Hobbies

Happy Sunday to you all! It's been another week of great weather here in Nashville and we have been as busy as ever doing fun things around town, as well is in the apartment. We haven't gone on any blog-worthy trips in the last week, but I thought this would be a good time to tell you guys about each of our hobbies. Let's start with Heather.

Heather's hat-knitting endavour isn't something new, but she's been making some really cute hats lately that I must share with you all! She is still getting orders for hats on a regular basis from the ladies at work, and even some of their friends! Here are three of her latest creations:

If any of you are curious, hats are $15 and can be any color and style you like! :) She has even made one with a hole in the back for a ponytail!

My latest hobby has been a few years in the making. I've been enjoying craft beers for several years, but have only thought about making my own for the last 6-8 months or so. I've done a lot of research on how to make beer, and on several of the available home brew kits out there. Turns out, this is a pretty popular hobby! There are tons of different kits out there for all levels of experience. Essentially the spectrum runs from (malt extract in a can + sugar + yeast + water = beer) to whole grain brewing where you steep the grains, multiple types of hops, and malt in a brewer's kettle, mix with different sugars, add yeast, ferment, and bottle. While I like the flexibility of the latter, I thought it wise to start with a simpler set up while I get some experience. So as an early birthday present, Heather bought be a home brew kit! The kit comes with a 6-gallon fermentor (big bucket with a valve at the bottom), 30 750ml bottles, and an American Lager kit.

Here's a picture of my first batch a couple days into the fermentation process.

Yeah... Heather yielded a good portion of the bathroom counter for the beer kit. What a woman!

It's pretty fun to watch the yeast do its thing over the first 2-3 days. Within 6 hours or so of getting everything mixed in the fermentor, the yeast begins to get pretty active. This process is essentially the same as the whiskey process I described in the post about our trip to the Jack Daniel's distillery. The yeast is so active that you can see the liquid churning, bubbling, and foaming. Gravity readings (aka density) are taken every day to monitor the progress of the fermentation. When the yeast is no longer converting sugar to alcohol and CO2, it's time to bottle! The primary fermentation in the bucket lasts about 6 days. You add some priming sugar to each bottle which helps to carbonate the beer in the bottle. The beer is supposed to "bottle condition" for a minimum of 2 weeks. I've read and heard that the flavor continues to develop for up to 3 months! I bottled 3 days ago and I'm already anxious to give it a try! Fortunately, 30 bottles will take quite a while to go through. I'm sure we will be able to have a taste test at several intervals between 2 and 12 weeks from now.

Here's my bottling set up (more or less).

The bottles are now tucked away in a box, and Heather has reclaimed the bathroom counter.

Even though I got one of the simpler kits about there, I can exercise as much creativity as I want when I mix the wort (pre-fermented liquid). My next batch may be a pumpkin ale, oatmeal stout, or perhaps just a dark ale with some brown sugar added. I'm really excited to have a new hobby that takes time, creativity, a little bit of science, and that results in beer! I'm looking forward to sharing some of my results with friends and family.

That's all we have to report for now! Things are going well in Nashville right now, and we are both enjoying the transition to fall. And of course, we are SO excited for the upcoming holidays and all the joy they entail.

Until next time and with love,

Tim & Heather

Going the Natchez Trace Way

Are we on a roll or what?! Three posts in a week? I blame it on the weather. With the official transition from summer to fall, Nashville has seen a delightful cooling in temperature while maintaining mostly sunny skies and minimal precipitation. We're talking about highs in the 70's and lows in the 40's and 50's. Is that not the perfect weather to be spending as much time as possible outdoors? If this isn't, then I don't know what is. In addition to the wonderful weather, Heather and I have been missing all of our wonderful family and friends back home lately. Contributing to this blog on a more regular basis seems like a nice way to "connect" with whomever may come across it on any given week. We hope this finds you all well! We also hope you all are enjoying reading it as much as we are enjoying thinking about you as we write it.

So in the words of the great John Wayne in McClintock, "Lets get to the rat killin'."

For the past few months, Heather has had her eye on the Natchez Trace Parkway. It is a 444-mile long scenic road that extends North-South from Nashville into southern Mississippi. There are many historical sites along this road, and it is meticulously maintained by the National Park Service.

This beautiful bridge was pretty impressive and was our first stop on our drive. The bridge is a concrete double arch design with a span of 1,572 feet and a road height of 145 feet above the green valley below. We drove as slowly as possible across the bridge so we could soak in the great view!

I should say that this drive, like most in Tennessee, was full of wonderful scenes of densely wooded deciduous trees. While Tennessee is fairly plain looking in the winter months due to its lack of evergreens, I think it can hang with the best of them when it comes to autumn foliage. When the entire state is covered in oak, hickory, ash, and maple trees, the turning of leaves essentially changes the entire landscape. If any of you are wanting to visit Tennessee at its most beautiful, you may want to consider coming in early November. The leaves have just barely started to turn, but we could tell during our drive this weekend that things are about to get really scenic around here!


In the interest of keeping this post to a one-sitting length, I'll just briefly mention a few of the stops we made along the 50 or so miles of the Trace that we covered on this trip. Now I know that my parents have hiked up around the continental divide (which separates the water flow of the continental United States - rivers to the west flow to the Pacific, rivers to the east flow to the Gulf and Atlantic). Well, I'm pleased to announce that Heather and I have been to the great Tennessee Valley Divide! Rivers to its east flow into the Tennessee River, and rivers to the west flow into the Cumberland. Ok, ok. Maybe its no where near as impressive as the continental divide, but it definitely made us think of you! Another stop was the site of an old tobacco farm. Neither Heather or I have seen how tobacco is grown, but I know that it involves some amount of aging in tall barns before being shipped out for processing. The tobacco leaves can be quite long (3-6 feet or so), so we were hoping that this stop would actually be at a working farm, or at least a display of the different stages of cultivation and aging. Nope! Just a small barn with one row of hanging fresh tobacco leaves, and a gravel road that took you no where. Oh well!

Here's a shot of Heather inside the barn, admiring the tobacco leaves

Not a bad view from the tobacco "farm"!

As always, feel free to click on the pictures to get a larger view!

Here's a shot from another nice outlook.

The highlight of our trip, aside from the great scenery along the way, was a place called Jackson Falls. Here's a short video of me explaining a bit about it!

What I didn't mention in this video is why the water is no longer flowing here. Apparently a large storm led to some flooding which eroded the river banks and redirected the water flow.

And that's about all I have to say about that! I'll leave you with a few more pictures from the Trace.

Stay tuned this coming week for a post on my newest hobby!

Until next time,
Tim & Heather

Big News Day!

So I promised that I would have some information for you all regarding my 4th-year externship placement today. As many of you know, this process was pretty difficult and our decision to apply for a spot in Nashville was not an easy one. I was actually notified one week ago about Vanderbilt and the Nashville VA's decision but had to keep it to myself until they could complete the official application process. I didn't feel much risk in telling a few family members ahead of time, but since I can now tell the world, I was officially offered the only spot at the Nashville VA for a Vanderbilt Au.D. student!! WOOOOT!!!!

This is definitely the ideal situation for Heather and I! I knew that if we were to stay in Nashville, I would really prefer to do my externship at the VA rather than at Vanderbilt. Not only will the VA be an opportunity to get some exposure to a different clinical environment, they also pay VERY well. As it turns out, the VA is possibly the highest paying for 4th-year externs in the country, and they pay quite well for Au.D. clinicians too! Heather and I are definitely looking forward to having a bit more financial cushion beginning next summer. Our primary goal is to pay down the student loan debt that we have accumulated over the past few years, but we also hope to make an extra trip home for some much needed bonding with our niece and nephew!!!

We love you all and are so happy to be able to share this great news with you today!

Until next time,

Tim & Heather

Crazy Little Thing Called Camping

I think if you surveyed 100 people about what they thought about camping, you'd get everything from "I love to get out into nature, carry everything in with me, catch my dinner, and sleep under the stars" all the way to "I love to enjoy nature from the inside of my 40' RV". Fortunately, Heather and I both grew up camping sans RV, but with some of the more traditional creature comforts like T.P., an air mattress, and a proper campsite. Camping is something that we both have fond memories of, and that we love to do together! We've found the weather in Nashville to be somewhat prohibitive. Surprising? The problem is that the majority of the summer is sooo hot and humid that it would be uncomfortable to be outside all day and night. The best weather (spring and fall) are often so short that they can slip right by you without noticing! Also, this year was the year for the 17-year brood of cicadas to come out in the South. If you aren't familiar, it's a time when billions and billions of cicadas come out of the ground and the trees to eat, mate, and die over the course of one month or so. If you haven't heard what 10,000 cicadas sound like before, let me explain to you. They are loud!!! One of my professors measured the sound level near a tree full of cicadas, and found the level to be about 85dBSPL. This is definitely loud enough for one to need to raise their voice to be understood. Not exactly an ideal setting for being outside and sleeping in a tent. Not to mention thousands of cicadas covering every tree and all over the ground! Yuk! So anyways, this last weekend we saw an opportunity and we took it! We packed up all our gear (and Draco!) and drove south to Henry Horton State Park in Chapel Hill, TN.

After a little over an hour drive through the country, we made it to a very nice little camp ground! Now as far as I know, there is nothing in the state of Tennessee to hold a candle to the natural beauty of a place like Wallowa Lake. But we do the best that we can with what we have. We were able to claim a good camp site on the end of the row, with only one neighbor. It was first come, first served so we got there pretty early and were able to set up camp well before lunch time. We took a little while to relax and enjoy the scenery while eating lunch that we brought from home. The weather was perfect. We were comfortable. We were happy! Well, I shouldn't include Draco in that. Draco must have been the one that grew up camping from an RV. While he was able to find a somewhat comfortable spot to hang out under the table, he wasn't really himself. He really just liked to sit in the tent. Every now and then when we'd let him off his leash, Draco would make a mad dash for the car and look for an open door so he could jump in and leave! After the 2nd or 3rd time, we got the message. Draco prefers to camp indoors on carpet. *Sigh*. Who knows, maybe he'll get used to it, or maybe we'll just leave him at home next time!

In the interest of brevity, we built a fire in the afternoon, roasted hotdogs and had baked beans and salad for dinner, s'mores for dessert, and played cards next to a lantern until bedtime.


Here's Draco in his natural habitat... shelter. :)

Heather and Draco are helping to get everything set up!

I'm honing my fire-building skills. Yeah, there's some room for improvement.

The best picture of all! Heather is reading at the table with Draco at her feet, and the fire is going strong.

This trip definitely re-wet our appetites for camping! The weather has been fantastic lately, and the immediate forecast looks bright! We're hoping to make another trip to a new camp ground in the next 2 or 3 weeks. So stay tuned for that!


Also, I'll be able to announce some big news regarding my 4-th year clinical externship (a.k.a. where we will be living next year!) on Wednesday. We'll definitely post again then!

Until next time,
-Tim & Heather

Jack Daniel's For a Day

Hello All!

Surprisingly, it hasn't been all that long since we last posted some of the goings on around here! And we're back today with two posts about some of our recent adventures. About 3 weeks ago, Heather and I woke up on a Saturday morning and decided that we should get out of town for the day. Let's see, we've been to the west, we've been north, we've been to Atlanta... where else can we go? Why, to the great Jack Daniel's distillery of course! So after a quick breakfast at home, it was off to the tiny town of Lynchburg, TN to see how that famous sour mash Tennessee Whiskey is put together.

Lynchburg is just about a 90 minute drive Southeast from Nashville. We've seen a fair bit of Tennessee back country before, but this was another great opportunity to cruise the rolling hills of good ol' rocky top (Commence song now)! We got to town around 11:30 and thought we would get a bite to eat at a diner in town. Lynchburg has a very quaint little downtown that is just a little square, with the town city hall/jail in the middle of it. Interestingly, Lynchburg is a mega hub for Harley-Davidson enthusiasts. The motorcycle-to-car ratio in the town square was around 3:1. The square was mostly full of diners and nick-nack shops, and we found a fun little place to get some southern chow. After filling our bellies and having a look around the square, we drove down the road to the distillery.

Here is a picture of one of the main buildings you see from the parking lot. The distillery, as you can imagine, is absolutely huge but it is fairly spread out and well hidden among the dense woods and up a pretty big hill. There was a nice welcome center where you can sign up for tours and read a bit about the history of the place while you wait.

Here are a few of the more interesting things we saw!

Lynchburg is in Moore County, TN. Since prohibition, Moore County has been a dry county. Yeah, I know. try to put some logic into that hopper! Of course, Jack Daniel's stands to make a lot of money by selling commemorative bottles in their gift shop. So, they have arranged to be the only place in the county where people can purchase alcohol. It isn't served, just sold. On our tour, the guide noted that this statue of Jack Daniel on a rock is your "only chance to get a shot of Jack Daniel on the rocks".

Heather in front of an opening to a limestone cave! It's amazing to feel how cool the air is coming out of the cave (around 56 degrees) all year long!

Self explanatory...

I guess now is as good a time as any to give a "brief" description of how whiskey is made.





One of the most critical components of any good whiskey or bourbon is the water. The main reason all bourbon comes from Kentucky and Jack Daniel's comes from Tennessee is because of the abundance of limestone-filtered spring water. This is also the reason that so many distilleries are located in the middle of absolutely nowhere. They are all positioned right up against a series of caves or creeks that provide the very pure water. By the way, I found out that Jack Daniel's produces around 75,000 gallons of whiskey each and every day! They must have a serious water source somewhere! Anyways, a variety of grains (corn, barley, and rye) are ground up into a mash and boiled. This process releases the natural sugars from the grains. Yeast is added which converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. This mixture is then filtered and distilled, which is the process of boiling the liquid and capturing the evaporate which is now a high-alcohol grain spirit. At this point, the liquid can become a variety of spirits...it's what happens next that determines what we'll call it.

If we were in Kentucky making bourbon about 100 years ago, we would put the distilled spirit in a mason jar and call it moonshine. The more modern and commercial approach is to dilute the spirit to lower the alcohol level from around 120 proof (60%) to between 80-90 proof (40-45%). Then, the liquid would be placed in virgin oak barrels and aged for a long, long time. The regular line of bourbons and whiskeys are typically aged for around 8-10 years. A higher shelf spirit may be aged for 10-15 years. A super premium spirit may be aged for 30+ years!!! The whiskey is stored in massive buildings (some are 7-8 stories tall) that hold tens of thousands of barrels each. The picture above gives you an idea of the effect of different locations in a building can have on the color imparted by the barrel on the whiskey. During the aging process, the whiskey works its way into and out of the oak barrel which gives the nice amber color and imparts a smoother, mellow, smokey sweetness that is much easier to drink than straight moonshine. Interestingly, if you put 53 gallons of distilled spirit into a barrel, you won't get 53 gallons out. Around 2% is lost to what distillers call the "angel's share". Now, they do things a bit differently in Tennessee than they do in Kentucky. Jack Daniel's filters all of their distilled spirits through 10 feet of charcoal before aging it in barrels. It takes nearly a week for the whiskey to make its way through the charcoal, but they say it is totally worth the wait.

I'd recommend clicking on this picture to see it a bit bigger. Here's a neat picture of an industrial-looking building in the foreground with a series of pipes bringing fresh water down from a storage tank at the top of the hill. The big white building on top of the hill is where they keep the barrels. There are probably about 50 of these buildings in the area. Yeah, we're talking about 28 million gallons per year folks!!


So that's the gestalt of our trip! A beautiful drive in the back country of Tennessee brought us to the most notable Tennessee whiskey distillery, and possibly the most notable American whiskey distillery. It was really fun to see the entire process and get another taste of another uniquely Tennessee experience.

Stay tuned for a post on our recent trip to Henry Horton State Park for some camping!

Crafty Couple

We must have a bug problem in our new apartment, because Tim and I have both been bitten by the creative bug lately! Ok, so corny jokes aside, I've been knitting up a storm, made a necklace, and we both have completed a wood project. Here's the run down!

A few of the ladies at my work are aware of my amateur knitting skills. Several months ago, I made a dog sweater for one of my coworkers. Little did I know at the time, I was laying the groundwork for a fairly awesome hobby! Just a couple months ago, one of my coworkers asked if I could knit her a hat. I know... a knitted hat in July? It's over 100 degrees outside people!!! I can't walk through the parking lot without breaking a sweat and these ladies are thinking about winter hats!! But hey, she was willing to pay, so I started knitting. When I delivered that hat, she asked for another! Then another lady from work saw them and also wanted one! And on and on. I've made quite a few now and it's not even cold weather outside yet! I bet I will have more orders to come this fall. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to share with you, because I keep forgetting to take a picture of the final product. But trust me, they are very colorful and cute!

About a year ago I made a few pairs baby booties for some of the pregnant ladies at work. Big surprise, another gal from work is about to have a baby! These are the booties I made for her! They are so tiny!



Besides knitting, I have always enjoyed dabbling in jewelry-making. I usually use beads, but this time I wanted to try to make something with buttons. I have a button collection, started for me by my Grammy when I was in junior high. So for a long time, I have had all these wonderful buttons. Here is my first attempt at a button necklace, not too bad!



As we all know, Tim has a lot of speakers! He got a new center channel speaker a little while back and it is much taller then the one we had before. The new center channel actually blocked some of the TV screen and the entire remote sensor. We were getting by with 2 reams of legal-sized paper and 8 issues of Real Simple magazine staked under the TV to raise it up a bit, but we still had trouble with the remote sensor. We would have to sit up nice and straight and raise the remote all the way over our heads to change the volume! Tim had the brilliant idea of building a box the the right height to put the TV on. Check out the handy work! It takes the TV up to the perfect height and looks really good!





When we were at the hardware store getting stuff for the TV stand, we also got some wood for a project I'd been planning. We scored some free scrap plywood and found some silver pulls. With a little paint and stenciling, we now have a personalized hook rack for our bathroom!



We have both been having lots of fun getting creative with the skills we have and are enjoying learning new things as we go along.

Coming soon to our blog....our trip to the Jack Daniels distillery in Lynchburg, TN and camping at Henry Horton State Park!

Videos below

So we tried to upload the videos but we couldn't get it to work. Might try again tomorrow!

Feel free to click on the pictures to get the full screen experience!