I never really understood the Bryan Adams song, Summer of ’69 where he talks about playing his guitar until his fingers bled. I mean, first of all, how? And secondly, why? I just never understood what it meant to play a guitar I guess. Fast forward to this week. I have long wanted to tinker with playing bass guitar. I don’t know why but I just like the sound of bass. They say a lead guitar gets the girls but a bass guitar gets the gigs. I don’t really want either but I think I would prefer gigs over girls since I sort of like the girl I have. So, by dumb luck (the best kind of luck), I discovered Rocksmith 2014, a “game” that works on all of the various gaming consoles. I happened to have a little extra money that I had been saving up so I hooked dumb luck together with extra money and bought a new bass guitar and Rocksmith 2014 for the XBox!
Fender Jazz Bass
We hooked it all up the other night and started playing. You see, the game comes with a cable that allows players to hook a real guitars (bass or 6-string) into the system so a real guitar becomes the game controller.
The game screen
It’s pretty cool how game-play merges with guitar-play. Basically the player sees notes coming down the screen and has to adjust fingerings and hit the string at the right time. The system picks it up and measures tone, accuracy, timing, etc and adjusts the notes to the player’s accuracy. There are a number of different songs that span the 80s through today. It doesn’t teach players to read music but it does build experience with playing notes on a real guitar and teaches a form of tab playing for guitar (check out this guy playing).
Get outta my way Dad!
So, Isaac, Abigail and I played for a few hours the other night and had a lot of fun. I kid you not, though…my fingers are still numb! I stopped before my fingers bled (I am sharp that way) but now I definitely get that there is a painful part of playing guitar that I hope will be overcome with callouses and experience. I don’t know if I will ever amount to much as a rock star, but I am sure enjoying the chance to play now and the kids and I get a lot of time to goof around together! With my playing, it is more likely that our ears will bleed than our fingers!
In addition to working on sorghum when my brother was here a couple of weeks ago, we worked some on the deluxe shed. If you ever looked at some of the old pics, you might have noticed the big space above the door where we didn’t put siding. We left a gap where we planned to eventually tie in the porch roof to the house.
That tie-in finally happened! It took a tremendous amount of work, a lack of good sense and a little liquid courage but we raised a beam on which the roof rafters would rest. Once that was done, it was all down hill. I ended up buying 12′ long boards for the horizontal boards that came straight out from the house. The angled boards that form the slope of the roof were 16′ long though I really only needed to span 14′. Unfortunately, our big box home improvement stores don’t sell 14′ boards.
Anyhow, all of that is to say, we got big boards and they were heavy so I am glad my brother was here to help. I ended up getting treated lumber because I could find it (sometimes stuff is hard to find in a big box store…including helpers who know where all the things are located) and because it was only a few dollars more expensive overall. Treated lumber is almost always wet from the treatment process so weighs a lot more than typical boards. Did I mention stuff was heavy and that I was glad my brother was here to help?
So, we got the basic frame up and, one of these days, we will add sheathing and tar paper and metal to finish this thing off. I am mostly excited because I think it makes sense why we left the gap in the siding now. I know people who live up by our place think I am crazy but at least this one weird thing now (hopefully) has an explanation! I just need to connect the decks and I think that will button up a lot of the remaining questions!
I know, I know…you could barely contain yourself, waiting for the conclusion to the sorghum saga. In my last post, I described how we pressed the sorghum cane to extract the sweet juice using our Kentucky No. 0 Cane Mill. We didn’t really pay much attention to how much juice we actually got but it was enough to make me smile. Of course, anything greater than “none” would have made me smile. Anyhow, we got several gallons of weird looking green sorghum juice.
Cooking down but still green
To make the juice into syrup, one has to cook the water off of the juice which thickens the liquid into syrup and converts sugars and starches into wholesome goodness that is otherwise known as sorghum (or sorghums as the old timers call it).
Cooking down nicely
Originally, people cooked the juice on a wood fire in a large cast iron cauldron…sometimes several feet in diameter. The cauldron had a lip which allowed the cauldron to sit on a circular brick or stone wall inside of which a fire was built. Sorghum cookers got more sophisticated and built long, shallow evaporator pans with baffles which allowed the cooker to add juice to one end and move the sorghum through the pan to the other end as it cooked where syrup was eventually pulled off. Either of these options are still viable but involve a good bit of money to purchase or make. I already have a good bit of money invested in the cane mills and couldn’t see spending any more this year.
It thickened nicely and turned a beautiful amber
It occurred to me that a turkey fryer is not much different from an old fashioned cauldron so we decided to cook our juice in a turkey fryer over propane. I know, it is not too authentic but I had to go with what I had. One of the first things that happens when one turns on the heat under sorghum juice is that a tremendous amount of nasty foam rises to the top. This happens every time as a part of the process and the foam has to be skimmed and discarded. I had a ladle I used to dip it off of the top. We stirred the pot nearly continuously to prevent burning the syrup. It took a few hours over low heat but the juice gradually cooked down and thickened. The smell of the mixture changed from wet pumpkin (almost as bad as wet dog) to sweet…sweet something. I can’t really describe it but it was a nice smell. Finally, the color changed from green to a beautiful amber color. We tasted often and watched it thicken. I finally decided it was done and pulled off the end product. We ended up with 2 quarts plus a little of homemade sorghum syrup and it tastes great!
Homemade sorghum syrup
We learned a lot and, more importantly, spent a lot of quality together-time. We didn’t get enough sorghum to make it extrinsically worth it, but satisfaction in seeing a product through from field to jar is worth a lot to me. Seeing my kids helping out and enjoying time spent is worth a lot to me. Feeling some connection to how old farmers in WV might have produced their own sorghum is worth a lot to me. The syrup is really a secondary part to all of this, but what a sweet bonus it is!
Once upon a time there was a mule called “Brother”. Brother was drafted into turning a cane mill for what seemed like hours on end. After becoming dirty and dizzy, he began to bray for help. Another mule called “Wife” heard his braying and decided to help. With Brother on one end and Wife on the other, the cane mill turned and turned under the hot sun. Then Wife became tired and brayed, “Why can’t I have a rope to pull this load, why do I have to push?” The farmer hooked up a rope to the cane mill. Brother pushed and Wife pulled the cane mill under the hot sun. Round and round the cane mill went while Brother and Wife became dizzy and tired. Finally, both Brother and Wife started braying so loudly that farmer had pity on them and hooked the rope to a tractor. Brother sat upon the tractor and the tractor turned the cane mill round and round under the hot sun. Wife went back and forth, carrying more cane to the farmer who sat upon the ground. The two mules said nothing to the farmer about not thinking of the tractor earlier. However, every time the farmer got hit in the head by the board attached to the mill’s roller, the sounds of “hee haw! hee haw!” were heard throughout the land.
I think her story is hilarious and pretty well summarizes how our day went…
The plan was to process the cane I described yesterday into sorghum syrup. Basically, the canes are full of liquid with natural sugars and other magical things that give it a distinct flavor. To extract the liquid, farmer Warren has to crush the cane using a cane mill. Farmers in the old days used to hitch up horses or mules to a long pole attached to the center roller in the mill. As the animals walked in circles, the rollers turned crushing cane fed into the mill a few pieces at a time.
Ky cane mill ready to press sorghum
We reassembled the mill and lagged it to a few sections of old railroad ties. Old timers used to attach the mill to a tree stump that was quite solid in the ground. You see, when the rollers are turned in the mill, a tremendous amount of torque can be generated. If the mill isn’t attached to something solid, it will be spun around…not something I wanted to deal with as a 600 pound block of iron in motion is slightly more than I can handle.
The board that hit the farmer in the head repeatedly…
So, we got it assembled and rigged a board to the center shaft. I was the first draft animal to take a turn at the mill. It was slightly easier than I expected to turn the mill. It was frozen solid when I got it so nothing moved. I guess I had an idea that it would be only slightly easier to turn once it was cleaned up. I had not assembled it even once since restoring it so I had no idea! Luckily, it turned well so we decided to start crushing cane. We tried to run a single pieces of cane through it but it didn’t really work.
Note the fancy pine cones to hold the rollers in place
The rollers are supposed to be spaced at around 1/16th of an inch. On each end of each roller, there used to be bolts that could be used to adjust the spacing of the rollers. On my old mill, I was able to free the top bolts but I couldn’t replace them (not for this year anyhow). The bottom bolts remain frozen in place so I had some ability to adjust the tops of the rollers but the bottoms were set in iron…literally. We set up the mill under a spruce tree so I grabbed a few pine cones and jammed them into the top of the mill to force the rollers closer together. Surprisingly, it worked amazingly well! The spacing at the bottom of the rollers was a little too wide so I had to be careful feeding the cane so that it went mostly towards the top of the joint between the rollers. That worked just fine but was less than ideal.
Crushing sorghum cane in the cane millBefore I got too dizzyThat mechanical horse saved lives!But hurt my head…a lot!
So, as I said, I was the original draft animal but I had the vision on how to feed the cane too so my brother, who has a mind well suited for being a draft animal, took over turning the rollers (just kidding…he has a PhD in chemistry). Really, neither job was too glamorous. After a few turns, we were both dizzy (and I swear it had nothing to do with the liquid wheat we had nearby) and decided to hook it to the motorized draft animal. I remained on the ground to feed stalk while Isaac and my brother took turns riding the tractor. I suppose we ran cane through the cane mill for 3-4 hours slowly learning tricks and getting better at the process. We had to fight the mill a few times as I got impatient and fed too much cane. The torque increased and we spun the mill in circles…luckily we kept the mill low to the ground for safety. Next year, I will mount it higher and more substantially to make it easier to feed cane and to minimize rotation.
Sorghum juice flowing from the cane millSome of the crushed sorghum canes
When sorghum juice flows, it is pea green. Truly, it doesn’t look appetizing and I think it smells like the guts of a pumpkin around Halloween. Still, we got juice flowing and I was so excited. The process was working! We pressed a bunch of cane and had a nice bunch of juice to cook down. You’ll have to wait until the next post to hear about that adventure (yeah, I lied yesterday…I have to write more than 2 parts)!
When I was a kid growing up in the country, we pretty much stayed dirty all the time. We picked up worms and snakes and drank from the hose and ran barefoot. We ate wild teaberries and jungled around on grape vines…stuff a kid ought to do, you know? We currently live in the city so it’s not quite as easy for the kids to explore the woods but I am so pleased when we get out to the cabin.
A girl and her toad!She’s such an encourager! “You’re a good toad…”
Abigail has a couple of really great girlfriends that live nearby out there who all like to explore and enjoy all that the woods has to offer. She ventures over to their place as soon as we get to the cabin and we don’t see her until we ring the dinner bell. When she finally does come back home, she is filthy and exhausted and absolutely full of joy!
Last weekend, our neighbors were working on some old fence. They moved some slabs of wood and found four toads and a turtle….the toads were the biggest I think I have ever seen! In typical fashion, those three girls saved the toads and turtle and made a regular home for the critters. Each one had a name and, by the time I came around, a label on their personality…
I am so glad that Abigail is not a girly girl, squeamish around such lovely creatures. I am thrilled that she climbs trees and enjoys the mud between her toes while she catches salamanders near the pond. I am delighted that she has some fellow girl-explorers who love to spend time in the beautiful creation all around them!
Poor Abigail. She has some bones she hasn’t yet broken. That number is shrinking though. You may remember a while back she broke her wrist while riding her scooter. I finally found the x-rays. I have a real thing for x-rays I guess. I really like to see what’s happening inside. It’s just fascinating that we can see inside a body without being Superman and without doing surgery.
Can you see the break?
Anyhow, if you check out Abigail’s big arm bone towards the head of the bone, you can see the break. Not bad (aside from the fact that broken bones are always bad) and she is completely healed by now.
I think it is easier to see here
Of course, she couldn’t be completely in one piece. Last weekend, somehow, she broke her toe. She didn’t complain much and I don’t remember when it even happened but she started hobbling a little bit. I looked at her toe and it was bruised badly…like black and blue and red and ugly. It was her little toe so I figured it was no great loss but Emily wanted to get an x-ray to make sure it was ok. They headed to the doctor and he confirmed it (but we didn’t get copies of the x-rays). She has her toes taped together for a few weeks and should be fine. Still, it’s another broken bone…
Her other non-broken wrist
I wish I could say this will be our last broken bone report but I know better. Abigail is growing into her body so I figure there will be more “moments”. That’s ok and if I had my druthers, I would prefer broken fingers and toes to bigger bones!
My folks were in town last weekend to watch Abigail play soccer and Isaac’s middle school band play at the high school football game with the high school band. They came in Friday night in time for the football “game”. We had to be to the field an hour early but that meant we got good seats. Unfortunately, we later discovered that those seats were right next to the student section. Perhaps it’s all student sections, and I hate to speak badly of my neighbors, but those kids were real knuckleheads.
Anyhow, Isaac’s middle school band played the Star Spangled Banner and the high school’s fight song (is there only one fight song? It sounded like all fight songs sound) and really sounded pretty good. The middle school band is pretty large and doubled the HS band. They played great together although the student section’s highest ranking idiot corps made it somewhat hard to hear. I called the game a “game” above because it wasn’t really a game. The football team beat the opponent 69 – 9. It wasn’t much fun to watch but then, we came for the band anyhow.
As I said, my parents were here for the weekend. Since our house is in a constant state of construction, they stayed in a nearby hotel…a hotel with a pool. I think the highlight of the visit was the opportunity to swim in a cement pond! The kids and my Mom and I had a great time two nights. We swam and just had a lot of fun. Isaac tried unsuccessfully to dunk me. I threw both kids around the pool and we all got chlorine eyes! That’s swimming pool success!
Both my Mom and I worked as lifeguards in our younger years so we are capable swimmers and we try to teach the kids to swim whenever we can. My mom in particular has taught my kids very well and she helped them refine their strokes this weekend too. Both Isaac and Abigail are becoming much better swimmers and seem to enjoy it. My mom and I both learned in the same water source, 30 years apart. In my hometown, we swim in the outflow from the local Corps of Engineers’ dam.
Tionesta Beach – photo from RHTionesta Beach – photo from RH
It’s cold, fast moving, dark water where one learns quickly to sink or swim. I stole a pic of my mom when she was a kid at “the beach” so you can get an idea. My kids are learning in a pool and I am sure it is safer but there is something inspiring about learning to swim in apparently bottomless water. Still, their lessons are going swimmingly and I am so glad that they have learned to swim as well as they have!
Soccer is back in season for both kids. It’s a great time of year but also a bad time of year. We love the game and the kids on the teams and the fun but we quickly get tired of non-stop running. I am the head coach for the middle school team on which Isaac plays. Especially now, in the time leading up to the start of games, practice makes us very busy. We try to practice 5 days a week for a couple hours each night. I have to contact other coaches to schedule games and there are always meetings to attend.
I really enjoy the boys and I have coached a large number of them in rec-league and middle school since they were 7 or so years old. I have a great group of boys and I look forward to watching them succeed. It’s really tough this year, however, since Isaac cannot play…at least not yet. It’s not clear whether he will play at all, honestly, but we are hopeful. It’s more than a little frustrating for both of us. I do like coaching the boys but the best part of it would have been the opportunity to coach my own son. His blood clot seems to be on the mend but he is still on blood thinners and cannot play because of the risk of a hard contact that would cause a dangerous bleed.
I am definitely committed to the boys on this team, but I just wish things could be a little different. Isaac still gets to come to practice to participate in the non-contact drills but he does not enjoy having to sit out for the majority of each practice. I figure it is good for him to be around friends though and also to see me follow through with a commitment. Our games start next week so I figure that the team spirit will carry us all once things get rolling along. Wish us luck dear friends!
How can it be that summer is over already?! Well, not really over but for all intents and purposes, once school starts, Summer is basically (I’ll quote Sergeant Schultz here), “Kaput”. Our county sent those poor darlings back on Friday. I get why the send them back on a Friday in some ways but couldn’t they wait just a few more days?
We woke everyone early (compared to Summer wake up time) and I offered to make breakfast. No one took me up on it. I am not sure how to take that but I guess we just had some really really good tasting cereal at the house.
As we scurried around, Abigail was literally singing, “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall” as she searched around for her shoes and stuff. Emily was singing “Happy days are here again…”, much to the dismay of the kids. Isn’t it great being a parent? Driving the kids nuts is so much fun!
Anyhow, poor Abigail was sort of tentative about the whole school thing. She wants to like school but she really likes to read and they don’t let her just read at will during the day so it could be better. Isaac was basically non-responsive but what would you expect from an 8th grade boy? He’s an inch-and-a-half taller than I am now and his voice is a man’s voice. I’d say he thinks like a man but that should go without saying…he’s an 8th grade boy…I never got beyond thinking like an 8th grade boy.
So, every year I interview the kids and ask them about their plans and such. Here are this year’s installments…
Click to play the videos. They are sideways and my converter program keeps crashing so use your imagination!
I saw this over at Blind Pig and the Acorn and it really struck something in me. Part of it was from this new old picture of my grandparents and from my longing to go back to simpler times. I began to wonder how my kids would fill this out 30 years from now and whether I am doing right by them. I wonder why my memory stinks so bad and how many important things I have forgotten. I guess I need a little something right now, but looking back over this list, I can’t think what else I could possibly need. Where I’m from, we have all we need!
If anyone else wants to share, I’d be happy to post where you are from too…here’s the format
