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After making the feijoa wine, I had half the yeast left over. So I put some in three bottles of the next ginger beer batch. The yeast powder comes with its own vitamins and minerals. What happened was that the minerals effectively woke up the yeast in the ginger and left it to use up all the sugar. The first bottle I tried tasted like ginger flavoured soda water - no alcohol, very little sugar, and lots of CO2.
The second bottle exploded. The blast shook the two shelves above, and knocked over a jar of chutney and several empty bottles. It also blasted into the bottle next door, which also went off. One bottle top landed behind the hot water cylinder. No idea where the other went.
Fortunately they were in a polystyrene fish box and most of it ended up in the bottom. Still smells of ginger in there, but I managed to sponge up most of it. I released the pressure in the third bottle (which had somehow survived) so hopefully we won't get any more surprises. At least I now know what a bottle looks like when it's about to blow up!
Had a large crop of borage in the veggie garden. I had a go at making borage jelly. I wasn't impressed, so I pulled out the rest of it and gave it to the cows. They weren't impressed either!
The film crew arrived, and filmed a goat peering at its reflection in our water trough. They had wanted a herd of cows, but nobody told them about the tuberculosis regulations. So it had to be a goat instead. Well, two actually. They're extremely social animals, and they had to bring another goat along to keep the main goat happy. They also put green stickers around the trough and some tennis balls down the paddock. Apparently they will get replaced with computer graphics. It's an advert for Sky TV, so it'll be interesting to see it if and when it comes out.
Bronwyn had a good time at the youth leaders conference in Rotorua. Sarah's St John's training weekend in Taupo didn't go so well - she set off at 3pm, got to the bus south of Auckland at 5pm and discovered that she wasn't going to get any dinner, and the bus wouldn't get to Taupo until 9 or 10pm (after picking up lots of others). She also had to be out and ready at 6:30 each morning, and got told off at 6:25 for being late. So Bronwyn had some words with them, and drove from Rotorua to Taupo afterwards to pick her up rather than have her go home on the bus.
Bronwyn had a group assignment to do as part of the block course she did last month. She did her part (and a lot of the rest) and left it to the others to finish off. Apparently they never finished it. Fortunately she had plenty of evidence of her work and her messages to the others, so she certainly won't be getting the same grades that the others do. But that was quite a bit of stress this week!
In two weeks I'll be off to Wellington for my youth work conference, and in July we'll all go to Dunedin. This will be the last of our travels for the year...
The band had a joint concert with North Shore Brass to show off our music for the national contest, which is at the same time as our trip to Dunedin. So that will be my last time with the band for now, although I'm sorting out the hotel and flights payments, extra concert shirts and probably several other things. Pity. It's been great fun playing next to three good trombonists; it's probably the strongest we've ever been!
And Rachael's car has finally been fixed. I watched her confidently drive it forwards into the shed. This I took to be a good sign, because for three months it hasn't been capable of going backwards and we've had to leave it somewhere outside with a clear path forwards...
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