The photo above is that of our Cascade Hops which were recently harvested all by hand.  What a beautiful site to behold!  For those of you who are unfamiliar with hops, they are little tiny pine cone looking clusters that add the flavor to beer making.  Besides being used as a bittering agent in beer, there are many other uses for hops.  I don’t want to bore anyone, but if you are interested just google hops and their many uses and health benefits.  We do use hops on our bees to keep them healthy in a product called Hopguard.  This whole hop business is a project that Fred and our son- in-law Peter are taking on between them. 

Since this was the first year we planted the hops, we were pleasantly surprised to get even this small harvest of 15 some odd pounds.  Our next project will be digging in rural electric utility poles  and stringing wire for the hops to crawl up next year.  We have 1200 hops planted now and are planning on planting more next spring.

Check back later and I will be updating with more of our end of Summer projects that are keeping us very busy.  The hops harvest actually took place early last week!