On gifting and dumping

[pinkpeppercorns]

The local Salvation Army started locking their gates after hours. At first I thought, how snooty and beggars can't be choosy. (I have no doubt they are just trying to prevent people donating to the drop box during off hours.) But then I got into freecycling. And today I drove a good several (or more) miles to pick up my first load of pots and

Comments

[rumorofrain]

Ugh, I HATE that! I wish Freecyclers were better about listing the condition of the items.

My other Freecycle pet peeve is that a zillion people would email us whenever we offered our stuff, and then they would never come pick it up. This is why I don't bother with Freecycle anymore.

I did get some good stuff from it, though - mostly canning jars, and a toaster oven for work. We mostly used it to get rid of stuff when we moved from a house into an apartment.

Hey, on a totally other topic: My kombuchas are having babies! I am so excited. I need to buy a big vat like you have for them, because I just do not have enough tea. Do you just continually add new tea to what's in there, or do you make a whole huge new batch and wait a week before you drink it? I'm thinking about getting two vats (maybe 2 gallons each?) so I can have one batch ready to drink and one batch fermenting. I'd love to hear what your method is, though.

[pinkpeppercorns]

My kombuchas are having babies!

Congratulations! I'm so happy for you! :)

The two vat idea is a good one. I just have my one five-gallon vat going (which typically has between two and four gallons a brewing). (I really like my five-gallon bucket with the spigot. Very convenient and all.) When it's time to add new tea, I decant one or two half gallon jars, then just add the tea to whatever amount of brew I have in the bucket (usually a quart or two, at least). The more aged brew I have in there when adding fresh tea, the shorter the time it takes for the new brew to be ready.

By the way, I never wash the bucket between brews. No need to.

You should see my scoby family. I think I have great grandmas and great great grandmas and great great great grandmas and .... I just let them happily cohabitate until I feel like taking one of them out to play in the compost pile. They are sooooooo beefy big. Er, Rubenesque. hah

[rumorofrain]

::grin:: I am laughing out loud at the image of a Rubens painting with a giant scoby instead of a lady, lounging on a canopy bed.

I'm going to try to stop by the home-brew store this weekend and get one or two of those buckets. This brewing a gallon at a time (in two half-gallon jars) isn't cutting it for me. I need more kombucha!

[ana]

maybe you could turn them into a sculpture?

or beat on them with spoons and sticks and start a new drumming technique? :)

[rumorofrain]

Or maybe you could use them for dyeing or some other art project that's not particular about the state of its vessels...

[pinkpeppercorns]

Do not encourage me to hold on to garbage! :)

By the way, just as an FYI, I do not seal my kombucha but just put a rubber-banded dish towel over the top.

Oh, and did I tell you how much I LOVED your ginger beer? What was left after it after the explosion, anyway. heh

I'm recontemplating dropping off for you some of this sweet potato fly. I'm not all that keen on it. At least not as keen as I was on it before I bottled it. But I'm curious to see what you think of it. I was concerned over it not being refrigerated, but it hasn't poisoned me yet, so I think it's safe. I sure wish it had kept its yumminess at about day 5 of fermenting. I need to try it again. I wonder if I did something wrong or if it just loses yumminess after day 5 as a rule.

[rumorofrain]

Yeah, I am sometimes bad about holding onto junk too, especially if I think it could be turned into some kind of art project.

I'd still like to try the fly. I'll trade you for another bottle of ginger beer. :)