Robin's blog

"The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore we’ve learned most of what we know. Recently, we’ve waded a little way out, maybe ankle-deep, and the water seems inviting. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can’t, because the cosmos is also within us. We’re "made" of star stuff. We are a way that the cosmos can know itself. The journey for each of us begins here. We’re going to explore the cosmos in a ship of the imagination, unfettered by ordinary limits on speed and size, drawn by the music of cosmic harmonies. It can take us anywhere in space and time. Perfect as a snowflake, organic as a dandelion seed, it will carry us to worlds of dreams and worlds of facts. Come with me."

Happy Anniversary to us! Many of you witnessed our wedding two years ago in our backyard. The trees you gave us as wedding gifts are very tall now. Where the dance floor was, there is now a cottage garden with fruit trees and wildflowers.

When will we be able to legally wed? Things are looking good in the California courts but bad everywhere else. The Attorney General has appealed the recent ruling that denying marriage licenses based on sex is unconstitutional. The Religious Freedam and Defense of Civil Marriage Act (which would have allowed us to marry legally) was defeated by 1 vote in the California Assembly.

Last Sunday we planted table grapes, kiwi, a blueberry (to replace one that had died), artichokes, collards, and leeks. We planted these in our cottage garden (between our office and our well house), which we had covered with cardboard and composted horse manure in the fall. The soil is now delightful to work with. Simply stick the garden fork right through the wet cardboard and turn over beautiful soil.

Today we bought lots of seeds to plant perennials and self-seeding annuals in the cottage garden. We'll start the seeds indoors and put them out in 6 weeks or so. We're also looking forward

On January 12, we said goodbye to this year's pigs. We'll get four big boxes of pork and so will Jessie. We let the pigs get much bigger this year than last time. They were over 200 pounds each.

Because it is rainy season, we had to have the slaughter in the front yard. The ground is too wet to drive a truck into the back. Martin did the butchering again, then took them over to Bud's Meats for cutting, smoking and wrapping.

We got the pink pig on August 29 or thereabouts. We got the black pig a few weeks later. Then Jessie brought over some other pigs, but he sold or traded these within a few weeks. My best guess is that our pigs were about 6 months old when we had them slaughtered.

We love our backyard. Some people wouldn’t like having a large portion of their property under water all winter, but we like it. Scout likes it, too. Look at her run.

Ingredients for 5 gallons:

9 lbs Amber plain malt extract syrup
1/2 lb Chocolate malt
1.75 oz Vanguard hops
1/2 oz Hallertauer hops (finishing)
German lager-type yeast
1.25 cup dried malt extract (for bottling)

I put about 2 gallons of water in the pot, which was a bit too much to deal with. I heated the water to 160, then kept it at about that temperature for 30 minutes, steeping the crushed chocolate malt. After 30 minutes, we strained out the grains, added the malt extract and hops and boiled for 45 minutes. Then we added the finishing hops and boiled for 15 minutes longer.

The tricky part was getting the finished wort into the bucket (that already had 2 gallons of water in it). The strainer was not as stable with the bucket as in the carboy. The pot was very full, so it was difficult to handle. We ended up spilling quite a bit. What a mess! I hope Bo managed to get it all up, or the floor will be very sticky tomorrow.