Curious Souls

I was looking for directions on Google Maps today when I realized that Google had just added "birds-eye" views for Fort Collins. So, of course, I went to see what our home looks like. Much to my surprise, I found that Google just happened to catch us on the morning of March 29, 2012. Our moving day! So, you better think twice before deciding to run around naked in your back yard. You never know when the aerial photography plane is going to fly by!

Yesterday, the Curious Souls decided to take the dog for a walk. We were looking for somewhere that we had not yet been before, so we chose the  Pawnee National Grassland.  There were two very short trails in the western part of the grassland near Crow Valley Recreation Area. We hiked them both in under an hour (I said very short, right?) and were left wanting more. So, eastward we went on our way to  Pawnee Buttes . Along the way, we discovered the  Cedar Creek Wind Farm  and plenty of wide open space. After the Buttes, we looked at the map and discovered that we were only about 20 miles south of Nebraska. And, to seal the deal, we noticed that just over the border was also the highest point in the state. Here we are at the aptly named Panorama Point.  While only 5,424 feet in elevation it did have some lovely, long, expansive views into the seemingly infinite plains around us. As far as either of us could remember, this is the first time we...

The garden is in!  If our Scarechicken does its job, we will soon have a nice crop of heirloom tomatoes, onions, hot peppers, green beans, basil, parsley and thyme! Huge thanks to my parents for their help getting the area ready. It was a jungle!

Sitting on the bank of the Poudre River...   ...and cutting up watermelon for dessert.

So do you know how we said we would never have a mortgage again ? Yeah, well, I guess we lied. Just over two years since we short sold our house in Phoenix, we read the tea leaves and determined that a mortgage is just exactly what we should get our hands on. Can I get a woot woot for debt?! Why? Why in the world would we consider going into debt again? The boring reasons are the extremely robust rental market in Fort Collins (the rental vacancy rate is 3%), boring old math (it is currently cheaper to own than rent) and the fact that we love-love-love it here and have no plans to ever leave. But really, we just want to paint the damn walls a different color. Do we need another reason? So we are buying a foreclosure (oh, the irony), close enough to bike to town but in a rural part of Fort Collins (we are on a quarter acre and are zoned as a farm). We can't wait to be surrounded by silence and Republicans. Here is our new mountain chalet in all of its glory. We have some work t...

We here at Curious Souls H.Q. are always looking for ways to save a buck or two. So, when shopping around online for a wort chiller for home brewing, we found the following prices: $65 @ Midwest (plus shipping) $70 @ Northern (plus shipping) $39 @ Amazon (plus shipping) So, off to the hardware store... 3/8" (internal diameter) Vinyl Tubing (10 feet) = $4.15 Sink to hose adapter (varies based on your type of sink) = $4.79 3/8" X 20' Copper Tubing = $24.13 Vinyl Hose Coupler = $2.49 Hose clamps (x2)  = $1.70 Band-aids (x2 or x3 or x4) = $1.00 For a total of $38.26 (pre-tax, no shipping), we decided to roll our own. Here's how it went down... ( vid link ) And, of course, there is the joy of having made something all by yourself! Priceless & fun!

After participating in a few different brewery tours around town, the Curious Souls wondered "how difficult can this brewing thing really be?" Today, with a few beers (for inspiration), a few friends, and an extract kit , we decided to try it out for ourselves. Enter (stage left) End of the World Brewing... ( Vid link for the iPhone impaired ) Easy, right? Just like making stew... or tea... or stewing tea... or something... And now, we wait (quite impatiently) for the little S. cervisiae to do their job.

About  one year ago , we moved into our new home in Fort Collins, CO. What has changed since then? Many things! (Details forthcoming.) One of the most visible changes being that the owners painted our house "Forest Service Green" a month ago. Fancy! And, we went from a high of 77 yesterday, to three inches of snow (and still accumulating) tonight! Crazy Colorado weather... Asher loves it! Time to break out the snow boots!

The soy milk experiment was a success!! From 577 grams of soy beans ($2 worth), I made ONE GALLON of delicious milk! Here's what happened today: Turning the beans into a foamy paste: Moderately Easy I drained the soaking beans and put them in the processor with some water. What made this slightly harder than totally easy is that 1) I have a four cup food processor so I had to do it in lots of batches and 2) I didn't process the first couple of batches long enough so I had to repeat the processing. The goal with this is to make it thick and foamy. Boiling the soy bean mixture: Easy But Incredibly Messy I added the thick foamy mixture to some pre-heated water. Even after splitting it into four different pots, it still tried to overflow. Separating the Soy Milk from the Okara: Easy but HOT After 20 minutes, it was time to separate the soy milk from the fibrous bean part, called okara. This is done by pouring the whole mixture into a cotton muslin bag and then squeezi...

Jon and I have been eating more vegan than not lately which means more soy milk and tofu. After a conversation with some friends of mine and the discovery of this site , I decided that I wanted to try to make my own soy milk and tofu. This is a many day process so I'm going to blog about it as I go, which means you will get my totally uncensored opinion of how hard or easy it is. Today involved the purchase of the soy beans and the soaking. Buying organic soy beans: Easy I found organic soy beans at the Fort Collins Food Co-op . If you live in a town with a food co-op, you should definitely check it out. We buy all of our bulk items at the coop and recently had to shop at a Whole Foods when we were out of town and wow  is the Whole Foods bulk section ridiculously small (Take that, Whole Foods! Your bulk food section is miniscule !) Anyway, here are the soy beans in all their organic and inexpensive glory: You will notice in the instructions that the recipe calls for o...

Just over a year ago, Ellen and I decided that it was time to escape the oppressive heat wave in Berlin . (This year the high for the upcoming week is a lovely 76. Time to go back?) Ellen had looked up several old friends , including one in Hamburg, Germany. This was our next destination. When we arrived, Anke, our hostess, already had big plans for us. Our first order of business was to travel downtown... by canoe. We learned that Hamburg has an extensive canal network, including more bridges than either Amsterdam or Venice. Vid Link That evening, we were taken to the very swank hotel-top bar: 20up . My favorite part was the view from the restroom... On the way back home we took a stroll through the Reeperbahn past Herbertstraße and learned that you can identify a prostitute by the fanny-pack that they typically wear - not in back - but in front. It's important to keep an eye on the cash. The next day, we decided to learn a bit more about the city and so we jumped o...

First the bike camping and now our very first Urban Assault  - we are on a roll with firsts! We participated in this city wide bicycle scavenger hunt last weekend and boy was it fun! One tip if you do attend: there is a prize at the end for "style." There were lots of good contenders this year.      The ride started and ended in the New Belgium Brewing parking lot and, as is to be expected, involved copious amounts of BEER!     Some "activities" at the ride stops: Diving for cans of New Belgium beer: Video Slip and Slide! Video The best ride end ever: a wet bounce house on a hot day! Video Convinced yet that this is a good time? Sign up next year and ride with us!