Hops, Beer and Sleep

In the cool of the spring one of the first shoots to rise up from the ground around here is the Cascade Hop Vine. It can quite literally grow up to one foot each day! Within a couple of weeks the tendrils have reached over the top of the arbor it will branch out and settle onto.
As the days go by it continues to crawl over the top of the arbor and gate.........
Once it reaches the end of the arbor, the fingery vines flop down over the edges and twine around anything in their path.......
By early summer the vine has pretty much reached its full growth, and makes a lovely covering over the gate into the vegetable garden.....
The energy of the plant then goes into making flowers, which become the hops.....

Sometime around the end of August or beginning of September it is time to harvest the hops.....
They cover the top of the vines, hang down underneath the vines, and are plentiful for the pickin'!
My friend Andra happened by on her way home from work the day I was harvesting the hops. So guess what..... I put her to work, too :-) She joined in with a big smile, and the work went quickly.....
We had fine conversation as we dropped the green gems into our buckets.....
.....then poured them into the waiting box.

Sometimes I dry them and store them so I can make things with them, such as stuffing little pillows. Hops have something in them that makes you sleepy.
This year the hops went to a friend of Bethany who makes his own beer. Hops are the main ingredient for beer. Today I cut down the dying vines.....
When you can see the garden gate and arbor again, it is a big sign around here that fall has begun in earnest.....

But now in September the garden has cooled, and with it my possessiveness. The sun warms my back instead of beating on my head ... The harvest has dwindled, and I have grown apart from the intense midsummer relationship that brought it on. ~ Robert Finch