Hiya, Presmudjo. The grasshoppers you've been cutting in two are called Lubbers. Keep on a-cuttin'! Slugs & snails are attracted to beer, but I think if you feed your plants with it, you could also put a few saucers of it nearby. The slugs and snails think you're throwing them a major frat party, and they crawl into the saucers & drown in the beer. That is usually a good thing if you are troubled by them. The can be very destructive. I would try feeding the beer to the plants and then watching for the slugs early in the AM. If you see their shiny trails around on the concrete or actually see the critters & their damage, then you could try the saucer trick to trap them. Huh? I rambled on so much I confused MYSELF! Does any of that make sense to ya? Marcia

I used warm water with dish washing liquid and a brush and was able to wash away decades of dirt successfully. I modified a couple nails to attach one of the loose bands. The nails were modified to match the originals. I used 6" pine to make the base and I used some things around the shop to 'distress' the wood. I think I may try to make the base a bit darker. I'm working on buying a 'Country Club' tap handle. Country Club was a Goetz beer. If I can buy it, I'll rig up a simple looking tap to attach to the keg. I know that's not authentic but I haven't found much info on the keg anyway other than it is a 7 3/4 gallon keg and figured the tap handle will add to my display. I talked to the author of a book on Kansas City/St Joseph area beers and he had little additional information other than the size. What you can't see on the other end of the keg is that it has a hole drilled in it for a tap. I'm not really a breweriana collector but I thought this old beer keg makes a nice additional to my man cave!

OMM Thanks so much for taking the time to post this recipe. It sounds really refreshing. The plastic bottles are an excellent idea. I'm going to try a batch as soon as I can get to the brew shop and get some beer yeast.

The bloom of your lovely white 'rescue rose' also looks to me like Lamarque, with those subtle lemony undertones, but I can't recall what the foliage should be like. I'm glad one of your cuttings rooted and appears to be doing beautifully. I also like that style of rhododendron very much, it looks so nice and natural growing there in the dappled sunlight. I often prefer more modest, closer to wild looking plants to their 'improved' modern hybrids. Sometimes less is more. I don't know whether I should tell this silly story, but once upon a time, my ex and I were driving down to Cornwall (SW England) with his parents, who were over from Australia. We had fun pointing out the various beauty spots and landmarks to them, and they were suitably excited by everything. As we got further south on this particular trip, enormous rhododendrons began to appear by the roadside, and I turned excitedly to my mother-in-law and said 'Oh, look Ruth, ----' ; my mind went a total blank for the name, and out of my mouth came a new word, 'Glub-Glubs!!' Everyone fell about laughing of course, and ever since, rhododendrons were Glub-Glubs in my ex family...