The Big Stash

Hey Ya'll,

I came home from the hospital five years ago.
My house looked strange, like no one had lived there in a long time.
I opened my five gallon buckets of LME and saw that they were covered with white mold.
I had 6 SIX! 22 oz bottles of ale left after my 'friends' ,
{who had keys to my house}
had drank my brewery dry.
If I ever needed a beer it was then.
Even the disability judge was told by his secretary:
'He'll just spend it all on beer!"
The judge looked at me with a big smile,
{he was ex military and had horses too}
"After all the crap Jack has been through I imagine he needs a drink."


The roofing business went to hell after 9-11 and there still is basically no money. I built up and run my old trapline and hunt hog.
Built up the knife shop and started making knives for sale.
I stay home all the time to save on gas,
write short storys on 33 subjects that are dear to my heart.
I grow my own vegetables, raise poultry and play my accordian.
Make knives, cut my own hair and brew my own beer.

For five years I have suffered abject poverty and deep sadness.
My horse, old Dolly, died.
I rode Dolly 26 miles in one day, bareback.
She just got old and died.
My last remaining hound from my great pack,
old Ranger, died too.
Both my girlfriends dumped me.

When reracking...
I would drink a gallon so that their is only 4 gallons to rerack to the secondary.
Bottling... another gallon so there is only 3 gallons to bottle.
Then I drink it all up before it even gets carbonated.
It is a viscious degenerative cycle poverty is,
that if I have any ale at all,
it's never as good as it could have been.

Life has been hard and unfair.
But ... things are getting better.


Today I was bottling some 'DME with S-04 yeast,' {'8 Lb Hammer'}
and as I picked up four bottles out of the milk crate and placed them on their shelf in the brewery, I had a feeling of 'wellness.'
I looked up at 112 full, green 12 oz bottles.
And down at 20 gallons in primarys and secondarys.
About 65 Lbs of DME is on hand and knives are selling well so that every month I can buy another 55 Lbs. 55 Lbs will brew 7 batches of 8 Lb hammer.
Thats 35 Gallons and I can only drink 30!
So, slowly but surely,
I am at getting ahead.

My new hound Sandymay is my best friend, and a good walker hound.
{She loves to ride in the truck,}
{and we are in love.}
I now am brewing ale faster than I can drink it.
Of a 5 gallon batch,
50, bottles go on the shelf in the brewery rather than 30.
The brewery is filling fast!
Soon I will be drinking ale that had been in the bottles 3-4-5 months,



Life is good.

J. Winters Knife
jacksknifeshop.tripod.com

My new hound Sandymay is my best friend, and a good walker hound.
{She loves to ride in the truck,}
{and we are in love.}

Click to expand...

That just ain't right

Glad to see things are looking up for you Jack. And if you want to love your dogs that's fine by me.

And if you want to love your dogs that's fine by me.

Click to expand...

Shes your dog isnt she?

Seriously though. Glad your doing better now.

You mention on your site that you made fireplace tools. Any pics? Right now (or last winter) we were using an old putter to poke at the logs. Anything else would be an upgrade.

Best of luck

- magno

...if your dog has two first names...you might be a redneck...

Yeah, it sucks when life takes a crap on you. We're all just between life craps, I suppose it's mostly in how you deal with it. Glad to hear you're riding up the face of the wave, and I wish I had that much beer on the shelf!

Wow. That was some post, Jack.

EDIT: I can't decide to move it to drunken ramblings or keep it here. I'm perplexed.

Magno,
I, too, am in Dallas county.
I'll make you a poker for free.
My sister asked for pokers for her friend who sits by the fire out on her porch every night, and constantly 'pokes' her fire.
Her favorite poker stick always gets thrown into the fire and she always gets mad.
A shovel costs:
{what the welder at Chucos tire shop charges to weld the handle to the shovel,} $10. about.
But pokers are free!
'Kelly', at homebrew headquarters, Coit rd.
Knows how to get in touch with me.
I'm 3 miles from the south county line.
3 miles south of Lancaster.
Along the creek.
On 'my 25 acres'.
Or you can email me, the address is on my 'site.'
Lets get ignert,
do some coon hunting next winter.

J. Knife

Dude said:

Wow. That was some post, Jack.

EDIT: I can't decide to move it to drunken ramblings or keep it here. I'm perplexed.

Click to expand...

Dude, I think this one is good enough for BOTH places... it's got beer info AND drunkenness!!!! I say duplicate it LOL

:cross:


And Jack... very glad to hear life is gettin' better... keep the faith, brother!!!


later,
mikey

I met Jack on a different board , Him and i have a lot in common 5 years ago life was good in 10 seconds it was agony ,a woman ran a stop sign and broke my back in two places and my neck being laid off at the time i had let my health insurence laspe ya gotta eat, now after multiple surgerys i can limp around on my cane ,Jack has helped me out of depression cheered me up late at nite on the computer when pain wouldnt let me sleep and now has got me interested in hounds and trapping again and now brewing i'm todays new member ,Moose and i love my dog too, thanks again to a friend i have never met,Jack the knife

Thanks man,
and I am glad to see you here.

Ya'll,

I know old Moose from the trapping forum.
He sold me the last of his old traps,
a dozen: #3 L/S O/S 'Northwoods.'

Years ago, I bought out an old trapper.
He was dying from some disease.
old Floyd Mc beth was his name.
Later I went to Denver selling roofs for a big roofing co.
and wrote old Floyd a letter,
including a picture of a 7 pointer, I shot running,
125 yards.
{one shot one kill.}
up in the rockys.
His wife called months later when I got back to Texas.
Saying old Floyd had died.
And as he laid there in the hospital,
real sad and depressed, she took him my letter.

Floyd, you have a letter from Colorado.
"I don't know anybody in Denver," he would say.
Yes, it is for you,
as she tried to cheer him up.
Naw, its just an ad.
Well just look at it,
{she tried to comfort him.}

She told me that Floyd opened the letter and saw that it was "from that guy who bought all my old traps!"
And a picture of a deer!
A 7 pointer from Colorado!
And that old Floyd sat up in bed and talked for nearly an hour.
Talked and talked and talked!
Then kinda ran down and went to sleep.
She told me that was the last time she ever saw him smile.
And as old Floyd died a few days later.
He was buried with three,
#1 longsprings he had since he was a boy,
in his hand,
he had kept those three.
And that was the last letter he ever got in his life,
on this earth.
And she said,
"thank you for writing it. "


I repeated that story to the fur buyer down in Maypearl.
He knew Floyd and said :
" A mans traps are the last thing he will sell before he dies.
A man would rather sell his wife,
and when he parts with his old traps,
he is about gone.


So Moose, I was a little worried about you too,
and am glad that you are discovering homebrewing as an interest which helped me past pain and suffering and should do the same for you too.
Read, and get two glass water jugs,
7.5 gallon for your primary, and 5 gallon for your secondary.
Brew an experimental batch and learn,
Cleanliness is tha main thing,
and get your outfit together.
Keep in touch and I'll send you a flat rate box of my best two batches as soon as I get some money.


Time for a homebrew!!!
Yeeeeee Haaa,

J. Winters Knife
and Sandymay