The kids are out in the yard. I hear shrieks of delight as they watch my uncle drop a limb with the pole saw. They trail behind as he drags it to the fire pit. My mom follows. Iām brewing in the side yard. My friend Drew is here with his son, Alex. Itās a warm Saturday in October, and the leaves crunch beneath our feet.
This is almost everything I dreamed of when I thought about home.
Drew and I spend the afternoon dumping hops into hot wort, running hoses, lifting gallons of water. Our kids mirror us in their own way, climbing rock piles, taking turns driving a tiny pickup, setting off on expeditions out back. I overhear them debate where poop and pee come from, whether skeletons are scary, what they remember about holidays.
Augie calls Alex his best friend. Theyāre just a few months apart and go to the same day care.
Drew asks what Iād have done without his help. I joke that I couldāve managed with the new pump, though thatās a dodge. It means the world that he drove down to spend the day, though Iāll keep pretending it was about the beer.
When the brew is done and the gearās packed away, we walk to the orchard. I grab the dead Dabinett by its thin trunk and it snaps at the base. The boys take turns swinging it like a rapier.
Alex asks if he can take it home. I canāt bear to part with it yet.
Later on, I send a text to my mom: Thanks again for watching Augie yesterday and today and for keeping an eye on both kiddos earlier. I know they can be a handful.
My momās response: Augie is no trouble, heās a hoot! Those 2 played so hard and their questions and memories of Thanksgiving just make my day!!! I enjoyed our two days! Iām glad you got to make some beer and Drew was able to make it down, the yard needs little feet running thru it!!!!!
Little feet out in the yard. Thatāll be the name of the beer.
The kettle cools. The day exhales and I feel the temperature start to drop.
I just finished reading āSeed to Dustā by Marc Hamer ā a gardenerās view of a year, both literal and metaphorical. A few passages stop me cold. This one most of all:
The autumn equinox is a time of change ā a time when old things end and new things begin. In the garden the living and the dead both exist at the same time, side by side. In all their stages, seed and flower and dust, there is decay and birth; it is neither today nor tomorrow, and it is both.
There will be no apples to pick this autumn. No grapes to ferment, no hops to pluck from bines, no wildflowers to watch fade to brown. Only the sweet decay of the compost smoldering in the side yard, and roots pushing deeper in the dark. Still, we seize our own harvest from this year of loss and longing, a quieter one made of healing and perspective.
Some harvests are not so easily shared.
The only people who want to talk about dead parents are people who have dead parents. The only people I want to talk to about dead parents are the ones who donāt. I want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them and scream at them to take the extra trip, stay another hour, suffer the awkward moments. Your time is less than you think.
Sometimes I wonder if life is a process of collecting grief. If grief is love enduring, then maybe itās an honor to fill your pockets with it, like a child scouring the creek for smooth stones, some dull, some shining. You carry them until the weight feels unbearable, and then you build the strength to bear it.
The soil on Humphrey Road is full of rocks, but mostly clay, and I work to shape it.
As I dig and lift and mix in richer dirt, I think of potters spinning clay on a wheel. I wonder whose job is harder. Maybe the harder work is learning to keep your hands steady.
Iāve been trying to celebrate being present. Playing trains with Augie after tough days at work, reading him books before bed, talking with Keeley before we turn on the TV, sitting with my mom on the porch over a couple of drinks. It adds up.
Curiosity helps. A little knowledge and a few new words make the world a lot more interesting. The digital world has dulled our sense of time and place, our connection to nature. But a tree is not just a tree. Each one is different, and thereās a lot to notice if you know what to look for.
One warm day early in the fall, Keeley and I took Augie to the playground. The closer parking spots were full, so we had to hoof it a bit. I gazed up at the canopy, naming what I could.
Sugar maple. Sugar maple. Elm. Sugar maple. And, ah, a red oak. I can tell itās red, not white, because its leaves end in points instead of rounded curves.
We played for 45 minutes. Augie went down one slide so fast that he landed hard on his bottom, then laughed so hard he couldnāt stand back up. On the way back to the car, we slowed down to enjoy the crunch of dead leaves underfoot.
I love the autumn for the same reason Iām drawn to brewing with New York ingredients: Deadlines and limitations give life meaning.
Keeley recently made me get my own library card. I read faster when thereās a due date. I love local produce because itās fleeting. I know it will go bad if I let it sit.
The spoiling is the point. Permanence is a poison. We love because we know someday we wonāt be able to anymore.
The kids are out in the yard. The beer begins to ferment in the garage. Itās autumn, and decay is everywhere. The leaves crunch under their feet. Ghosts and ghouls hang from the arbor. The annual browning has begun.
But across the road, the neighborās apple tree glows with reddened fruit. All the others are pulling sugars from their leaves into their roots ā the fall colors are the visible trace of that movement. The soil is alive with fungal threads digesting fallen leaves, turning death into next yearās life.
I dump the dayās brewing leftovers into the composter and give it a stir. Spent grain mingles with rotten onions, half-eaten apples and a million granules of coffee. It looks like death. Itās teeming with life.
The kids are out in the yard. I watch as they pick up leaves and throw them, laughing.
The beer
Ingredients
- 70% USDA organic pilsner malt from Niagara Malt (Lockport)
- 15% brewerās wheat flakes from New York Craft Malt (Batavia)
- 15% spelt malt from Hudson Valley Malt (Germantown)
- Crystal hops from Upstate Hops (Shortsville): 8 IBUs total across 20-minute, 10-minute, whirlpool and dry-hop additions
- Sterling hops (Yakima Valley, Washington): 22 IBUs
- Niagara County water
- Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardennes yeast
Details
- Farmhouse-style ale
- Estimated 4ā4.5% ABV
- 30 IBUs
- 3.4 SRM
- Expected to be ready around Nov. 20