Elena and I had another good haul in the berry patch. Only about a quart today, not like last week when we pulled three quarts in one day. But I'm aware of the fact that a quart in a day, especially from a patch this small, is pretty astounding.

The honey-wheat beer is in secondary now. Specific gravity at the end of primary was 1.004. That works out to 8% alcohol. And for those of you not familiar with beer, that's not really beer, but wine. It's at the top end of Scottish Ale range, and from past experience that takes me from sober to stupid in two easy glasses.

The beer is still really cloudy (as would be expected with just going into secondary). It's unbelievably pale. The flavor is light but good. Right now it's full of yeast and yeast flavor, but even in this state it isn't unpleasant to drink.

The beer is bubbling along nicely. I was a little worried because of the high percentage of honey that I'd wind up with a slow fermentation. That doesn't look to be the case. It's been in the primary fermenter for a week now, and it's still going strong. In fact, most beers would have mostly worked out by now, but this thing is still bubbling like it was the first day or two of fermentation. So it looks like the wheat beer yeast that I grabbed is tolerant enough of alcohol that it isn't going to slow down right away.

Dan DeSloover, part of this past weekend's brew crew, had a very insightful comment in a recent email discussion, which I'm sure only a programmer will properly appreciate.

For those with sensitive ears, there are no bleeps in the attached poster. You have been warned.

This small poster now adorns the wall of my cubicle, in a low inconspicuous spot so that casual visitors can't see it.

First half of the day I spent brewing beer with friends. This evening, after dinner, my daughter helped me pick blackberries from our path.

My dad made a set of patio furniture for me, which is in need of a waterproof stain before I put it out on the patio. I finished the bench with a brush, but I wasn't happy with it. So I tried out my HVLP sprayer on one of the chairs.

I finally bought new tires for my motorcycle, replacing the original Dunlop's that came with the bike with a new pair of Metzler tires. Before I go on, if you're not a biker you won't appreciate how excited bikers get about a new pair of tires. I'll try to keep this relevant to non-bikers, but be warned that you might want to bail out now.

A couple years back I took an interest in hand cutting dovetails, and I found this great video on the Fine Woodworking website about how to do it. It made the layout pretty simple to follow.

Until recently I hadn't actually done anything about hand cutting dovetails. A couple of weeks ago, I decided that a) I needed to be out of the house and b) it was time to try cutting dovetails. I don't have a picture of my project handy, but it turned out not to be too bad.

Last night I discovered that saws are a lot like cars: sitting unused for extended periods does not improve them. My tools have sat idle since last fall, when I finished construction on my shed, mostly because this winter has been too cold to reasonably go outside and work in the garage.