Birch Sap Wine Bottled!

Last month, Anna helped me to 'rack-off' the Birch Sap wine.
This is simply syphoning the wine into another sterile demijohn to
leave the sediment behind. The sediment is a build-up of dead yeast cells;
if the wine is left too long on the sediment it can affect the final taste.

We took a final hydrometer reading which was virtually off the scale!
This means that almost all the sugar has been converted and the wine will be
'dry' and quite strong in alcohol. I'm not very keen on sweet white wine so this is
how I like it and the relatively high alcoholic content should mean that it will store well too :)



I read that the sediment makes a very good fertiliser so I rinsed the original demijohn
with water and poured it on my rhubarb outside the shed door.

As you can see, it was still quite hazy and the wine had to be left another month
to drop a second sediment. We also added some stabiliser to ensure that all
fermentation had finished to prevent it re-starting at a later date

So this evening, with the wine now crystal clear I was ready to syphon it into bottles.

It produced enough for 9 bottles and tasted great with quite an appealing
earthy yet citrous character. I think it will be perfect by Christmas - if it lasts that long!!

New Pilgrim Harps Blog!


At my company we have built up quite a good selection of the new harps we make. Consequently, we have decided to have a "Summer Harp Sale". The best way I could think of quickly uploading images and details of all the instruments was to create a Pilgrim Harps blog :) I have then created a link to it from the home-page 'news' area on our website - but of course, I thought my friends in 'blogland' might be interested to see it too? If so you can view it here http://pilgrimharps.blogspot.co.uk/



Here is a detail from one of the harps on our new blog.

Back after a blogging break!

But why have I not had time to update my blog?
Here are some clues - a trip to Ikea?

Our van full of things ... including rhubarb??

a bungalow tucked away in North Norfolk???
Yes we have bought ourselves a secret little retreat!
In recent years it has become harder and harder to find somewhere we can stay for breaks etc. that we know will be fully adapted for our son Thomas' needs and located near to some of the places we love best. So when the opportunity presented itself for us to buy this bungalow, we snapped it up! 

But it has been hard work getting it ready for us to use. While Karen started on the cleaning, setting up furniture, tidying the garden etc ...

I had to start the new bungalow bird list!

The fantastic thing about this place is that we can set it up just how we need it. Such as installing this profiling bed which makes life so much more comfortable for Thomas when he's out of his wheelchair and easier for us to look after him without hurting our rather fragile backs! We will also be putting in a ceiling hoist and this weekend some of the doorways have been widened to make it even easier for Thomas to negotiate his way around.

Thomas' room looks cheerful but homely.

Even before starting any work, the bungalow already had some important features for us, including no carpets and a wet-room with a shower.
But another wonderful bonus is this lovely conservatory.

And the garden even has this perfect ramp up onto the lawn!

I made a little nursery bed just to 'heel-in' a few plants we've saved for it.

The bungalow is one of several on a driveway off this Loke ('Loke' is a Norfolk word for a small Lane). Beyond the Bungalow the Loke becomes this unmade track which we discovered is also a pretty footpath. 

One of the things that drew us to the bungalow was the beautiful view from the front.

It is also near to one of our all-time favourite birding locations.

It has an accessible board walk...

And amazing wildlife!!

Of course I couldn't resist finding a few moths there and was delighted with this Puss Moth...

Chocolate-tip...

shoulder-stripe...

Swallow Prominent...

and even a lovely Streamer on the front door!
As well as somewhere we can visit for regular weekends away, holidays etc. maybe when Thomas has finished at university he could make it his home?

Moths at Last!

Yes I know these are rather dull and brown but at the moment, we moth enthusiasts are very grateful for whatever we get! Actually, even the names of these individuals refer to their rather drab appearance. The one on the left is a Common Quaker, the one on the right is a Small Quaker. At the time these moths were given their English names, Quakers were well known for dressing in deliberately dull looking clothes.

This was my first Small Quaker this year and I have just looked back at my previous records revealing very clearly the effect of the prolonged cold weather on our moths. Over the past four years, my first date for recording a Small Quaker is 6th March 2009, 21st March 2010, 5th March 2011, 2nd March 2012 - quite a contrast with 7th April 2013!

One final wildlife treat for me today occurred on my little lunch time walk when I was treated with wonderful views of a Red Kite - my first sighting this year. It flew low, right over my head with the sunlight shining through its forked tail and then proceeded to wheel gracefully and slowly over the surrounding fields - beautiful!

Out in the sun at last!

Although in my profile, I have referred to our favourite local birding patch (Holmethorpe/Mercers), I haven't put up many posts about visits there; so here is a rather overdue post. With a spare afternoon and some welcome sun (at last), Thomas and I popped over there this afternoon.

The other temptation to go there was the fact that a very lovely Little Gull has been gracing Mercers Lake all this week. I know anyone reading this who is not a keen 'birder' may be thinking that the words 'lovely' and 'Gull' do not normally appear in the same sentence, but trust me (or better still Google it), this is a very appealing bird - not to mention, extremely uncommon visitor to these parts.

Access around the area can be pretty tricky for Thomas, and all too often it seems that unusual birds turn up in places that can be hard or impossible for him to get to see. So we were especially delighted that this bird was nicely viewable from one of the better paths. It put on a fabulous display for us too as we watched it feeding rather Tern-like, over the water and showing off its characteristic dark underwings.  But best of all it was a 'lifer' for Thomas :)



Happy Easter.

For this Easter greeting, I couldn't find a suitable photograph from pictures I'd taken this year; I wanted a cheerful blue sky background! So I reverted to one I'd taken a few years ago on a photography day-course up at the London Wetlands Centre.

Secondary Fermentation

If I have any interested friends left in 'blogland' it will be a miracle! However, in the remote chance anyone is still looking in, I'm about to bore you to tears with this the next stage in the great sap wine project. One quick check with the hydrometer shows the gravity reading has now reached 1.010. If you scroll down to my previous two posts, you can compare this against my initial reading of 1.090 (posted just a week ago). As the eventual aim is for 0.990, you can see that about 80% of the sugar has already been converted to alcohol and CO2 by the yeast. However, converting the final 20% could take several months. As the alcohol content increases, the speed at which the yeast can work gets much slower. During the vigorous Primary Fermentation, the yeast is multiplying to fill the volume of the liquid. The yeast needs plenty of oxygen at this stage, so it is often a good idea (as here) to start the wine off in a brewing bucket and stir it several time a day. But now the process is slowing I need to do the opposite and prevent the air from reaching the wine to keep out any spoilage bacteria. This stage is called the Secondary Fermentation and takes place in a demijohn with an airlock fitted in the bung at the top.

Someone once said that the art of good wine making is to spend 70% of your time sterilising everything.
Here is some of the equipment I need after I have sterilised it (including the table top).

Once everything is sterilised I can start to strain the liquid through a muslin before putting it into my demijohn.

Karen let me use her cheese strainer to leave the remaining solids (of orange, lemon and rasins) to drip and eke out as much flavour as possible :-)

Here is the result - I had to improvise with a 4 pint milk carton to take the overflow. Hopefully this will eventually yield 7 or 8 bottles.

Actually, all this wine making in the shed was cheering me up because I've been going down with a rather heavy cold. Karen also decided very sweetly, to help me to feel better by buying me this bag!