Wine Making & a Walk in the Woods

On Saturday I met with Emily and Jason at a brewing shop near DC. Emily was wanting to start brewing beer and I wanted to resume my wine making, something I had done a lot of in England. I could pretty much make wine out of anything back then, with usually around 10 gallons bubbling away at one time in various parts of the house, and had once competed against a pub landlord to see who could produce the best Elderberry wine. The pub locals were given samples and mine won. I'm not sure if I'll be able to find elderberries here but I can make many of my old wines here quite easily so I needed to stock up on the equipment and chemicals.

With our purchases from the shop and a trip to Lowes, we had everything we needed to start and so planned a tasting session closer to Christmas. I'm going to kick off with a pear wine, a feisty fermenter which will keep me on my toes in the early stages but which should produce a pleasant dry wine within a month. 

Very pleased with our purchases we then went to a local park for a hike. It actually turned out to be a casual stroll as we were too busy chatting and taking photos to concentrate on striding through the miles. But the lighting was wonderful and the fall colors vibrant so we enjoyed our 'hike' through the woods.

It didn't take too long before the tummies were grumbling and thoughts turned to beer and food, and God Bless Jason and his Cotton Socks, he'd only gone and brought supplies with him. He had beers as well as crackers with slices of cheese already on them. We enjoyed our heavenly snack leaning up against the cars and smiled through the scowls of a woman walking her dog past us. A neighbor came over to talk or rather moan loudly about his beaver problems. They were chomping through his trees and he meant to deal with the issue immediately, and so we were rather amused when he returned about 30 minutes later loaded with bags. This ex sniper from Vietnam had bought a paintball machine, trip lighting and a fog horn. He planned on sitting in his darkened lounge and waiting for his victims to arrive. I rather thought there might be some arm to arm combat that might be worth us hanging around to watch but Meadow House and Kota were calling so as dusk fell we said our goodbyes until the next day. As another adventure beckoned...