Reed Samuel, born May 28 @ 17:43

Reed Samuel Shirey was born yesterday at 5:43pm, weighing 3.4kg and measuring 48cm (7lb8oz, 19"). Andrea pushed for only 14 minutes, and his one and five minute Apgar scores were 8 and 9, respectively.

The pictures I've taken are available online now, though I'm sure I'll add more before too long.

I'll be heading back to the hospital shortly to stay the night, and we'll check out tomorrow and come home. Mom and baby are doing very well.

Picking flowers is strictly prohibited

The three of us met the Day family at Munsinger so Krista and I could take some pictures, which I've not been very good at doing lately. This is one of my better shots of flowers, using a fast aperture setting to get a solid focus on the fore tulip and blur everything farther back.

A few of the shots I particularly like among the whole group are:

• Jacob pointing out the fountain
• A lone tulip (a bit more plain than today's shot)
• That same tulip from above. That's Krista's signature flower shot. Credit where it's due.
• A neat looking flower, though I don't know what it is
• Belly shot
• Me helping Jake touch the water
• The Day family
• Jacob playing with pinecones

A new batch has begun

Today we started our fourth batch of beer, though it's actually referred to as wine more frequently than beer. That is, we've begun the process of making mead, or honey wine. Unlike our three previous brews of beer, the mead is being done completely from scratch (viz., no kit with specific instructions). Because of this, I had to figure out how the heck we were going to brew it. It's more risky, but hopefully it'll work. And, as many great ideas usually start, we begun with some scribbled notes on the back of an envelope. The basic recipe we used is:

• A gallon of honey ($20, from Josh's parents)
• Four gallons of water
• One packet of D-47 yeast ($1, from Minnco)
• 1/8 tsp of Potassium Metabisulphite (though it seems Metabisulfite is the more common spelling)

The last ingredient is used to inhibit wild yeast that may be in the honey, but it doesn't inhibit the cultured yeast we're adding (D-47) -- basically, eliminating any competition for ours.

Unfortunately, a good mead should take at least six months and preferably a year to brew. We're timing this so it'll be ready for Josh and Becca's wedding. With a little luck, things will work out well for this batch. Currently, the bucket is sitting in Doug's fairly cool basement.

Tomorrow, Krista and I are going to take some pictures over at Munsinger. I'll see what I can get and will post the results!

Getting Ready for Baby Reed

It's getting close to that time. Reed is due the end of this month, though Andrea's appointment with her new doctor is leading us all to think it'll be sooner than that. We've made up the nursery again -- the cradle is setup, the crib is on its highest setting (to be used as a changing station), newborn clothes are stocked in the cabinet and we even have an outfit selected in which we'll bring him home. A few days ago, we finally got around to installing a ceiling fan in his room for air flow.

Aside from baby stuff, we've been keeping quite busy. We're about ready to start our garden again; between the dandelions, giant anthills and dead patches of grass, our yard needs some attention. We washed and waxed my car and need to do the same to Andrea's. The third stall of the garage needed to be cleaned up badly, so we moved some winter and otherwise unused things up into the attic and brought down spring/summer tools. And so on.

Tonight, though, we went to my parents' place for dinner. Jacob has lately been getting excited over tractors, trucks, buses and motorcycles. Luckily, Grandpa can help in that area, so the two of them went on a tractor ride. They dug a few holes in the field just south of the house. (Jake's getting pretty good at using the hydraulics for the bucket.)

I expect this week will continue to be busy. I hope to give blood; Andrea's next appointment is this Thursday; the garden should be tilled by week's end; and maybe we can get Jacob's sandbox figured out as well.