Well, 12 years ago when I bought this place, I put in a planting of crop in the field.
It failed…next year I tried again, it failed to establish…the following year I figured
out the problem and that was the soil had so much sand content, that the seed
soil contact needed to grow a crop, mandated packing of the soil on the seeds.
Finally I got the thing established. I put in Red Clover, White Clover, timothy hay
and a little volunteer alfalfa showed up…the surrounding Russian Olive trees bloomed,
and I had Thousands of little winged workers living in a 3 story white furnished dwelling.
These little workers would travel from flower to flower polinating and sipping nectar
carrying it back to the dwelling to process and store it in the form of Honey and other
goodies.
That fall, I went to the dwelling and tore the roof off and stole a bunch of that honey
from all those pissed off little guys…yeah, they did get some licks in on me…and I cannot
say without a doubt that no bee was harmed in the process…but hey this relationship
has been going on with mankind and bees for a long long time.
Anyhow, I made a few batches of Mead with this honey from the bees I kept and one of
them was niwots vanilla mead recipe, (we sampled this on christmas it has gotten better with age).
The other batch is a Sparkling Mead and the last time I sampled it several years ago, it was
very similiar to champagne. I believe that I used Eau De Vie for the yeast strain.
Well, Tonight being what it is, New Years Eve and all, I
Plan to sample a 10 year Old Bottle of this sparkled mead for posterity. It has been cellared
in the root cellar all this time. Looking in thru the green glass, it appears the angels have
gotten about 1/8" share out of the bottle. I am hoping it is still pressured up and bubbly for
enjoyment this evening. (this has been a start to finish project so to speak and I can’t believe
that I have held out here in BFE whyo this long)
Happy New Years everyone! CHEERS
