plums, apricots, and berries = homebrews

Today we hit the motherload.  We stumbled upon what felt like an orchard filled with apricot trees, apples, plums of all colors, apples, elderberry (but only the flowers were ready, the fruits, when we found them weren’t quite black), service berry, and what I think was mulberry.  We also found blackberry bushes galore, which for the first time this trip were filled with ripe fruit.  I already made an elderberry flower cordial, soaking the flowers in everclear and water (basically vodka, but don’t say that to the Russians).  Andre isn’t in love, but maybe now that I’ve sweetened it in the honey jar he’ll like it more.  I think it’s pretty tasty, and most of all the color is a lovely golden green tint. 

He built a fire so I could start working on the sagebrush beer while I harvested dandelion greens for dinner. I think I’ll toss a few in the beer, too.  It makes a nice bitter, hops-like substitute, without the depressive effects of hops.  I heard that we can thank the catholic church for hops being ubiquitous in beer.  Once they prohibited alcohol production at home, and started doling out the booze themselves, they started adding hops to all of their brews.  Hops has known depressive effects, both psychologically and physically, perhaps most noticeable in sexual situations.  None of my brews have hops, just for the simple reason that I haven’t found it in nature, although I was given an opportunity to forage it from a friend’s garden but didn’t.  Dandelion does quite nicely.  Making beer on the fire is going to be a challenge, and lugging it around in Butter for the next two weeks might prove to be a real pain… we’ll see.

The threat of a storm came as Andre and I were biking through the neighborhood.  We spent the day trying to identify and learn the plants that live here in the high alpine forest of northern Idaho.  I managed to feel certain about 3 new ones—globe penstemon, fleeceflower, arrowleaf groundsel.  None of them edible, although the seeds of the fleeceflower were said to be ground into flower and used by the Pez Nerce tribe, and the roots were boiled.  We didn’t try them, but perhaps we will.  In the meantime, I'll finish up an elderberry flower wine, the sagebrush and dandelion beer, and some plum moonshine... good trades for future encounters with humanity, not to mention yummy treats for us!