Long nights and Zymurgy

    I am sitting here writing this newest blog and listening to the sound of mixed precipitation falling on the roof. It's been almost three full weeks since I returned to work full time and the shortness of the days has really impeded progress on the farm. Ethan and I managed to string one course of hardware cloth around the bottom of the chicken run and I hope to do another course this weekend. I have managed to turn the top layer of the compost over and the only thing left standing in the garden plots is the spent raspberry canes. The light of day has become a very precious thing and I am trying to squeeze every bit of production out of those short sunlit hours. Last weekend I sacrificed some production on the farm to break a three year hiatus of brewing with my brother. We made three different styles of stout and as we boiled wort run off from grain and added hops I remembered how much I love zymurgy. Zymurgy is the study of the process of fermentation and it can be as  simple or complex as the brewer makes it. I love the whole brewing process, the smell of sugars being washed from freshly milled grains, the aroma of hops as they are poured into the brew kettle and the challenge of the boil as we attempt to arrive at our desired specific gravity. Last weekend was successful on many levels and although we were a bit rusty we quickly knocked off the cobwebs and had a very good brew session. Monks often used the dark and long days of winter to create some of the world's best known beer styles and it felt as if we were once again following in some very old footsteps.
     Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and even though I'm not working the day will be spent with family and friends instead of working on the farm. There is a part of me which feels like I'm squandering the daylight hours but I have reminded myself that this is a day for celebrating what we've been blessed with and giving thanks for and sharing those blessings. There are farm chores that will need to be done but those are easy tasks and won't take much time. I have been leaving lights on over the rabbit hutches to simulate summer daylight so the does will be more inclined to mate with our buck. In an attempt to defy the long nights of the season tomorrow I'll breed the first of the does and the remaining does will be bred this weekend. Hanging hardware cloth and breeding rabbits will be almost all that's done on the farm this week but there will be one more thing to do. Once again zymurgy is involved and I'll have Kathy pick up five gallons of late season cider from Woodstock Orchards; I may be partial to this orchard since I worked there years ago. I'm a true New Englander and in the typical style of our region I won't be making typical hard cider but New England style hard cider. We have to deal with cold winters here in the northeast so we like to have a bit more warmth to our cider. I'll be adding five pounds of brown sugar to the cider which will add, in typical New England style, about four to five percent more alcohol to the cider. There probably won't be much more that I can accomplish this weekend.
     I've spent a great deal of time reading about the lifestyle of farms of yesterday and we have been modeling our farm to match those times. Kathy and I believe that this simpler lifestyle is a more healthy one, both physically and mentally. Today's farms are places of constant, even frantic places of busyness with little consideration for the animals, land or people that live and work on them. The short days and long nights have been supplanted by electric lights, crazy fertilizing practices and round the clock agriculture. Tractors with lights allow for all night harvesting and intensive breeding and growing practices sacrifice quality for quantity. When I look at our twenty-four hour, seven day a week culture and see how quickly appreciation for the slower, smaller things of life are lost I find that I'm happy with some long nights mixed with a bit of zymurgy.