Not my Property.
I am an "on site" security guard.
I live(in the house here)at a motor home sales and service lot.
I keep the dopers from stealing the stuff out of the motor homes.
Me and Heidi my dog...
Tv's,microwaves etc.used to get stolen every night.
Motor Homes have all kinds of stuff in them these days.

Is ,58 Cal. considered small arms? :)
How about the.44 mag. ?
Does cap and Ball count?
Or just the stuff that uses cartridges?
I got both.
I also reload my own Ammo...

I took a swing at making a pilsner once - turned out ok (not great) but, man did it take forever!!! I didn't think it was ever going to quit that long slow ferment!! It still hadn't stopped when I decided to bottle.

Smoke, yess all those count and reloading was a given. But I have a question, You see two guys, one is carting off a microwave and one has a pepper plant in a 5 gallon container, which one do you draw down on first? Oh, the pepper plant is ready for harvest if that makes a difference.

tsheets: it sounds like you are describing the pepper ripening process. Seems to take forever and once they do start to ripen, they just keep coming.

Bruce

So you ended up with either a bottle bomb or a Steam Beer.

Ya cold fermentation is like watching grass grow or paint dry...
Or watching long germinating seeds to sprout. :)

Heidi takes out the guy with the microwave and I go after the guy with my pepper plant-with a vengeance.
I don't care if the guy drops the microwave and runs but the other guy better set my plant down gently on the ground before he runs off or he'll be getting some hot lead flying his way.
I do have my priorities.

Well, I returned and all is well. My three year old son (and gardening buddy) insisted on doing things "exactly how daddy said to."

Ottawapepper: I LOVED THE TOWN OF OTTAWA - the people were awesome, the all star game was great and I had a BLAST there. Canadian beer is like moonshine.

Great to hear you enjoyed the festivities and the beer. Also great to hear your gardening buddy took good care of your peppers.

Wow, this thread started with worrying about our plants while away and progressed to beer and caliber of guns used to pop people stealing pepper plants. I love this forum, the members are so multidimensional here, hilarious ;-))

copying this from a different post in this forum, that would be better served here :P

You know you have a chili problem when you think invasion of the spider mites would be the scariest movie of all time, and the thought of it can keep you up nights.

I love this thread...I also make my own beer. I think smokemaster and I were brothers in another life. Typical summer days find me smoking meat/peppers, boiling wort in the backyard, drinking homebrew and sampling superhots in my garden. Life is good. Looking out at the barren landscape of winter here in Michigan.....well...at least I can go check my seedlings.

You know you have a pepper problem when:

You grow early under strong lights so you get an early harvest.

You are becoming immune to the heat of habs and bhuts and looking for more heat. Frank's Extra Hot tastes about as hot as ketchup. Food without hot sauce tastes bland.

Your freezer is so full of peppers, you struggle to find room for meat.

Pepper Joe knows you by name.

I was talking to a buddy of mine last night, and he's like "ENOUGH about peppers! If you don't stop spending so much time with them, you might turn into a pepper". Thus you might have a pepper problem if your friends are concerned prolonged contact will cause you to experience genetic changes.

Sounds like my wife..... she's had enough of peppers...

You know you have a pepper problem when:

You grow early under strong lights so you get an early harvest.

You are becoming immune to the heat of habs and bhuts and looking for more heat. Frank's Extra Hot tastes about as hot as ketchup. Food without hot sauce tastes bland.

Guilty.

I started my seeds two months earlier than last year. Bhuts last year, Butch T this year. Hopefully someone is working on a hotter strain for next year. LOL

My co-workers have given up asking me if something is "hot" when we go out for lunch...

My friends/family still ask....

I have to preface it with "don't forget my sense of hot is skewed compared to yours... BUT"

LMAO I love that pepper Joe knows you by name...

when:
...dear husband no longer has access to the master bathroom (its the main grow area)

...the peppers get more attention than the housework

...I'd rather shop for potting mix, lights, ferts, etc than clothes

...DH often says 'can we talk about something other than peppers!'

...you check the forum every night just to see what else you can learn to help make the harvest better

...you get more excited about getting seeds in the mail than a birthday card

I cant even eat peppers but growing them is addictive :)

Well, I'm glad to see I'm not the only female around here with a pepper problem, Nancy! I could have written ALL of those statements ... well, except the one about the master bathroom, LOL! I have taken over the guest room though. If anyone wants to visit us, they have to sleep with the peppers. Hey, it's better than sleeping with the fishes : )

When the well equipped basement workshop is now a pepper garden. Shop lights are now garden lights. No workbench space is left unused.

and the oil, lubricants, glues, and other products have been replaced by fertilizers, pesticides and starter pots.
Bruce

Hmm, master bathroom - considering it's still unfinished 5 yrs after building the house, I *could* use it as a "greenhouse". But it only has 1 east-facing window so I prefer to take over the bay window in the family room.

Other than that, I could have written that post too!

(Thanks smokemaster for the seeds I got this week - and ottawapepper and Chef Paul - forgot your online ID - for the peppers last year).

(Gee, I really gotta finish that bathroom this year, but it's where I store the ShopVac and random orbital sander and shellac and gel stain and other stuff - corner of the master bedroom is my finishing area, I got a little sidetracked last year with the garden, gotta finish more doors and baseboard.)

You're welcome.

Forget about doing the baseboards.
Nobody looks down there.
Besides a few strategically placed pots along the wall will hide them anyway.

Doors can be covered with Pepper pics,grow charts,garden maps etc.
Why waste valuable gardening time with stains and paint and such nonsense when you don't have to.

Yes, the Master Bath. Perfect. Already has plumbing. Plenty of electrical hookups. Linoleum or other water resistant flooring. You might still want to put the shower in. THey come in handy when you have to do insectidal soap showers after an aphid outbreak. Oh and one big bonus, the doors already have locks on them so you can keep the rif-raf out. The exhaust fan could be a big bonus too. The medicine cabinet will store the pesticides, fungicides, fertilizers and other necessities real well. The vanity drawers are just right for all the accessories such as extra bulbs, fixtures, starter pots, clippers, etc....

It will read:
"A 1500 sq ft one story home with 1 bath, and three bedrooms with a grow room off the master bedroom. 2 stall garage. And it all sits on 1.7 acres of tillable land." Who says homes are hard to sell these days?
Bruce

Oops, guess I have to at least get the subfloor covered with something waterproof. Got the shower installed but can't use it w/o getting the plywood wet. Rest is just rough plumbed (and I keep having to pour water down the drains every once in a while to keep the smell down).

But really, DS is starting HS in the fall and is getting to that age when he *really* needs to shower every day, it would be nice to have more than 1 bath for 4 people (and 1 very large potted pepper that has needed a few insecticidal soap sprays and rinses).

I spec'd an extra deep garage - 28 ft. Two 9ft doors in front, a 6 ft on the north side. And it's not big enough for all the pots and bags of potting soil and lime and deer netting. Shoulda gone 35 ft. And the mudroom b/t the garage and kitchen is too small - nice deep utility sink, but the W/D take up too much room.

That's it! Gotta add a grow room - er, sunroom - on the back instead of a deck (we've got a slider to nowhere in the family room). At least there we've got eastern and southern exposure, house will block the strong western sun.

Bruce-
I would buy that place! I only have 1.45 acres and only about 1.2 is tillable!!!

I have 97 acres but it's anybody's guess how much is tillable. I think maybe 1/4 acre since we spread (unscreened) topsoil near the pond and picked out most of the stones (at least the big ones) last year. Got a lot more to go - but we have 3 big piles of *screened* topsoil to spread.

This IS New England - our best "crop" is rocks!

There are definitely other women around here with a pepper problem. When you cook something and tell husband you are putting peppers in and he asks you if you are going to hurt him, you might have a problem.

I would say growing-wise, I'm lucky cos I have a 26' x 8' greenhouse, but with our temps possibly hitting the single digits in the next 2 nights, and me having 1700+ seedlings in the greenhouse, I don't feel so lucky right now. Planning on getting out and buying a 3rd heater to hook up.

Well, I don't have that same kind of pepper problem with DH - he likes things hotter than I do ( I think he's afraid of what I might do with the bih jolokia and 7 pot that Bill sent me seeds for though).

I hear you on the weather - I haven't started seeds yet (though I brought 3 overwintered peppers up from basement yesterday and put in bay window, been moving them with the sun plus we keep it 67 in the house). But we're expecting snow tonight and all day tomorrow (lows won't be that bad til Sunday AM - yesterday I heard 4 but now looks like 13). And I've got 6 huge garbage bags of sawdust for compost in the back of my pickup, I gotta find room in the garage or cover them - they're heavy enough already, don't need them getting soaked!

Well, he's tougher than he acts. I've made stuff that I thought was pretty hot and he didn't think so... I guess I've just got him well acclimated.

At least we aren't expecting any snow, or if so, not much. Good luck with the sawdust.

cold snap here as well - 37 is the low for the weekend.... then back up to mid 70s :D

I'll trade ya! It was 14 friday night, and 12 last night. Husband went out and bought 3 -4 ft long baseboard heaters, hooked them up and with my 3 blower heaters, it was upper 40s in the greenhouse this morning. we haven't even made it into the 30's yet, but the greenhouse is toasty with the sun on it. I'm surprised the peppers tolerate these wild swings, 100 during the day if the sun is out, 45-50 at night.

15 when I woke up this AM, never made it over 25 today. No snow to speak of the other day (after I put the sawdust in the garage!). Helped my parents' neighbor empty her sap buckets yesterday - sap's not running well now that it's cooled down again, only got 11 gal out of 30-odd trees, and my hands were frozen after a half dozen!

Didn't start the peppers yet, but the ones I brought up from the basement seem to be perking up a bit in the warmer, lighter house. Gotta see if there's room for the others - then where I can start the seeds if my bay window is full of overwintered plants!

kuvaszlvr - where are you located? Hope nights get a little warmer for you!

Its 30 outside right now =( Looking like its going to be a hard freeze tonight. Supposed to be below 32 until after 9am...

*dislike*

I have 30 pepper plants in the ground and had to scramble to find things to cover them with.

howdy ajsmama, I'm outside of Tulsa, ok. It's warming up now, albeit snowing, but it's not much. Luckily the nights the rest of the week are supposed to be above freezing, that still means around 50 in the greenhouse for lows. I know what you mean about finding room. There's been times I had to pull everything from the greenhouse and try to find places to put them in the house.

Hope you got everything covered Jsschrstrcks!

isn't winter fun???!!! :-)

Everything looks good this morning... I made a bivouac out of bamboo and the thin plastic painters use to protect the floor...

{{gwi:1139557}}

Jsschrstrcks: Looks like you have the 2012 grow season well under way. I applaud your dedication in sleeping outside with your peppers to protect them.
Bruce

He kept them warm with his body heat!

Oh you know me... Always sleeping... err going the extra mile... Yeah thats it.

When you tell your car mechanic that you think you need a new thermostat for your engine because its running hot,about 800,000 scoviles...maybe hotter.

What is worse is he understands how hot that is and says not to worry until you get to over 1,000,000 scovilles.

You know you have two problems when you wife complains that she wants you to turn up the thermostat because she is cold and you respond by telling her to eat a bowl of your chili instead.
Bruce

When ya dice up about 10 bhuts from the freezer to make some dinner. And its so hot ya can barely eat it. And then the next day you take it out of the fridge to eat the leftovers and sprinkle a large dose of dried bhut powder on it before ya put it in the microwave without of even thinking about it

When you are scrolling through the TV listings and back up because you misread "Doomsday Preppers" for about the hundredth time.

Edymnion, I did that AGAIN last night, and my teenage son said, "Mom, you do that every time!" Glad to know I'm not alone, LOL!!!

I'm glad I'm not the only one that has done that! :-) Although, I really think "doomsday peppers" would be a MUCH better topic for a show... at least I'd watch that!

You know you have a pepper problem when:
you have to put the gallon of milk in the door of the refrigerator-- because the big main shelf is all full of 1/2 gallon and 1/5 rum bottles full of home made hot pepper sauce!

Getting back to the original impetus for this post; going out of town and leaving your peppers in someone elses care.

Uggg, kuvaszlvr, I should have gone with your plan B and taken the four trays with me.

Turned out the GF's daughter (who really would have taken good care of them) had other stuff come up and couldn't take care of them. I ended up leaving my babies in the care of a neighbor.

Got home to 57 dead plants and the rest barely hanging on. NEVER AGAIN!!!

RIP:

1 - Bhut Jolokia
2 - TS Morugas
3 - 7 Pot Douglahs
7 - 7 pots
18 - Trinidad Scorpions
26 - Bih Jolokias

OOOUUUUCCCCHHHH!!!!!

That will put you back several weeks.
Bruce

Sorry man that sucks royally. Let me know if you need any seeds.

Oh, man! That sucks! Sorry to hear that, I'd be sick!

Thanks for the seed offer simsedward, much appreciated.

I have enough seed, it's the time I've lost that's going to hurt me. I've already started replacements but it's going to be tight. If this years growing season is as long as last year then I should do OK, fingers and toes crossed.

You ALL are great! I haven't laughed so much in weeks! I only have 6 varieties so I guess I don't qualify as a pepper problem. Does anyone have a recommendation for a pepper to make paprika? Hot, sweet, or mid range. I am drying this years crop of Alma, and just realized it is open pollinated, so will be saving seed if anyone wants to swap for '13?