The Alexandria Hops

The Willamettes, vigorous already in the early spring.

Since I learned about the hops neighbor Dan was growing in his backyard near Hawksbill Cabin, I have been inspired to try growing some myself.  I was prepared to try this even before I began brewing beer - I figured somebody would take and use anything I was able to produce.  As it turned out, I ended up with some first year hops bines in the ground at the same time that I was gaining experience as a brewer.

My space for this venture is very constrained in the back yard - we have a postage stamp of a suburban space here in Alexandria, and the whole cleared space back there may be twice the size of the area Dan has under cultivation.  So I decided to keep my plants in pots, easily movable if I figured out a better arrangement for the situation - or in case I failed.

I had aspired to grow Cascade and Willamette hops, since I had seen that those varietals do well in the area.  I would plant two rhizomes in each post to ensure that I would have a survivor of each one.  When I went to order, however, I found that they were sold out of Cascade, and substituted UK Goldings.

The UK Goldings in their spacious new pot.

After discussing this further with Dan, I remembered that while his Willamettes do fine growing as plants, they aren't high yielders for some reason.  His hypothesis is that their location isn't great, since they are in the partial shade of a walnut tree, and because the soil around that tree may not be optimal due to the falling nuts every year.  My plant grew very well, too, but I did not see any cones in the first year (not that I was expecting much of a crop - the plants take a few years to mature).

The Goldings, on the other hand, performed better than I expected.  There were even cones on those plants come harvest time - about two dozen.  Not enough to do anything with, but still, product!

I bought a second pair of Goldings rhizomes, and I transplanted both of the existing plants into new, larger pots last week.  I found that there were roots that had escaped the plants and made their way into the flower beds - not entirely unexpected, because in my readings about hopyards I found that you plan at least a 4x4 hill for each plant.  I was fairly brutal in pruning these roots back for the transplanting, and hope I did not do any lasting damage.

I'll post a series on these hops over the course of the growing season, with a next post to describe the trellis system I am trying out for the Goldings this year.  That's all for now though!

Cabin Lore: The Neighbors' Tree House

The front of the tree house, from the Lawyers' yard.
Beaver Run is visible in the background.

Among the earliest buyers and builders in the Hawksbill Pines neighborhood were the Lawyers - that was their actual last name, and the cross street at the top of the hill was named after them.  They settled in and built a weekend home up there with excellent party amenities, including walk in cold storage out in the barn - the same one that Dan now brews out of.

They lived in the house at the end of the block for a good long time.  There is still evidence of wonderful summer parties there in the house - the current owners will take you for a walk down in the basement where many a guest signed in.  Times were good in the summer in the Pines!

Some time after the couple retired to the neighborhood, their first house became too difficult to live in.  They owned the lots next door, so they built an easy 60's era ranch over there.  It's actually a two-story home built into the hillside, so the basement opens to the yard in the back, while the main entry is at ground level in the front.

The view of the tree house from Hawksbill Cabin,
across the hollow.

Eventually Mrs. Lawyer was confined to a wheel chair.  They weren't going to let that stop them from enjoying the great outdoors, however, so they built a grand tree house out in the woods.  It's at least a 30 foot walk out the deck to get to it, and the house is easily 30 to 40 feet above ground.

I can imagine summer nights out there with friends, enjoying a cookout dinner and playing cards into the night.  In the spring, the serenade of the peeper frogs would be absolutely amazing, and in the summer, the fireflies would be such a treat.  Combine that with an unobstructed view of Big Meadow Mountain in Shenandoah National Park and you wouldn't have much to complain about.
 

Nuthatch Rescue

After we returned from our hike in SNP on Sunday afternoon, I was sitting in the Hawksbill Cabin living room and heard a loud bang.  I was a familiar sound, I'd heard it once or twice before - a little nuthatch had collided with the windows out front.  I saw the little bird laid out on the brick terrace, and just as quickly as I had looked up, I saw Mom Cat run over to check it out.

I rushed outside to see if there was anything we could do for the bird - that meant the first priority was to keep him safe from Mom Cat and the other barn cats.  They probably hunt the little song birds, and we suspect that they have taken at least one other unfortunate little bird that hit one of the windows.

A few years ago a finch struck the rear window at the Alexandria house.  That time, Mary made a call to the animal shelter to see if they would come and get the bird, of if they could offer advice.  We were told that they go into shock from the collision - that there was a good chance of recovery, as long as they are kept safe from predators until they recover - which can be anywhere from a half hour to a couple of hours.

So with the little nuthatch, I figured I would get him up off of the brick terrace, and keep him away from the barn cats and the hawks that patrol the neighborhood.  I scooped him up into one of the chairs and sat next to him to keep watch.

When he rolled over onto his back, I thought to myself, "This isn't good."  I figured I would soon be dropping him into a pile of leaves back in the wood lot.  But after about 10 minutes, he popped over onto his feet, as shown in the photo.  He was clearly still shaking things off, but the prognosis was looking better.

After another 10 minutes or so, I saw him moving his head around, checking me out.  I thought I might move the chair over to the side of the terrace, so he could see the trees and other cover - and fly away to them as soon as he was ready.  As soon as I did that, he was off, flying up and over the house.

Later, while we were packing for the drive home, I went around back to see if I could spot him.  There were two nuthatches back there - I assume it was him and his mate.  It reminded me that we found a little nuthatch nest last year in the pool cabana, with five eggs in it - maybe this is one of that brood.

In any case, my karma was assured for the week.  I'm looking for my next good deed.

Jones Run Falls - More Photos

In the post yesterday, I mentioned I had a couple of photos and such, taken with my new iPhone 5s, that I wanted to share.  Let me start off with a photo of Tessie and me, which Mary took of us down at the falls. Good times! 

Next, here's ten second video of Jones Run Falls.  At 42 feet, this is not the tallest in the park, but still it's pretty grand. This was my fourth hike down to it - I think it has become my favorite in the park.



Here is the first of a couple of panoramic shots I took, using that feature on the iPhone.  The first one is of one of the two falls you reach before you arrive at the main falls - there's a cave and some pretty interesting rock formations in this part of the gorge. Even though the waterfall here hugs that large boulder, there is plenty to take in at this spot.

The final shot here is a panoramic view of the main falls.  It shows how the falls plunges over a rock ledge through this part of the gorge, and the abstraction from the pano feature makes for an interesting perspective.

Jones Run Falls - an Easy SNP Day Hike

Over the course of the last week, I read somewhere that the waterfalls throughout Shenandoah National Park were at their peak because of the recent heavy rains, which followed a snowy winter.  I asked Mary if she thought she might be up for a hike to check out a waterfall or two, suggesting we might go to Jones Run Falls in the South District, which has become one of my favorite waterfalls in the park.  We set off on Sunday morning, with Tessie coming along for the hike, and on the way to the trailhead we saw lingering snow in the shadows along Skyline Drive.

As I prepared to write this post, I took a minute to recall my previous hikes to Jones Run Falls, trying to figure out why I like this waterfall so much.  I’ve linked a couple of the old posts below – they’re full of photos of the scenery, and that is certainly part of what I like so much.  It could also be that the cascades along this stream, along with Doyle’s River, are so accessible to hikers – you can literally walk right up to them if you want, and even jump in there for a shower if you like.

While I have done the Doyle’s River/Jones Run circuit before, we agreed that we weren’t up to a hike as rigorous as that.  Instead we chose to simply hike down the Jones Run gorge from the trailhead at milepost 84, a descent of 900-plus feet and a round trip of 3.4 miles.  The combination makes it an “easy” hike in my book, it needs to exceed 500 feet of elevation change and five miles of distance to be moderate.

The fact that there are three waterfalls and two stream crossings on this short hike makes it a very worthwhile outing.  While there are no rock scrambles or other features of that sort, the jumbled formations of boulders strewn about the gorge offer some pretty great views as well.

Mary, Tessie and I had a nice walk together, and spent about an hour enjoying the falls once we reached them.  A couple of family groups were out for the day, and everybody wanted to give Tessie some attention.  That’s a canine who knows how to work it.

In addition to the linked posts below, I’ll be making a second post about this hike – I wanted to use a couple of the iPhone photo features, and I’ll share a couple of extra photos tomorrow.

As I mentioned, here are some previous blog posts about this hike:

http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2011/09/doyles-riverjones-run-75-75-hike.html

http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2010/04/waterfalls-everywhere-jones-run-doyles.html

http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2010/04/jones-run-doyles-river-part-2.html

The Return of the Beavers

 When we arrived at Hawksbill Cabin on Saturday morning, we were surprised to look out into Beaver Run hollow and see that the beavers had returned from upstream, building a little dam in our stretch of the creek.  I remembered from a few years ago that we had a pond, and was very excited by the new development - and also worried, as always, since they are construction within 100 feet or so of our little road.  

After we got unpacked and settled in, we all took a walk over for a closer look.  As the plants are all greening up in the hollow, you can still get around pretty well in there, and I was able to get pretty close to it.  

It's not yet as big or robust as the one they built in 2008, but it is coming along. At that time, the stream was narrower and had some pretty high banks, so when the pond filled the water was as deep as six feet or so in places - it probably is this time as well, especially in the stream channels.

We kept an eye on the pond all weekend, hoping to catch a glimpse of the beavers at work, but no such luck.  I'm sure we'll see them eventually, but for the moment, all we've seen is a couple of pairs of ducks.

Looking back on my old blog posts, I found that the old dam was built in the spring of 2008 and lasted until heavy rains in spring 2009.  I used the label "beaver dam" to track the dam back then - I'll re-inaugurate that label again for posts about the new dam, starting with this one.

The Idle Hop Yard

After we brewed at Beaver Run Brewery last weekend, I took a walk out to have a look at the hop yard.  It was idle, not a sign of any shoots yet.  Dan had pruned the hills down and set up the trellis so that everything was ready for spring.

It won't be long at all - I remember a visit last May, and the bines were already topping out.  There's a post here:

http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2013/05/hops-progress.html

After brewing and my little walk around the farm, I went home and tasted a tripel that Dan and Chris had brewed over the winter - with a fire.  Times are good, but the winter can't end soon enough.  I think spring has finally broke.

Outside Diatribe

As a follow-up to my recent seven summits post, I noticed the emphasis on “adventure tourism” coverage of summiting Everest in this month’s Outside magazine.  There were three articles – in the first, “Meet the New Boss,” by Grayson Schaffer, there is the story of California guide Adrian Ballinger who plans to spend the Everest season taking experienced climbers to “the top of the world.” 

Quoting from the article now:

“The idea is to make it from the U.S. to the top of the world and back in just 40 days, paying $89,000 each, roughly twice the average cost of a guided Everest summit.” (note)

In a second article, entitled “Show of Force,” reported by Deepak Adhikari, we read that the base camp at Everest will be patrolled by armed police.  Apparently there are as many as 1,000 people in the camp during climbing season, and a need for law enforcement has evolved there.  Schaffer refers to the crowds as a “high-altitude conga line;” to me it sounds like tolerating the environment there might be a challenging as the climb itself.  

Then there is a final article, “Express Descent,” by Ryan Krogh, which describes “a daredevil’s plan to jump off the top of the world” in a wingsuit.  This involves summiting Everest, and then BASE jumping off of it..the whole shebang is sponsored by the Discovery Channel.

I love Outside magazine, and have since I began reading it in the 1970’s.  They continue to offer good journalism on less exploitative topics, and I enjoy the gear reviews, often taking them into consideration when equipping my hikes in Shenandoah National Park and the George Washington National Forest.  However, reading the Everest articles in this month’s edition was a bit of a downer, because they’re reporting nothing but pure consumerism – I can’t read a stitch about adventure in any of the three of them, even between the lines.

Note – the article mentions that the typical duration of an Everest summit is 2.5 months – 75 days, so this excursion cuts the time in half as well as the cost.  This doesn’t acknowledge the additional preparation that legitimate guides require – high altitude and ice climbing, for example – or the cost of getting to Nepal and the departure point for the route to the summit.

Brew Day at Beaver Run Brewery

We had plenty of errands to run at Hawksbill Cabin over the weekend, but ended up with a few postponements on our Saturday appointments - so I walked on up to visit Dan at Beaver Run Brewery to see if I could help out on brew day.

I'd seen a post on Facebook earlier that day that he had planned a 10-gallon batch of the Flat Tail IPA (Brian:  beavers have flat tails, and the brewery is near Beaver Run, hence the name). He had some new equipment and techniques to try out, and I was interested in seeing how those worked as well.

Dan's evolution in brewing technique graduated to all grain two or three years ago, when he added large kettles that suit this style. He added propane "outdoor" style burners, along with a pump and wort chiller to complete the set up.  He doesn't have to lift any hot kettles, and temperature sensors are built in.

It's a pretty high quality operation that produces consistent results, so he has also been experimenting with beer styles, producing a pilsener and stout recently. His standby has always been the IPA though - so this was a good batch to be around for.

The major upgrade of the day was the new yeast starter outfit.  It's shown here in the photo - I've lost track of how long this yeast had been "awake."  The plan was to split it into two five gallon carboys, after starting from one commercial vial.  Later he'll harvest a little and start keeping his own starters in the brewery fridge.

While I did help out during the boil, my role for the day was to act as brewer's assistant.  I took care of some of the intermediary cleaning and sanitation after the mash and sparge were completed.

As always, one of the main features of Beaver Run brews are the home grown hops - there's a photo here of Dan adding the bittering hops early during the boil.  Later on I took a walk over for a look at the idle hopyard.  It won't be long until we start seeing little shoots come up on the bines.

For myself, I really am impatient for winter to end this year.  So I'm looking forward to seeing some green in those little hills in the backyard.
  

Pork Diaries: Ham, Bacon, and Pork Chops

This week marks to occasions for a "pork diaries" post about this year's hog - the bacon and ham came back from the smokehouse, and Mary and I enjoyed our first meal of pork chops.

Last year David sent our hams and bacon away to a smokehouse and custom meat cutter over on the other side of Massanutten Mountain.  We were all really happy with the results, so we repeated this year.  The process usually takes a month or so, and we had a snow delay in there, but everything got back last weekend.

I have two hams, a hock, and then 10 packs of bacon on hand for the year.  We'll be enjoying that for a while.

Meanwhile, given the snow day Monday, I decided to put together a meal of pork chops and vegetables from the grill.  This year, I cut the chops, bone in, thicker than in the past.  They cook slower, but they also retain their juices better.

It was hard to cook in that cold the other night, but everything came out fine:  chops grilled and glazed with that chipotle-peach sauce I made recently, yellow squash sauteed with onions, and mixed blue and yellow potatoes with rosemary.  I can't wait to grill again.

Although I may wait until it warms up.

Seven Summits Update

Here on the Hawksbill Cabin blog, one of the topics I come back to over and over is hiking, so when Mary and I had the chance to catch up with Felice and David in Culpeper this winter, I wanted to ask David about his progress on mountaineering (kind of “advanced” hiking) the Seven Summits.  

Check out the “Seven Summits” label over in the right hand column for some of the previous posts on his mountaineering enterprise. 

Turns out he’s made it to six of the seven, with only Everest still left.  He mentioned how the time and expense of the trip to Everest is one of the reasons he hasn’t climbed that one – but he also mentioned that the trip is very crowded these days, enough to add to the danger of operating at high altitudes.

One of David’s motivations for the other climbs was to acknowledge a friend he’d lost to illness a few years back.  Even so, he never explicitly told me he planned to complete the set, the seven, as an objective.  Even though Everest awaits, he has been to some pretty incredible places on his mountaineering journey – for example, he told me about how he enjoys Old Rag in Shenandoah National Park. 

I might look into an Old Rag hike myself this year…there’s not bad adventure in that one, even though it’s crowded on the weekends.  And if hiking for adventure is what you’re after, I found this article recently about alternatives to the Seven Summits – I leave you with a link: 

http://intelligenttravel.nationalgeographic.com/2014/03/06/beyond-the-seven-summits/

Brewer's Chores

For this snow day, I decided to kick back and take paid time off - used the time to take care of some brewing chores that had been waiting.

First thing, I bottled my Cascade IPA on Friday, taking notes on the gravity readings.  Since I lost a lot of data when my old computer crashed recently, I needed to find a new alcohol by volume (ABV) calculator, and I did, using it to calculate the results of the Cascade IPA.  By the way, since that is conditioning in the bottle right now and I'm estimating that it will be ready on April 15, I am calling it "Tax Day IPA."

The temperature corrected original gravity on this one was 1.051.  It finished up at a final gravity of 1.013 - so I'm giving it a 4.99% ABV.  That is paired up with an international bitterness unit (IBU) measurement of 55.3, all from Cascade hops, including 3 ounces of Luray local hops from fellow grower Bill.

My second errand was to strain off the bitter orange/coriander tincture I've been making for "La Petite Orange" - the Belgian Dubbel I posted about last week.  That orange peel is difficult to work with - it absorbed a lot of the vodker and I could not extract it.  I'll go with what I was able to strain off - maybe two ounces - and I'll just add that at bottling time.

My third and last chore was to move La Petite Orange to secondary.  It's been percolating downstairs since last weekend, but primary fermentation has finally ended.  Two weeks or so in secondary, and I'll bottle it with the tincture mixed in.

Not Exactly the Snowpocalypse

We've had another March snowstorm in these parts - I just barely made it out of the Hawksbill Cabin driveway when flurries appeared this weekend.  I outran the storm on my drive, but it caught me when I got back to Alexandria.

We ended up with between six and eight inches of snow overnight.  It's very pretty, as a late season snowfall can be.

Thankfully, it will be gone soon, too.  Then we can turn our thoughts to the warmer times ahead!

Nature Will Get Us All in the End

Over on "Abandoned Berlin" - one of the blogs I follow, which you can find in the right hand column - there's a post today about a villa that was destroyed in WW2. It's located in Steglitz, a district that was Southwest from where I lived in Tempelhof.  Fairly suburban, but the structure and decoration of the house looks beautiful.  

It was destroyed in allied bombing one night in 1944, and in the style of that blog, the writer was able to gather quite a bit of interesting information about why it is still a shell.  That reminds me of one of the houses on Vernon Street NW, where I lived in DC for a few years...in any case, a link to the post is at the end of this one.

Which brings me to the topic of today's post.  It's been quite a hard winter, and before the snow that started last night, we had some high winds out at Hawksbill Cabin.  It's taken its toll on the pool cabana, shown in the photo here.  

While it's not war damage, there are a few small projects we're going to need to get underway - and to me, that is a welcome sign of spring.   

Here's the link to that post about the villa in Berlin:  http://tinyurl.com/jwylemf

Brewing La Petite Orange

After steeping the specialty grains.

This is a recipe kit I bought last year: it's a Belgian Dubbel style, and I decided to postpone brewing it because it wouldn't be ready until the summer.  With March already here, it seemed that I'd best go ahead and brew it now for a May release, before the full heat of summer is upon us.  Here's the beer's description from the recipe kit:

Back by popular demand! A Belgian Dubbel without the deep dark chocolate maltiness, the Orange is rich with caramel sweetness and a full body that hides the 6.1% ABV very well.  Lueven ale yeast contributes rich esters - cherry, strawberry, lychee fruit, even hints of tropical breezes.  A simple sipper that evokes warm summery memories with every sip, yet fits perfectly into the colder months; standard brewing repertoire.

By now I know my way around the brew kitchen well enough to take some liberties, so I went off recipe for some elements of this one.  First of all, I used a dry ale yeast instead of the Lueven ale yeast suggested - I don't even remember receiving that one in the kit, to be honest.  Goodbye, lychee fruit esters!

Making the coriander/bitter orange tincture.

I also decided to use some bitter orange peel and coriander in the recipe, which suggests this addition at the end of the boil.  That was part one of the approach...also from the recipe:

Brewer's note:  You may wish to add up to 1/2 ounce crushed coriander and the zest of two oranges at flameout for a "La Petite Orange Blanche."

I took this suggestion a step further - I added the "blanche" ingredients, as suggested.  I decided I wanted these flavors to be a little stronger, though, so I also started a tincture with half the ingredients.  I had success with this method before - a Honey Lavender Kolsch from last spring, just check the "Lavender Tincture" label at the end of the post.

Coriander and orange peels floating around.

I'll let those ingredients steep a week or so, then strain them off in the hopes of not being too strong when I add them back at bottling time.

After I finished the boil and gave the beer its ice bath, I moved it into the carboy.  I've upgraded my approach, so I took a hydrometer reading after that.  O.G. is 1.052 at 70 degrees - right on target for the recipe, so fingers crossed this comes out at 6.1%.

I'm planning one week in primary, then two weeks in secondary.  I'll also strain the tincture after the first week, and keep it refrigerated until I am ready to bottle.

Speaking of bottling, I'll be putting up the Cascade IPA soon.  And next on the brew calendar is a repeat of the honey lavender kolsch!

The Pork Diaries: First Ham 2014

The ham (and 1/4 rack of last year's ribs),
just getting started on the Big Unit.

By now, most readers who follow my butchering experiences know that the hog Chris and I shared this year had a name:  Kevin Bacon.  To clarify I should mention that I don't think the origin of the name is the movie star (I'm a fan, by the way) - I think they took the first name from the Disney Pixar film Up!, where it was the momma bird's name, and the second name, of course, came from the breakfast meat.  This weekend, I grilled a first roast from Kevin - actually part of one of the hams.

The first year we did the butchering, I had the entire ham cured.  After it came back from the smokehouse, I broke it down into a couple of large chunks - the hams we get range from 25 to 35 pounds, and it's just Mary and me, so we'll still have leftovers.  However, power in Alexandria being what it is, I lost two of the three ham cuts I'd frozen, and I swore I'd manage the meat differently going forward.

For sauce, I used Jared's competition recipe
to start, but substituted chipotle in the mix
for a portion of the paprika.

I've settled into a routine where I cut the ham into fourths on the band saw in the butchering shed.  I send two off for curing, and take two home to freeze.  This was one of the ones I'd frozen - we're waiting for the hams and bacon to come back from the smokehouse, maybe next weekend.

My plan was to roast the ham on the Big Unit in Alexandria, planning about a 4 hour cooking time at between 275 and 300 degrees.  I had to transfer from the charcoal side to the gas side in order to recharge the coals, so cooking time stretched out to 4.5 hours.  But it finished really well, and I did get some hickory smoke flavor worked into the meat.

To kick it up a notch, I decided to use the competition recipe for sauce that Jared shared with me.  This is a top secret recipe that I cannot reprint due to a promise to him.  But I will note that I substituted chipotle seasoning for a portion of the paprika - adding a little heat - and used the peach preserves at quantities specified.  This is good stuff, if I say so myself.

The finished meal, with chard and yams.

We paired the ham roast with yams and some chard.  Although we didn't finally sit down to eat until 8:30 on a Saturday night, you're looking at one satisfied barbeque chef right here.  Plus, we've got leftovers; I don't usually eat them, but I am looking forward to a couple of meals from this one.

So here's to the first roast off of this year's pig, Kevin Bacon.  Can't wait for the rest of those cuts - ribs, chops, and shoulder...later this summer.

And still to come:  BACON!

Herb and Odessa

Herb, with the puppy Olive.

Mary had a call yesterday afternoon that Herb over on Linden Street passed away.  Herb and his wife Odessa were some of the first neighbors we met in Alexandria’s Rosemont neighborhood, where we live.  When we first moved here in 1998, Mary would see them out every morning as she walked Gracie and Sofie – they were out walking their dog Elmo.

They were an older couple who lived in a single family home down at the end of the block, where they’d moved in the 1960’s.  He was a retired union pipefitter from the rail yards, and she a retired housewife.  They raised a “his-hers-ours” family in that little house where they still lived with Herb’s son Joe, a retarded middle-aged man that Odessa rescued from an institution when he was six – that’s how they handled things back then, but Odessa wouldn’t stand for it.

In the summer, Herb had a big garden in the backyard, a veritable truck patch, and he’d share bushels and bushels of tomatoes, sweet corn, summer squash, cucumbers, peppers, and eggplants with us.  I remember these incredible purple peppers he gave us one year.  He would also go to Lowes and Home Depot and visit the nursery, getting the scrawny passed over and leftover trees for a bargain and nursing them back to health.

Mary kept a watch on Herb and Joe, especially after Odessa passed away a few years ago, and she would bring over a cake when she stopped by every few weeks.  Then Elmo died, and Herb got a new dog, a rescued hound mix he named Olive.  Mary told me about their visits and how happy the dog made Herb.

Mary was planning on one of her visits yesterday, but she had a call from Herb’s daughter that he had passed away earlier in the morning.  Herb has had a couple of fights with cancer, but this time, at 85, he knew the end was near.  He was determined for it not to end at the hospital.

Yesterday morning, Herb’s daughter was visiting.  They’d gathered in the dining room, and he asked her to make some eggs, so she was making breakfast.  He passed in his chair while she was cooking.

Ten years ago, when we moved over to Masonic View Avenue, he gave us a couple of the rescued crepe myrtles he’d gotten back on their feet.  They’re thriving in the backyard now.  I’ll look forward to their blooms this summer and think of him and Odessa.

Here’s to Herb and Odessa.  A wonderful family and good neighbors.  Rest in peace.

Almost Spring, Thoughts Turn to Adventure

Spring is almost here.  By some reckonings, it arrived on March 1, but for me I judge by the crocus blossoms, and they are still a few weeks away.

It's a time of year when I start thinking about recreation in the Shenandoah Valley, using Hawksbill Cabin as a basecamp.  We'll hike up in Shenandoah National Park, maybe do a canoe float on the river...and then, the farmers market in Luray will open and we'll start to grill with fresh vegetables and locally raised meat every weekend.  Add in a relaxing Sunday at Wisteria Vineyards, and you'll have a complete lifestyle statement!

During these last few days of hunkering down waiting for a thaw, my mind also wonders to adventures of the past.  My friend Marilyn discovered this high density video taken in Yosemite National Park - I've been fortunate enough to go three times, counting the Half Dome summit as among my achievements - but I never tire of getting another look at that remarkable landscape:



You can check out my Half Dome hike, and other Yosemite highlights (especially from a business trip there in 2010), from the links below.

The Page County Grown Farm to Schools Program

While the pigs were being raised, from time to time I would visit the farm at Public House Produce and see loads of apples and lettuce that were getting sent over to the Page County school system.  David explained to me that this was part of the Farm to School program, which had a sort of combined mission of improving nutrition for kids at the schools, along with outreach and benefits to local food producers - at least that's how I understood it.  

He also mentioned a video that had gone into production about the program - it's just been released, and I copied a link to it from Facebook here:

http://vimeo.com/87319238

Also, here is part of a note David posted about the video:

"I appreciate all of the compliments about the recent Farm to School video and I would like to say thank you. This has been a very rewarding endeavor and I am very proud to be involved and I look forward to helping expand the F2S program in Page County. I would also like to say that none of this would be possible with out the support of many pepole and organizations. One of the most valuable groups of people who have made this idea work in Page County is the cafeteria staff at all of our schools. With out the additional work and dedication of these employees we would not be where we are to day with our Farm to School efforts. So please take time this week and thank a "lunch lady" for their hard work!"

Berlin Reunion 2014: After Action

These friendships date back to 1982.

My friends and fellow veterans from Berlin, along with their families, held our annual reunion at Blob's Park in Jessup, Maryland this past weekend.  While there was plenty to celebrate with old friends, there was a sad note this year - Blob's has announced that it is closing after all these decades.  We'll have to find a new venue in order to continue our tradition in the future.

Along with all of us locals, who have been able to go to the reunion nearly every year, this year there were at least two out-of-towners - Eric M. was in from New Hampshire, and Tony O. came in from San Diego.  It was also good to see some of the old crowd who hadn't been able to make it to many of the past ones, especially since this was a kind of send off year.

Here's a photo of Eric at the Wall near
Checkpoint Charlie in 1985.

A couple of folks had photos with them to share this year (as in the past, I didn't take many because of the inconsistent quality for the iPhone in the light of Blob's).  I copied these two from Eric's Facebook posts, as a matter of fact - one he took at the event, and second one from Tony's collection that I found to be a poignant reminder of our Cold War experience in Berlin.

Here, Eric is taking a photo of the Wall near Checkpoint Charlie.  A group of guys were out for this walk, including Tony and others - there were a couple of other photos of them at other locations that day, including near the guard shack.  I understand there was an encounter with the border guards, and a close inspection of an AK-47 was provided at one point.

So, another great time, a chance to remember the good times of the past - and now to look forward to where our adventures will take us next year.  It was good to see everyone!

Danger to Personnel (A Mini-bobs Tale)

So, I've mentioned the mini-bobs earlier this week - I thought I might revisit them and tell a little tale of my first discovery of them.

During my time in Berlin, my Air Force friends and I would make an annual trip out to the Harz Mountains.  We'd either stay in the Torfhaus, a small alpine resort in the Harz, or in a town down below called Altenau.  There is a reference to the Torfhaus in a post here:
http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2011/09/brocken-stasi-site-in-harz.html

The first time I joined one of these trips, it was late in the season and the snow was melting off of the little ski slopes up there.  The resort operators turned to icy hill over to kids - and to the 40 or so of us - to sled on, using these rental mini-bobs (they cost about $1 for rental, and in later years, we'd keep them for three days so we could sled at will).

That's where the story begins, on a trip in 1984, when we first stayed down in Altenau.  Before I get to that, let me share the following instructional video about mini-bobs:



After a day of cross country skiing, and visiting the little pubs that dotted the slopes and the town of Altenau, we retired to our rooms at the little Gasthaus.  We'd ordered up a couple cases of the local Altenauer pils, and the proprieter's forethought was to put us in the basement rooms, so our parties would not wake other guests, who were on the top floor.  After a little while, someone had the great idea to break out the mini-bobs for a midnight run - I think it was Guey, Manky, and Gappy, whose actual nicknames are used in this story, since the statute of limitations has long expired.

Off they went, finding an acceptable launch point not too far away, as the story goes.  And the fact that there was a ledge down there, 20 feet or so downhill, which they'd seen in daylight, didn't trouble them at all.  Neither did the stonewalled creek at the foot of the little 60-foot hill - come to think of it, it was very similar to my front yard at Hawksbill Cabin.

So the story goes that Guey went first, yelping as he hit that ledged and launched.  He landed on down below, and they could hear him slide on down the hill out of sight.  Then the sound of another launch, some ice crunching, and silence - followed after a second or two by the plaintive cry of "help!"

This is why, at the end of many sled runs, I will also cry "help" at the finish, in honor of Guey's mishap.  He'd sledded off of the stone wall and down into the creek bed.  After slipping along the ice, at last he broke through, and was partially submerged in the shallow, but cold, creek at the bottom of the hill. This didn't stop hit partners in crime, as they all made a pass or two down the hill, before the Apfelkorn wore off.

Afterwards, they made their way back to the gasthaus, where the party had continued in my room.  When they arrived, they announced their accomplishment, followed by the exclamation "pig pile!" - whereupon they jumped on me, sitting on my little bunk there.  They were covered in snow, and of course, at least one of them was soaked with freezing cold water.

We had a good time, and I took the fun in stride.  However, the next morning after we checked out, we found that there was some damage to the little bed from having the four of us piled up on it.  I'd arranged this trip, and went to the innkeeper to let him know about the little problem - this wasn't the first time we'd had an accident there, and it wouldn't be the last.

I settled up with him for about 200 marks - less than $100, which he said would be the cost of the repair and replacement of the mattress.  We split that between the four of us, a small cost for a great memory.

And that's why, at the end of most mini-bob runs, I will yell "help" at the bottom of the hill.

Mini-bobs, Revisited

So we got these mini-bobs a few years back, when just by chance I saw them for sale at an outdoors store in Clarendon.  Now, I'm sure that the clerks thought, "What the hell is this big dude going to do with those mini-bobs - they're for the kids around here!" And sure enough, they do have some nice sledding hills over there in Arlington.

But what I had in mind was to use them to sled down the front yard at Hawksbill Cabin.  We've had enough snow to use them at least once a winter - but the winter wonderland that greeted us this trip provided the best conditions yet for using them - as seen in the videos.



It took a little bit of work to build the sled run - I mentioned how the snow was frozen and crusty on top, so you'd break through.  That was happening with the little mini-bobs too, and it would bring you to a sudden dead stop after a few lurching attempts to get started.  No fun, in other words.

Eventually, I trudged down the hill in as straight a path as I could make, using small foot steps, and then back up in the track.  After Mary and I both made a pass on this route, we had the makings for a good track.  We sledded a good ten times each the first day, when the video of Mary and Tessie was taken.  Overnight, the cold temperatures set us up for a great second day of sledding, and that is when the video of me was taken.



There is a story that goes with the mini-bobs.  Frequent readers may recall that I discovered these toys when my Air Force buddies and I would go to the Harz Mountains in Germany for winter ski trips, taking a break from all the winter recreation that we had available in Berlin - mainly Guinness curls at the Irish Harp.

I think I will revisit the story of those Harz trips in a post tomorrow.

The Snowshoes

A while back, Chris, Tom, and I took a weekend trip out to Dolly Sods Wilderness in West Virginia for a hike - there's a label for Dolly Sods on the blog, if you'd like to check that trip and hike out.  Later that year, Tom and his wife went back out for a visit during the snow, and they took a walk around the ski resort there using some snowshoes.

That seemed like a good idea to me, and after the Snowpocalypse winter we had (also a label on the blog, if you'd like to check it out) I got Mary and myself a set.  This weekend was the first time we'd had enough snow to break them out, so we took them over to Hawksbill Park in Stanley for a wintry walk with Tessie.

We probably should have know from the difficulty Tess was having getting around in the snow that conditions weren't optimal - the freeze thaw cycle caused some bridging, where there is a hard crust on top and soft snow underneath.  So with each step, you'd crunch through the hard layer down to the soft below, sinking in about a foot, and the snowshoe would catch on the lip as you made your next step.  It made for an awkward and unnatural motion, so we only stuck it out for a quarter mile or so - a nice loop around the little scout cabin, although we had thought we might adventure out onto the half mile nature trail if things went well.

Meanwhile, Tessie was having a great time on the family outing.  I think she got the most out of the weekend, with all the fun she had being with us and romping and exploring everything.

We decided that better conditions will be after a fresh snow, when everything is still powdery and the shoes sink into a soft footprint.  We'll look forward to doing that during some future snow storm.

Mary went out for another short walk in her pair around Beaver Run and back in our wood lot on Monday.  She took the dog with her - Tessie enjoyed every minute of being outside with us this weekend!

Wintry Weekend 2014

We've had snow before, but it had been since 2010 that we had more than a foot on the ground at Hawksbill Cabin.  Our neighbors had warned us about it - even posting a photo of them cross country skiing around their yard.  We were looking forward to seeing everything covered in white, but waiting until Saturday morning to be sure we would drive and arrive in full daylight.

It was a beautiful sight, but the house was cold.  There are always these tradeoffs...we turned up the heat for the rest of the day on Saturday to get the mass of the house warmed.  Once that is done, it will hold heat pretty well (although there's a draft off of the picture windows.

I was looking forward to trying out some of the winter sports gear we've accumulated over the last few years, and I will post about those adventures in the next few days.

For her part, Tessie seemed to enjoy the change, even though the depth of the snow made things difficult for her.  She was a trooper, running around the backyard exploring.

When I took her out for a walk in the wood lot Sunday, I didn't expect that we'd get such a great view across the Jordan Hollow property from our back property line.  It was spectacular though, looking across over the little 10-acre field that borders us, now growing into a second growth forest, and then to the old inn, and off to the western foothills of the Blue Ridge.

You've got to find the balance in the end - we don't get weather quite this intensively every year, more like every 3 or 4 years - it's pretty, and it's fun to get out in...but truth be told, it's cold.  Spring is coming.

Everything but the Oink - 2014 edition

When the pig Kevin Bacon went down, I was surprised that after two years of butchering my own hog, for the first time, I felt a little something for the animal.  I guess handling them a little more this year, compared to the past, meant something extra to me.  I reminded myself that this is why we raised them – and steeled myself for the next one.

Afterwards, Chris and I had a chat about how hard it must be for kids doing 4H and FFA projects with an animal, only to sell them off at the fair, and saying goodbye while knowing what lays in store for the animal you’d worked so hard with.  David’s perspective is much more practical, after nearly a year of raising these animals – on that morning, he says, “all I see is meat.”  That probably leads to a steady hand on the trigger, which is important, and makes this all that much more humane, ironically.

So we hauled the four carcasses over to the butchering shed and quickly got the next step under way – scalding, cleaning off the hair, eviscerating, and then breaking down the carcasses into big cuts.  It was a little frustrating for me that after three years I still can't remember the details of each step - it's good I have a solid partner for my share in Chris.  He cheerfully did a lot of the dirty work during the evisceration, and then pitched in with taking down the halves for the other guys to begin breaking them down.

One of the shares is taken by Jesse and his dad.  Jesse is prepared every year with a fairly detailed plan about what he wants to do, and they motor through the work.  It helps that they have been doing this for 10 years, but he told us he watches a few YouTube videos each year when it gets close to the season – it’s been a good source for things to try, besides the basic processes that are involved.

I resolved to take a little time to do this in preparation next year.  One of Jesse’s techniques was to separate out the shoulder (it’s also called the butt in butchering parlance), and the others followed suit.  I like this continuous improvement aspect of butchering day, and next year will go all the better for it, I’m sure.

By the end of the day, the four or five major cuts are all done – the ham, the loin, the side (where the bacon comes from), the ribs, and the shoulder.  Also, we’ve cut out the parts of the head that are to be saved (we don’t use it all, mainly the tongue and jowls), as well as the organ meat that will be used in the scrapple. 

And that’s where we leave things at the end of the day, with a table full of meat chilling over night.  On day two of the enterprise, which I wrote about on Monday, the first day of this series of post, we proceed with breaking down the big cuts into individual portions that eaters are more likely to recognize – the chops and roasts that I’m going to look forward to cooking throughout the year.

You can follow those posts with the "Pork Diaries" label - I've already got a few of those on the record from the last two years.  I'm particularly looking forward to the day I do the whole rack of ribs I managed to save this time (limitations on our packaging gear has meant cutting the whole rack down to two halves in the past).

To conclude these "Butchering 2014" posts - maybe somewhere along the way my motivation was to be a more sustainable eater, as @andrewzimmern says.  But there's also a good share of friendship and camaraderie that makes this event special - and that's what keeps me coming back.

Call Me a Sustainable Eater - Butchering 2014

This year is the third year that I have taken part in butchering at the little red roofed shack down near the Shenandoah River.  I’m pretty comfortable with the whole process by now, but 5am Friday still rolls around early, and no matter how you slice it, it’s cold out there on the pasture when we go to get the pigs.

The first year I blogged about the experience, I generally wouldn’t even post photos of the action, out of some sense I had that I could respect the animals that way.

I've changed my opinion about this, so this year I will include some of the milder images, especially after seeing a recent series of posts by Andrew Zimmern (Twitter handle @andrewzimmern)  – and recalled seeing an image of a beef carcass strung up for butchering.  

He gets complaints about some of those images.  I saw one where he responded recently with the comment, “Connecting to our food sources makes us more sustainable eaters.  Shocking to some, necessary for all.”

Shortly after, when there was continued discourse about how gross it was to see the process play out, a reader wrote the following in support of his post:  “That’s exactly why he posted.  It challenges us to face reality and to appreciate – to be humbled – by the animal we consume.”

Ironically, this was my justification for not posting the photos the first two years.  The thing is, I know that these animals have a good life as they are prepared for us.  They're taken care of, ranging out in their pasture; and they even have a relationship with the other animals on the farm - not to mention the humans that come and go.  I think this was the first time all four of them actually were given names (although that's not recommended!)

When I say that we have a relationship with them, I want to be clear - we don't climb in the little shed with them and hug them.  Leave that to Joel Salatin...but this year even I had the chance to do a couple of ad hoc chores with them (for the record, I know I'm not much help when the rubber hits the road) – I wrote about “wrangling” them from the barnyard out to pasture back in October, here:

http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/search/label/Pig%20Wranglin%27

Back then, they were four little piglets that weighed no more than 50 pounds each.  When we harvested them last Friday, even the lightest – the runt that the farm hands had named Kevin Bacon – topped out at around an estimated 300 pounds, and the largest was probably above 350.  

Turns out that Kevin was the first to go down, and it was quick and painless.  She took a single shot and went stone dead, to start the process.  Over the course of the next half hour or so, her three siblings followed, and then we load them up to take them over to the red-roofed butchering shed, just outside of Luray.

It's about Kevin Bacon, Isn't It?

Some beautiful pork chops and t-bones.

On Saturday morning, Chris and I arrived at the butchering shed to find second day activities under way.  Truth be told, we had dilly-dallied along the way, since I had told him to stop off at the Fairview Market for some donuts, so we brought along two dozen to make up for getting there at 9am instead of the agreed upon 8:30.  David’s dad was working the band saw to make some pork chops – and David had already broken down both of his loin cuts into chops.

After the customary greetings, Chris and I began to organize ourselves for the second day’s activities, which are comprised of breaking down the large cuts from day one into sausage, chops and roasts, and then packing them up for storage.  Meanwhile, I took a couple of photos, enjoyed a couple of the donuts, and well, in the vernacular of the butchering shed, shot the shit.  The photos accompanying the post are of those beautiful pork chops and t-bones that David had already cut down, and of his parents at the band saw cutting down their pork loins into chops.

Working the band saw to make chops and roasts.

I texted Mary the photo of David’s pork chops.  We ended up having a fairly lengthy exchange over them, as follows:

Mary:  Lotta chops!

Me:  I cut ours a little thicker this year.  We got 14 chops total, and two loin roasts.

Me:  I packed the sausage in half pound packs, half the size of last year.  So there are more packs, and we won’t have leftovers to deal with when we have them for breakfast.

Mary:  I just pulled the last pack of chops from last year to make for dinner tonight.  Also, saw a pack of breakfast sausage, two packs of ribs, and a ham roast.  There are some other packs, I’m not sure of what.

Mary:  All in the kitchen freezer.  The basement is pretty much empy, except for your hops, some pie shells, and two small tubs of scrapple.

Me:  We’ll slow cook those ribs.  I kept an amazing whole rack this time!

Me:  Also, we got Kevin Bacon!

Mary:  Oh great.

Mary:  I really didn’t want to know the pig.

Me:  To be honest, I choked up a little when she went down.

Mary:  TMI.

The 2014 bunch - that's Kevin with the white band around
her shoulders.

The Cascade American Ale

Last fall I bought a one gallon kit from Northern Brewer called Chinook IPA - it was a single-hop brew that came out pretty tasty.  The only problems were that it was a one gallon batch, so there wasn't much of it; also the Northern Brewer solution for carbonation in small batch is "fizz tabs" - capsules of corn sugar solution you apply directly to the bottle - this didn't yield a consistent result for me.

Still, the tasty beer made me want to experiment some more, especially with this single hop approach. I had some locally grown Cascade hops from my Luray neighbor Bill that I wanted to use, so I made a plan to adapt the extract recipe from "Chinook IPA" to "Cascade American Ale."  I brewed that on Sunday before the Super Bowl.

This particular batch is also the first time I used the BeerSmith software, which neighbor Dan had recommended.  I put my ingredient list in the software and it did some basic calculations for me, including expected ABV, and more importantly for an ale, the IBUs.

After inventorying the leaf Cascade, I found I had 3 ounces of the local ones - when I did the IBU calculation, the result was less than you want for this variety of beer.  I found two packs of Hop Union northwestern Cascade pellets, so I added those.  I got the IBU up to 55, where the threshold for ale styles is 50.

The expected ABV is around 5.4%, we'll see what we get when I bottle in about three weeks.  Meanwhile, the O.G., shown being measured in the second photo, was 1.050 at 74 degrees.



 

Super Sunday, Border Collie Style

We decided to stay in Alexandria for the weekend - next weekend is butchering day, so I will be out for three days.  Just seemed like a good reason to chill and not drive.

So Tessie got in the game by climbing up into the bed while we were downstairs.  She was very relaxed when Mary went back up to make the bed.

As I posted elsewhere:

Some border collies work for a living.
Some border collies just work it for a living.