pump on the chair below the mash/lauter tun that is recirculating hot wort through a heater on the right side of the tank, and back into the top. On the right side of the bench my counter-flow heat exchanger is visible. If you want to see the picture in greater detail, you can click on it for the original size.

Now that Garrison has started at day care, we have our own personal disease vector. He came down with a runny nose and the sneezes over the weekend and it wasn’t more than a day or two until both Sarah and I were sick, as well. When he first got sick, he would sleep for more than an hour or so in his crib until the mucus would inhibit his ability to breathe which, naturally enough, woke him up. We traded off turns keeping an eye on him, so one or the other of us was up all night for the most part. Eventually, I got wise to the problem and stuck some rolled up blankets under one end of his crib mattress. Once I laid him down on his back with his head slightly elevated, his breathing eased and he was able to sleep for longer periods of time. Unfortunately, we’re all still varying degrees of sick.

Garrison also started to refuse any sort of bottle, sippy cup, or solid food over the weekend from either of us over the weekend. He generally refuses bottles from the ladies at day care, but would eat solid foods when they were offered by the teachers, however. This flat-out refusal of both went on until Tuesday evening when Sarah, with great effort, was able to get him to eat some solids again. Wednesday afternoon we took him in to see a nurse practitioner. She did all the requisite poking, prodding, listening, and examining before declaring that he had ear infections and that they were likely the reasons that he was refusing the bottle. She said that we could put him on antibiotics or wait and it would likely clear up in four to seven days. The fact that he was eating again likely meant that it was clearing up already, so we decided to wait (prescription in hand, should we need it).

He’s still quite actively refusing to be fed by me. Wednesday night Sarah went to the grocery store and he woke up shortly after she left. He absolutely refused to even consider the bottles I made for him, so he had no choice but to scream his little heart out until Sarah got back. That wasn’t fun for Garrison or me.

Yes, I finally broke down and joined the accursed Facebook. For those of you wondering if my posting here will end as a result, the answer is a resounding “no.” I have no plans to make a habit of writing anything on my Facebook page.

The biggest problem with Facebook, from my perspective, is that it is a bit like a roach motel for personal data. That is, “Your data checks in; it never checks out.” I know of no good way to get pictures, postings, comments, etc. out of Facebook. While I have to suffer through the headache of maintaining software on my own website, I always know where my data is, and I can do whatever I want with it. In other words, by maintaining my own website, I own my data.

So, while I now have a Facebook account, the only reason is so that I can read the postings of other people who do write there.

There are a handful of new photos in the Photo Gallery of Garrison as he approaches seven months. We haven’t been as diligent about taking photos of him lately, so there weren’t many worth posting.

For years, I’ve used software called Geeklog to manage my website. It was functional and secure, but a much larger package than I needed for a simple blog. It was also a major pain to upgrade and to change its appearance. So, I rarely upgraded it as a result.

Recently, I discovered a method—that wasn’t perfect but was pretty good—for moving my data to a different software package. So, I made the switch. You’ve likely noticed the change in appearance and functionality.

The hope is that I can upgrade this software more easily than the old stuff.

It’s certainly been a while since I wrote in this space, and a whole bunch of things have happened since then. In fact, so many things have happened that I’m not sure where to start. So, I’ll write down news as it comes to mind. Order in this instance does not imply importance. That is, if I thought of something before something else, that doesn’t make the first more important than the second.

Garrison started day care last week. He’s now in day care Tuesdays and Thursdays. The school has a picture on their website if you’re interested in what his room looks like. He’s probably the biggest baby in his class, though there is one older than him by a couple of weeks. He seems to like it there, though he’s currently having trouble concentrating on his bottles there. His sold food goes down fairly easily, but he get so distracted by all the goings-on around him that he sometimes comes home with just as much milk as he had when we dropped him off.

He’s also creeping towards crawling. He has figured out how to get from a sitting position onto his belly without smacking his face on the floor in the process, as well as how to roll around the room and move backwards and forwards. He moves backwards by lying on his belly and pushing with his hands; he moves forwards by lying on his belly and pushing forwards (generally off something) with his feet. We’ve already started baby-proofing the house since it is obvious that he’s going to be a real terror once he’s fully mobile. Tuesday, I had him ready to go to day care and I put him on the floor near the garage door while I put a collar on the dog. As I was putting the collar on Dalla, I heard the tell-tale “splish-splish” of little hands playing in the dog’s water dish. Then, I heard the metallic splash that the dog’s water dish makes when an infant pulls it over. Finally, I heard the squalling of a wet baby who was lying in a rapidly expanding puddle of dog water. He’s gotten into cabinets, has discovered that some furniture is on wheels (very fun to push and pull), and is already eying other areas where he can cause trouble.

Dalla remains very tolerant of Garrison and his shenanigans. She never threatens him with nipping or biting, even when he pulls chunks of fur out of her tail. She often moves away from him if he ends up near her and we’re not handy to patrol his grabby fists, but otherwise is doing quite well with the invasion of her den. She is also busy doing her best to remove varmints from the face of the planet. She got another rabbit a few weeks ago and caught a mouse recently, as well.

We pulled all the tomato plants out of our garden a week ago due to an infestation of late blight on the plants and fruit. That was very disappointing because we were on track to have a bumper crop this year and now we’ve got almost none left.

On the upside, we’re still getting a good number of oversized zucchini, some cucumbers, broccoli, kohlrabi, raspberries, and peppers. There are some pumpkins on the pumpkin plants and some butternut squash that will hopefully ripen later this fall. The tomatillo plant looks like it will still produce a good crop. I harvested my hops a couple of weeks ago. Due to a lawn mowing mishap, I didn’t get as many as I hoped, but I still got some. I should get a bigger crop next year.

On the brewing front, I recently invested some money in a fairly large, all-grain brewing system that I bought off someone who didn’t brew any longer. Using grain instead of extract should help me to make a wider range of beers more cheaply. For instance, I used to spend somewhere around $20 per batch for extract and specialized grains. Using an all-grain system, I can expect to spend somewhere in the range of $6-10 per batch on fermentables and get better results.

We visited South Dakota a couple of weekends ago and stopped to visit some relatives on the way back. It’s a long drive both ways and I spent the whole time wondering why anyone would rather drive than sit on a train.

Sarah’s parents visited us in July and we took a day to drive up to EAA’s AirVenture in OshKosh. While past years have been quite fun, this year was something of a dud due to rain. It was also the first full-day of the show and many of the unique aircraft the show draws had not yet made their appearance. I’m definitely going again in the future, but I would rather go on Friday than on Monday. We took Garrison with us, and he wasn’t too impressed. I brought along some hearing protection for him, because some of the flybys are pretty loud. When I put the muffs on his head, the first thing he did was take them off, which meant that it became a struggle between the two of us and neither one was happy as a result.

We helped my sister move in mid-August from a duplex on the southwest side of Madison to a home near us. Her new house is a Lustron, which is a type of metal house built after WWII. It’s got big windows and plenty of light inside which is a bit of a change from her last place. The neighborhood is also a bit nicer.

We’ve had an extremely mild summer this year, which has been great for personal comfort. We’ve probably only run the air conditioner five or six days all summer. This week, in particular, has been great with sunny skies and temperatures in the lower to mid seventies. It’s a bit like an extended Indian summer.

For those interested parties, I’m not planning on visiting the South Pole this year. I’m on the passenger manifest as an alternate to the alternate, which is just fine with me.

Sarah recently made a YouTube video of Garrison at seven months.

In his latest attempt to become the dominant Cute Baby on YouTube, Garrison’s new video depicts him at five months.

In his latest YouTube video, Garrison sings his favorite song, The One Note Song. He sings it for at least an hour every day, often while in his saucer, but by no means does he limit his performance space to the same. He’ll sing in bed, while being fed, in his stroller, on his lambskin, or just about anywhere and any time the urge strikes him.

The weekend after Memorial Day is a bit of a dead time here in Madison. There aren’t any big festivals (none that we care about, at least), and not much else is going on. So, we took advantage of the down time to make a trip to Mt. Horeb for the afternoon on Sunday.Our original plan was to visit Mineral Point, which is about an hour away. Garrison disagreed with that plan once we got into the car, so we pulled off in Mt. Horeb (twenty minutes into the drive) and called it good. We ate lunch at the Grumpy Troll brewery, which I had been planning to do at some undefined time in the future for some time now. We made the obligatory visit to the Mustard Museum and bought unusual mustards, and generally had a pleasant afternoon together before heading back to Madison.

Garrison is still developing well. He’s rolling all over the place now since he easily rolls front to back and vice versa. He has trouble when he goes back to front since he often ends up with one arm pinned beneath him when he arrives on his stomach. Other than that, however, he’s got the rolling over thing down. In fact, we can’t leave him unattended on the floor in certain areas now or his rolling will quickly bring him into contact with things that he’d likely put in his mouth.

We gave him his first solid foods on 30 May 2009 when he had his first serving of rice cereal. He took to it like a champ, though he seems to wear as much as he eats. So far, he’s gotten just three servings of the cereal while we make sure that it ’s agreeing with his still developing digestive tract.

Sarah went back to work today, which meant that I was Mr. Mom for the day. Actually, I’ll be Mr. Mom every Monday and Tuesday until September, while Sarah will be home with Garrison every Thursday and Friday during that period. Finding child care that is affordable, trustworthy, and reasonably conveniently located has so far proven to be a tough nut to crack. So, I’m using up some of my accumulated vacation and Sarah is working just part time. Hopefully, we’ll have some sort of permanent day care lined up come September.

Observant readers may have noticed that we’re seemingly leaving Garrison in Dalla’s care on Wednesdays. Actually, we’ve hired a nanny to come watch him on Wednesday while we’re both at work. Sarah conducted a search and found one of the local undergraduates that she trusts to keep the boy alive, the dog alive, and the house from burning down for eight hours every Wednesday. I wasn’t aware of the distinction between a baby sitter and a nanny until I naively inquired as to how the search for a baby sitter was progressing, but I now understand that we’ve hired a nanny.

Memorial Day has come and gone, but we tried to use the time as best we could.Getting our garden in the ground is always an effort for us. Some years we put it in early, take a trip, and come home to find the whole mess choked with weeds. Other years it takes us a bit of extra time to get it in because of a trip we take in May. This year was one of the latter. Because we went to Cleveland a couple of weeks ago, we didn’t get our garden in the ground until Memorial Day weekend. We’ve got an expanded garden this year because we’re using space that used to be under a spruce tree we had removed. We’re not growing anything too unusual this year. Tomatoes, cukes, kohlrabi, pumpkins, eggplants, green beans, zucchini, lettuce, sweet peppers, hot peppers, dill, basil, mint, oregano, and broccoli are the ones that come to mind. I’m also growing some hops for brewing (Cascades, Sunbeams, Willamettes, Mt. Hood, and Kent Goldings), but I’m not expecting to get a substantial harvest of cones from those until next year. Most everthing that would interest rabbits has been fenced off, which means that we should actually get some kolrabi and broccoli this year. Dalla is 100% effective at stopping rabbit browsing of the garden, but she’s only in the yard 15-20% of the time, so we still have to put out chicken wire.

Garrison went in for his four month doctor’s appointment recently. He’s still in the 70+ percentile for his age in weight, head diameter, and length. He got some more vaccinations, which put him into a nasty mood for the evening, but he was mostly over that by the next day.

Lest anyone think we forgot, we made our obligatory trip to Brat Fest over Memorial Day. As part of the successful effort to eat over 200,000 brats, Sarah and I each consumed three sausage tubes on Saturday. Garrison managed to sleep through his first Brat Fest, which I suspect he won’t do next year when he’s older.

Memorial Day, we decided to take some time off of working around the house and hike some of the trails at Devil’s Lake State Park. The weather was generally favorable and we brought a picnic so that we could leave the house a bit earlier. The park was crowded with people enjoying the last gasps of Memorial Day weekend, but we still found plenty of space for ourselves. The pictures below were taken during our hike.

Garrison, Dalla, and David

Dalla

Sarah and Garrison

Garrison recently was given two new toys by our relatives. A new video on YouTube shows him playing with the toys.

It must be Spring because our lawn is a sea of dandelions. Last night our lawn got the first mowing of the Spring, Summer, and Fall seasons. Only 50% of the lawn actually needed to be mowed, but that 50% was distributed randomly around the entire property, so I ended up mowing the whole thing anyway. At a minimum, it cut the dandelions down to size for twelve hours or so.On the upside, our patio furniture is outside once again, and we had our first multi-family cookout on the patio a few weeks ago. There is so much more room to entertain on the patio, compared to our dining room, that it is easier to have larger groups of people over. The charcoal grill has been restored to its place of primacy and the gas grill relegated to usage on rainy days or for quick, small grillings.

Dalla has been reveling in the arrival of Spring since we’ve gotten in the habit of leaving both the patio door and the screen door open in what we refer to as our “open door policy”. Since there aren’t any mosquitoes out yet, we don’t mind having the screen door open to the yard. She loves running in and out as the urge strikes her.

Dalla upped her prey-tally this season by two mice and a rabbit. The mice she caught under our recycling bin; the rabbit was dumb enough to wander into the yard during early evening. She saw it and went sprinting out after it. Unfortunately, it was too big to fit through the chainlink fence, and couldn’t easily go under it. The rabbit was just halfway under the fence when Dalla caught up to it, so the struggle devolved into a contest to see if she could keep it in our yard or if the rabbit could struggle away into a neighbor’s yard where Dalla couldn’t follow. Given Dalla’s advantages of weight, strength, and grip (she had the rabbit’s hind quarters in her mouth), the contest was all but predetermined in her favor. After she ended the struggle, I rewarded her with a couple of treats, and the rabbit carcass joined the mice in our trash bin. With so many dead animals in our trash, we might have to rename the trash can the “carcass bin.”

The birds are back in our neighborhood, including some that we haven’t had in the past. Some white-crowned sparrows have been making an extended stay in our yard on their way north for the summer. An Eastern Towhee, which I’ve never seen in our yard before, has been hanging around for the better part of a week. I also put some sparrow-excluders on my birdhouses this year, which has encouraged some chickadees and wrens to check out the potential nesting spaces. It’s nice to have the wrens back this year. I enjoy listening to their songs much more than the cardinals’ endless braying.

As part of my ongoing descent into homebrewing madness, I planted five different varieties of hops in our yard this year. The hops are planted along our fences, so that they can use the fences for strength and guidance. This year’s harvest will likely be lean, but next year’s should bring an abundance (likely an overabundance) of hops that I can use in my own brewing endeavors.

Garrison is still a herky-jerky three-and-one-half month old. He doesn’t have much in the way of fine motor control yet, though he’s started reaching for objects and may even have a favorite toy or two. He likes to sing, coo, and howl in the morning and during dinner time, unless he’s sitting on someone’s lap. Putting him down for bed is still a real chore since he seems to think that he might never wake up if he falls asleep. However, Sarah (with whatever minor assistance I can offer) soldiers bravely onward and he generally gets to bed by 21:30 every night. When he’s upset, Sarah is clearly his favorite person, and that makes getting him ready for bed a major component of her evenings. We’ve been trying to read him books, but, of course, he can’t actually understand the words we speak. Regardless, he likes to smack the pages of the books with his hands. Since we had a real Dr. Seuss deficit (i.e., none), I bought him a twelve book omnibus that contains many of Geisel’s best known works like, “The Lorax”, “The Cat in the Hat”, “Green Eggs and Ham”, and nine or so others. His physical growth continues unchecked. He’s doubled his birth weight and is now over two feet long.

Sarah has been keeping herself busy with keeping Garrison fed, happy, and alive. She has been diligently seeking day care for him that is reasonably priced, somewhat conveniently located, and staffed by caring individuals. As anyone who has looked for daycare can likely attest, finding care that meets those three simple criteria is not easy. She is also looking forward to getting back to work come June 1st. She recently attended a professional convention here in Madison while I looked after Garrison for the day. She said it felt good to be back amongst professionals, but that she also missed her time with Garrison.

With the arrival of the vernal equinox, we’re starting to get some real signs of Spring.Almost all of the snow around town is gone. The big snow mountains that get built in large parking lots in all their brown and grey glory stubbornly refuse to melt, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a lawn with snow on it. Unfortunately, the date of last frost is still a good two months off, and the ground is distressingly soggy, so working in the gardens is out of the question. Regardless, we brought in our garden tools and lawn mower blade to be sharpened this week. We don’t want to be caught off-guard by the arrival of weeds and green grass. The screens were reinstalled on the windows this week and we had the windows open on both Saturday and Sunday as the temperatures here were in the sixties. It’s always a revelation to have the fresh air blowing through the house again.

Garrison went to the doctor this week for this two month appointment. He weighs north of 12 pounds and is now 23 1/4 inches long. All of his measurements are at the 61st percentile or higher for babies of his age, so he’s growing right on schedule. One of Sarah’s doctors labeled him ‘verbally precocious’ several weeks ago as he’s making all manner of coos, goos, and other baby talk. Apparently, many babies his age are still grunting while he’s practically singing already. But, lest we get too caught up in his verbal abilities, Sarah recently met another baby about Garrison’s age who can already turn himself over, something that Garrison hasn’t figured out yet and doesn’t seem too keen on practicing.

As part of that appointment, he got his two month immunizations, something he greeted with a full-throated roar. Can’t say that I blame him, really. Getting stuck three times in the thighs wouldn’t be my idea of a good time either. Fortunately, he didn’t suffer any of the dreaded side effects (‘inconsolable crying for three hours or longer’), and he is just fine despite his most recent encounter with modern medicine.

My sister has been kind enough to do some babysitting for us, which has been great. We recently got to take in Richard Shindell’s concert here in Madison when Amy babysat Garrison for us. Shindell’s show was very good, much better than the Springsteen show that we saw in St. Paul last year. Shindell was much more engaging and spontaneously and had a much better rapport with the audience. I’m not ready to pass judgment on his new album because I haven’t listened to it much.

I’m finally healthy again after a bout with a nasty cold that kept me out of work for several days and kept me feeling less than 100% for more than a week. Fortunately, neither Sarah or Garrison caught whatever it was that I had.

Since I last wrote in this space, both my Mom and Dad have been out to visit and meet their grandchild. Both were kind enough to do some babysitting for us so that we could run some errands and take in a couple of hockey games.

Finally, there are some new photos in the Photo Gallery for those interested parties.

We bottled this mead (technically, a melomel) yesterday. It won’t be completely aged and ready to drink for months but I tried a glassful anyway. It is strong raspberry flavor and a reddish pink color. My sample was still, but the finished product will be carbonated. The recipe is below.

• 7 lbs. honey
• 1 lb. corn sugar
• 1/4 lb. (4 oz.) white sugar
• 1 t. gypsum
• 1/4 t. Irish moss
• 3 t. yeast nutrients
• 1 t. fresh orange zest
• 36 oz. fresh blackberries (crushed)
• 9 oz. frozen raspberries (crushed)
• Wyeast Dry Mead pitchable yeast
• 1/3 c. corn sugar (for bottling)

Add honey, sugars, gypsum, yeast nutrients, and Irish moss to 1.5 gallons of water. Boil for ten minutes.

Turn off heat. Wait until wort is down to 180F. Add berries and orange zest and steep at 160F for twenty minutes (you may need to add heat to get back to or maintain 160F).

Cool. Pour into plastic bucket. Add enough water to make five gallons. Pitch yeast when cool enough. Cover loosely with bucket lid.

Ferment for one week in primary fermenter. Strain out fruit and rack into secondary fermenter. Rack at roughly one month intervals. Once mead clears and specific gravity falls to 0.996 or below, bottle (using corn sugar) like you would beer.

My Starting gravity on 28 Dec 08 – 1.060.

Gravity on 08 Feb 09 = 0.996

Final gravity on 07 Mar 09 (before bottling) = 0.994

Final % alcohol = 8.5