Letters to you

This weekend keyake visited the area to see people and help with the next 14-gallon batch of Catnip Damiana mead. On friday we bottled the Apple Cyzer that we had made last year. Of course we had to sample it, and had an interesting evening exploring memories with rialian and aekiy.

On Saturday we trooped to the land of faerie (otherwise known as Ellicott City) to go elfing with dancinglights, machineofdoom, podisodd, rialian, and kyrin7. First we stopped at the gateway to faerie coffee shop to eat, and then we went to a very dangerous store, wherein lurk the purveyors of sparkly things and magical boxes and peacock cloaks and faerie dolls. We bought a fine lot of magical items, some to distribute and some to keep. Then we went back to dancinglights and podisodd's house to chill for a bit, then it was back out to gather ingredients for the mead we planned to make on Sunday, then back to the house to chill for the evening. Much good conversation and energetic shifting ensued for the evening.

Some time during the weekend, some kind of unspecified evil was done. It is not yet complete, so I shall not speak of it yet. I'm looking at the results so far, and it is most glorious, as all evil worth anything should be...

Sunday, keyake and I went back to the Evil Store and picked up some more things that we had resisted the day before. Resistance was futile, we knew. The Quest was completed successfully, but not before a price was exacted to the land of faerie... keyake's boot decided to come apart just as we arrived at the destination. Thus reimbursed, the faerie store yielded up its wondrous treasures. Yes, kyrin7, I now have one more creepy doll... with WINGS. Boowahahaha!!1

rialian is giving a meadmaking workshop at The World Tree this Saturday for anyone who's interested.

World Tree contact and location information is:

http://www.theworldtreeonline.com
doug@theworldtreeonline.com
240-683-6081
416 Main Street, Gaithersburg, MD 20878

We had been planning to make mead for some time - We brought some damiana and honey to WtT6 to charge it up for the next batch of mead (the batch we had this year had turned out wonderfully).

We didn't know exactly when we were going to brew the next batch - only that we were going to do that at some point. Then a couple of days ago we made plans to get together with a friend with whom we'd been in contact for a while, and it occurred to us that it was Solstice, and we were having a friend over, and, well, it was time.

Although we had last years carboy, it needed cleaning and we had no bottle brush - and there were other supplies we were lacking as well. The next day we spent just about all day rounding up supplies - First we went to Maryland Homebrew to buy bottle brushes, additional honey, yeast, and ... a new carboy. We didn't exactly need a new one, but then we saw it. A 16-gallon carboy of roundness - a giant glass onion... Which is now in the middle of the kitchen floor, full of mead.

On our way back, we took a few detours, including a wonderful antiquarian bookstore, Basset Books, near Columbia, Maryland, where I picked up a book called "Forest Ownership for Pleasure and Profit". Be afraid - this book is going to teach me how to buy a tract of land and plant just the right kind of trees on it so that the state will pay me to own it as a reforestration project... We stopped at home to unload the carfull of supplies, and then out again to Benjarong Thai restaurant to eat, followed by a stop at Ten Ren, our neighborhood's best purveyor of Bubble Tea (which I affectionately call eyeball tea). Finally, we went to The Walnut Tree metaphysical bookstore to get more damiana - the 16-gallon was going to require extra. It was just twilight when we got home and started brewing.

I should probably note that the day of gathering supplies was inadvertently preceded by three days of intensive house cleaning, magical house realignment and energetic clearing, ward resetting, incense, votives, and smudging, and rialian's hearthfire magic. This happened in the three days before embarking on the Quest for Mead Supplies, but it was not done in preparation for mead (at least not that we knew about) - it had just felt right. Looking back, it was no doubt related...

So by the time we got home at dusk, the house was pretty much zinging and ready.

Then began a long night of brewing, which wasn't really finished until dawn. We had to brew in two installments because the carboy is so large - in between batches we had to let it cool off. While we were waiting, we took the opportunity to sample some of last years' wares, and exchanged stories of the events of the past several years, sang songs, played MP3 collections, and generally acted silly. It was a very fun time.

Long after our friend had departed for home, and I had retreated to dreamland, rialian stayed with the brewing until it was completed at Dawn...