trellis: done

There ya go. One grape trellis (for two plants), and yes, the ground looked just as overgrown as what is behind it before I started. This is at the site of my grandparent's place. I've gotten pretty adept at clearing, but you probably don't want to see all the briar scratches on my arms. I fortunately managed to get this project done before it started raining up there. The posts are 3 ft into the ground, and I dug out the areas in the middle where the grapes will grow, put down pea gravel for draining, some mulch for food, and piled the dirt back in.

I also prepared spots for apples. I had to gas up the chainsaw and cut down a few locust trees so there will be enough sun for them as the trees up there start filling out with leaves. Looks like Grimes Golden didn't work out. They're getting me Granny Smith instead. Tartness. April 9 is delivery day. Memo to self: get a sh#tload of cayenne pepper to sprinkle around to keep deer away (till it washes away). I'll have chicken wire as well, but the more the deterrance, the better.

Barley plants are starting to materialize. No word on when the hop rhizomes will be in.

This weekend I'll be starting potatoes in a barrel back home. I've got a couple of russets that are sprouting.

Kicking and a' gouging in the mud and the blood and the beer

A couple of weeks ago, I was saying there was no way I could plant barley up at Ravenna with all this snow. Last week’s 60 degree temperatures changed that. But this weekend’s rains made me feel like one of the peasants stacking mud pies in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

I’d had a grandiose goal of clearing a 40 ft square barley field. But, you see, mud gets heavy and is hard to shake off of shovels, rakes, etc. More importantly, I did not have as much barley seed as I’d thought. So the result was these two trenches instead of a square field. I removed all the sod, tilled and raked the rows, and planted the seeds. There’s no time to order more barley seed for this year. I’m just going to see how this much goes, what it yields, and then decide whether to expand my operation. It was a much easier time clearing the spots for my apple and grape plants.



Saturday morning, I thought the flood was going to get into screen house in front of my parent’s place. Didn’t happen. I’m very glad of that, since I remember painstakingly scraping all the mud off the concrete stones after the 1996 flood.

I'm snow impatient

We had 40 degree weather again today, and the DC remnants of snowmageddon seem confined to the ice mountains assembled by the plows. But west of here there's still nearly six inches of compacted accumulation, even on the south facing hillsides. That means, barring a heat wave or lots of rain, it will be a while before I can prepare and till my barley field in Ravenna and get my crops in. I had been hoping for mid March. Not looking likely at this point.

I brewed some ale this weekend from store bought ingredients (pictured) and reassured myself that April could still work for planting.

The snow does not bar me from hiking anymore at least. On the Appalachian Trail near Boonsboro, it was desolate except for one team of folks doing some clearing of downed trees off the trail. "Howarya," we exchanged in greeting. They looked at me and my friend Mohammad like we were slightly crazy for deciding to wade for miles through the snow. "Cabin fever," I explained casually and shrugged my shoulders.

They missed the part where we decided to slide Mohammad's iPhone down a snowy hill while it was recording a video. So at least I didn't have to explain to a man armed with a chainsaw that, hey it's ok, we're the good kind of crazy. "Please put the saw down now, sir." Have a look.

beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy

I'm temporarily skipping ahead to the present day. By way of another century.

People who know me well know that I have a lifelong love affair with beer. It started when I was four and an older cousin, as a joke, let me have a taste. Minutes later I was finishing off unclaimed beers at the family crab feast (we're all Marylanders on my dad's side). I don't think anyone realized this occurred until the ride home when my parents looked in the back seat and asked themselves "What's wrong with the boy?" My happiness was cut short by bewildered scolding and my many demands that we pull off the road so I could pee.

A few years ago, I began brewing my own, with good results. On a visit to my paternal ancestral town of Biedenkopf, Germany, I let slip over some Bosch that I was a brewer and was politely asked to restore the family presence there since the small town, which once boasted four breweries (like the one in the picture), was now utterly deprived. If someday there is a such a thing as a President Palin or President Cheney (what's Liz up to?), I'm going to have to keep that offer in mind.

I digress. This year, I obtained permission to plow up some land adjoining my trailer home at Ravenna to grow barley and hops. The do-it-yourselfer persona is excited with anticipation. OK, so I don't know how to actually malt barley ... yet. I've got a few months to figure that one out. But my first attempt to "grow my own beer" will serve as more blog fodder as the year progresses. I've already got the barley seed from Seeds of Change and I'm going to order the hop rhizomes today.