Midwinter Update 2012-2013

Garden Journal, etc

Early December – add leaves to compost and mix in

Dec.28 – pick spinach and kale for pesto and salad and pick endive and turnips for salad. Pick fresh flowering heather tops, sage leaves, rue, scotch broom, juniper berries, and ground ivy for herbal beer.

Dec. 29 – make first batch of gruit – beer with 11 herbs: heather, mugwort, yarrow, myrica gale (bog rosemary), rue, broom, irish moss, sage, ground ivy, chamomile, and juniper berries. Added a pound of organic honey at flameout. Added about 2/3 pound extra corn sugar. Added honey and corn sugar increase ABV from about 4.6% to about 6.5-7%. Beer, actually Ale, is an Irish Stout from a box kit with dark liquid malt extract, roasted dark barley, and crushed crystal. Fuggle and Golding hops from the UK.

Dec 31 – sweat lodge on cold snowy night – not hot enough, floor mucky wet, feed cold, naked in 20’s not real fun. Good meditation though with a bit of sweat.

Jan 5-10 – get a couple truckloads of oak sawdust from neighbors to add to blueberries, azaleas, rhododendrons, cranberries, and heather.

freshly-picked mid-January salad with spinach, kale, endive, and turnips - all especially sweet and non-bitter due to the cold and frost

Thistle found a dead cat – long dead. No fur. First I thought she dug up Caesar or Clea –two old brothers who died last month within days of each other – both rather suddenly – but their graves are intact. This happened once before a few years ago when I found an unknown dead cat near the house. Cats come out of the woods to eat with our cats. We have actually gathered several cats this way. They appear and gradually become our pets. People know we care for them I guess and dump them off nearby. I found another dead cat along the bike trail in Athens. I also found 2 sets of moms and kittens living near Wal Mart. I have been feeding them when I run. Today I noticed someone else was also feeding one set. Not sure how the one died but it did not look old or unhealthy. Unfortunately people like to poison and torture them in various ways. Since then I have seen a handful more living in same area – probably sheltering and sleeping in the drainage culverts that lead from the large parking lots. Stray cats living behind the soon to open Pets Mart seems a bit ironic although from reading about PetSmart – it appears they do a lot for adoption, shelters, and humane societies – so maybe they can help get some of these cats adopted. It looks like they do not do puppy mills and things like that. I remember reading about the ubiquitous Amish puppy mills – apparently the Amish think of dogs much like livestock – as a purely money-making venture. Their record with other animals such as horses is legendarily abysmal as well. I think we have a duty to take care of animal species that we have domesticated as well as a duty to not exploit any animals for profit.

Jan. 11 – siphon beer into carboy with some corn sugar. Sample a bit right off the sludge – bitter (probably due to herbs) but acceptable. Current ABV about 5.35% - still fermenting a bit. Increased after sugar added to secondary. Nice dark color. Next step aging a bit in the carboy then bottling followed by bottle aging for at leat 3 weeks. May have to bottle early and bottle condition as I may have too much head space in carboy but I don't think that is a problem. Obviously I am still learning as this is my first batch. I like a nice foamy head on my beer. I guess the carbonation comes when priming in the bottle. The slower fermentation may be due to the honey which takes longer to ferment. I had a heat belt to regulate temp on the bucket but nothing on the carboy so it will take some time. Patience is part of the recipe I guess.

HML Nu Moon Rite – Ipsos Maat Flame and Feather Magick, bibliomancies, and contemplation of Peace for the World.

Jan. 12 – gather quinces – hope to make both chutney and jelly. Beer bubbling good in secondary fermentation. Many other things going on here as well. Have plans to make turnip kim chee. Hopefully there will be enough turnips. The Silverberries flowered this fall. I guess the fruit then ripens in spring. Something new to sample.

Piper, our first goat, passed away today. She lived about 12 years or more (pygmy goat lifespan 8-15 yrs). She had a good life I think. We will miss her. Never forget chasing her around as she liked to slip out of the fence. Took care of her for a week in the barn but she was weak and did not want to get up. Hand fed her and cleaned her. We enjoyed a few apples together and she liked being in the cat barn. She was destined to be a meat goat when we got her. Glad we got to change her destiny and she got to enhance our lives. Now she is deep in the woods. Doing a sky burial type instead of an earth burial.

January thaw in progress. Global Warming Suspected. The Prunus mume – Japanese Flowering Apricot has significant bud swell and may flower before it cools again. It was still over 60 deg F after 9 PM. It bloomed in January a two years ago as well. Bloomed in early Feb last year and stayed in bloom for nearly two months! Heather bloomed late December 2^nd year in a row. Pulminaria (lungwort) has a couple of flowers opening up. Magic Lily foliage popping up – probably daffs too. Moss beginning to flower. Wild onions growing. All this earlier than last year which was early Feb. Lichen and moss are glowing on the tree trunks. I think that global warming is pushing the agricultural zone designations significantly northward (which results in loss of northern species) I am finishing up my 4^th book on global warming/climate change with one to go – all from differing perspectives (pro/con). Also. listened to Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth CD set a while back and watched news special – Climate of Denial. Soon enough I suspect fewer and fewer people will be able to deny it as ice sheets continue to melt, sea level rises, and storms get more powerful. Hurricane Sandy and this summer’s derecho are possible examples. It won’t be radically apparent though as things happen slowly and gradually.  Hopefully solar panels will be going up here soon. Felt kinda eerie in the warm but gray cloudy sky sitting outside. It seemed like the trees and the land were trying to say something - maybe that they were not getting enough sleep. It’s mid-January and I have seen spiders breeding, a bee flying outside, several moths, gnats, and other bugs landing on me. Wtf happened to winter. It seems as if nature is ignoring it. Down in the woods there is a place I referred to as Three Pines due to the three mature white pine trees. Well when I went down there after this summer’s derecho I noticed that one tree was intact, the second one was snapped off about two thirds the way up, and the third was basically snapped in half. So many old trees were permanently damaged in that storm.

 

Goats having dinner one summer day. Piper is the goat in the background eating some greenery