June 5th from 8pm to 10pm the Dancing Goats Espresso Bar will be hosting some sort of a Throwdown that Sasha King is putting together before she up and leaves us all here in the NW to head off to NY to work with the Folks at Grumpy’s Cafe.

Cupping Notes:

grape, lemon (tangerine), sweet cashew nuts, milk brownies, cherry, hints of green apple, juicy, bright, sweet, medium body, milky. A very good coffee.

Sam roasted this up yesterday afternoon, or was that the day before. Dig it!

Nicely done Sam.

:)

Sweet!  I have just enough beans for one more 6 ounce cup!

I have been looking to start a “Ant Farm” from a queen for years, and now here they were, and I was here walking from one work meeting to the next with out any thing to capture and store one until I got her home to the Gel Box I had waiting for just one of these ants.

Alas, to keep it short… once again at work (05-22-2008), I hear a shriek from the LAB, followed by “elvin will know what to do.” Yes! It was in fact a wing-less Queen crawling about. I shook her from the LAB tamping Scale, and put her in a Transportation tube with NASA Ant Gel.

Here she is with her first egg >>>

The “Ant Farm” that I have her in is quite small… I will have to (like to) build a larger one. One which Carpenter Ants will be more at home in, one with wood and such things to dig about in.

Updates:

05-28-2008: She now has eight eggs that she is brooding. If in fact it was a parasitic mite that was on her, it now seems to be gone.

05-31-2008: As of today she has ten eggs. Not seeing much change in the first eggs laid… maybe a little darker, no… it is clearing on the ends, definite clear liquid in the tips of the older eggs).

06-10-2008: Two new eggs today; total of twelve. (possibly thirteen: There is one eggs in the rubble pile that she discarded a week ago, making it nine eggs for a day and then back to ten that she was brooding… bottom line— twelve that she is brooding as of today).

06-12-2008: Fourteen eggs total now.

06-27-2008:  Seems she is down to eleven eggs now… not sure why she would eat them, I have heard that they will eat there eggs.  Maybe they were not developing like she wanted?  Any thoughts out there from the Entomologists or any other Ant Nerds?

This is dave White’s Blue Cap Cider, I believe he told me it was a Jonah Gold Blend (or was that Single Origin Jonah Gold). Update: Turns out this batch of cider is a blend of Jonathon and Golden.

Once again nicely done Dave! Very clear, almost zero sediment in the bottle.

Notes: Opened and Consumed on 05/12/2008

• Aroma: A little yeasty (not unpleasant, just more so than the Red Cap Blend), and that of crisp light apples; delicate.
• Flavor: Yeasty, lime, apple crisp, dry with an underlying sweetsness (not so much sweet as the idea of sweet), crisp and clean.
• Overall Thoughts: I need more than 12 oz. Refreshing. Nothing bad, the Yeasty flavors not unpleasent, and may pass with little more age in the bottle. Better than most commercial “hard” ciders. The predominant flavor I remember back on is the Lime! Simple, or rather not complex. dig it!

A nice finish to a long day.

Thanks for sharing Dave.

Pretty strapped for time of late, I know, excuses, but I have been telling some you all out there that I would get this up on the site soon. So, without dragging on further here it is …no directions, no photos, nothing but “here it is.”

>>> the ROBUR dosing MOD template. (Took Off Line —making adjustment to Template).

I’ll get some photos of an install up later this week, or rather early next week. And when I get the time I’ll write up some instructions on the PDF file as well. The photos of an Older version are up on FLICKR, pretty much the same idea, only this MOD is much, much better.

>>>basically,

• print template at 100%
• use template to cut a plastic MOD
• remove doser
• remove lever plate
• bend plastic MOD into shape
• replace lever plate (putting screws thru MOD holes to secure)
• replace doser.

For now, enjoy.

Headed up to Seattle to set-up an Espresso machine in the Meadowsweet Farms (milk) booth, at the NWFS Trade Show.

Back to Olympia just in time to catch a swarm off bees and hive them.

Then back to the cafe… closing the shop and then practicing my espresso, latte kung-fu (to relax; burnt thru 2# of coffee and a gallon of milk).

Highlight of the day, catching the swarm. Always exciting! Even more exciting is seeing the swarm take flight from a hive, the sky seems alive and 20,000 bees in the air in a relatively small area is pretty impressive. When I got home, for they were in my backyard, they had already clumped together in a tree.

Dave White! Your Cyder was fabulous! (Oly Blend Red Cap)

Tasting Notes: grapefruit (maybe grapefruit zest even), clean and dry, honeydew mellon, light, crisp, acidity light, touch of tannis in the front but quickly passing. white grape, and apple (could not put my tounge on what apple, delicate and elusive). Refreshing, one bottle left me wanting more… great backyard summer day beverage.

Thanks Dave. (I opened this bottle on 04.22.2008)

…the color was great too. Clean, not much sediment at the bottom of the bottle either.

feeling better… but four espresso in now, I may have crossed another
line.

elvin iPod message

Pretty excited about how well it works… so much better than the
early model… great distribution, tiny, tiny bit of waste(mostly due
to static).

elvin iPod message

<<< Just a quick note so that I remember.

elvin iPod message