When life give you malt...

We have been settling deep, deep into life in central Pennsylvania. It's a wonderful part of the country, with friendly neighbors, safe streets, and sheep farms. Sometimes it can be hard to come up with things to do, especially when winter comes and it just hurts the face to be outside for too long. So a couple of weeks ago, we made beer. I've cooked bread, meatballs, sausage, lasagna, and even crawfish etouffee, but this was a new recipe to me. Fortunately I had the expert help of my son R., who was willing to pitch in as long as he got to taste the result.
Brewing required a vessel big enough to handle five gallons. The only one we had that fit the bill was the aluminum pot that we use to fry turkeys.

We mixed in hops, malt, honey, bitters, and heather blossoms.

The yard and kitchen literally smelled like a brewery. After settling the sticky thick wort that resulted into a glass carboy that looked like the water bottle on top of a bubbler, we added the yeast and tucked it away to ferment. For three weeks, it bubbled away in the bottom of a closet behind the laundry.

Last weekend, we used a siphon to rack it out of this fermentation chamber, and bottle it up with a fun capping device.

So long as most of the bottles survive without exploding, we should have a tasty liquid treat to try in a couple of weeks. It may be premature to report since the beer hasn't had the proper time to mature, but the sneak sample we took while bottling had the perfume and taste of our fraternity basement.

A friend asked me yesterday if I was going to write another book. I was happy to reply that my life was comfortably quiet and safe now, and I had no need to write anything. It has been a long awaited bit of happy news to have the troops home from Iraq. Now when I speak about the hospital in Balad, I can say when we WERE at war in Iraq. Hopefully it will be the same soon with Afghanistan.

Floodwaters receeding in Central Pennsylvania

It was just like old times last night: I spent the night in the hospital and it brought back plenty of memories from years and years of residency. Hospital graham crackers and peanut butter taste the same as they always did.
We have had several days of flood here in central Pennsylvania. Tropical Storm Lee sat over western Pennsylvania, spinning a continuous band of rain over the Susquehanna Valley. Wednesday school closed early because route 642 was going to be underwater soon and the buses wouldn't be able to get the children home. Our friend picked up the boys and took a detour home over Bald Top Mountain before that route closed too. Mahoning Creek rose to a wild muddy torrent and crested the railroad bridge at routes 11 and 54. State officials and townspeople gathered together to fill sandbags to block route 11 and keep the creek from flooding the center of town where the levee ends.

Here is a song and video by Van Wagner, a bluegrass musician here in Danville:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=jxtRR-8mH8M



Downtown, street after street was coned off as the low crossings filled with water. Church St., Pine St., Ferry St., and even the main route Mill St. got too deep for cars to make it through. A canal runs through Danville where goods used to be floated to the railroad when there used to be factories here. The canal had crested its banks and was tearing away at the pavement on Ferry St. by the hardware store and beer distributor.

Part of the reason I am so well nestled into town is that I only have a mile commute to the hospital. That commute does involve crossing the Susquehanna River via the Riverside bridge. Yesterday the river hit the bottom of the bridge and there were rumors it might soon be submerged. I checked in with the incident command center at the hospital and decided to stay overnight just in case my route to the hospital went down.

Fortunately, it was a quiet night, and by morning the river had crested just under 32 feet. It was a close second to the record from Hurricane Agnes in 1972 and beat the previous second place from 1904. But the bridge was still open, so when my partner made it to the hospital, I headed back home for a shower. It was so sad to see all the houses along the river with water lapping at their first story windows. We were fortunate to only have a few inches in the basement which we kept at bay with a sump pump. It was a warm sunny day and it seemed the whole town was out, walking, pumping water, and dragging soggy belongings out of basements. I hope our neighbors displaced by the flood are back in their homes soon.

Requesting help for a Hatian doctor

Last October, I visited Haiti for a two week medical mission. We were able to see over a thousand patient and performed over fifty operations. I got to meet Dr. Yvens Cassamajor, a Hatian doctor in training who was completing a rotating internship througout the country. Yvens contacted me to tell me about a project he is starting for people living with HIV in the city of Cap-Hatien. He is in need of funds to support his research. Please consider assisting him in this venture. Donations can be made on this site:

http://www.giveforward.com/oihaiti

Thank you for any help you can give, and please consider passing this post along to others.

Chris Coppola