Patterdale Hall steward Chris Wyatt stands proudly with a pint of Wyatt's Eviction — an English ale named after the man himself — at Yellow Springs Brewery. (Submitted photo by Elliot Cromer)
The Patterdale Hall Diaries | Wyatt’s predilection
- Published: September 30, 2024
By Chris Wyatt
July 25, 2024
We need to make some repairs to the back of the Hall — well, all of the Hall really — but the back is the most rotten.
Sam, our chimney guy, will do the work, but I just have to wait to see how much it will cost because I really don’t have savings. I do want to go back to the UK at some point. Ideally, we need two new windows and then barn siding to protect what is left of the structure. I will guesstimate a price and then double it, and if that’s what it is then that is what it is. The side of the house will need to wait until next year. The barn siding should protect the house enough to get me to retirement.
Karen was chatting to Sam about the Hall and he said that the two millstones by the front door were the smallest that he has ever seen. Later Karen was reading about small corn mills in one of the Foxfire books. The dimensions of the mill were the same as the dimensions of Patterdale Hall and so it may well be that it was originally a corn mill, which makes sense given what is farmed ‘round these parts.
Red barn siding has been decided on. I would prefer black.
Aug. 10, 2024
Crop explosion! It’s a good thing I like delicata squash because the plants are enormous and covered in fruit.
Interestingly, I seem to have two different types of delicata; most are the traditional zeppelin shape, but others are more globe shaped and the coloring is the same.
I’m fairly certain they will taste the same and we will find out in a couple of weeks. I’ve been using Fox Farm fertilizers, and also a fish-based fertilizer, and the combination has done amazing things to Jim’s soil — which was already superb. I can highly recommend Fox Farm products; they are a company founded in Humboldt County in the mid-1980s, and their products have about the most colorful, happy labels. I’ll probably get a soil supplement from them to help the vegetable beds recover over winter. For now, though, I’m switching to bat guano and worm castings, which should make everything good and delicious.
Today will be the beginning of the annual stick and tinder gathering. We probably have enough wood to get us through a mild winter, but I have not collected any tinder for starting fires. Karen has been cutting back honeysuckle and clearing paths and herb gardens with the side effect of piling up twigs and branches.
I’ll take the loppers to everything, and we’ll soon have enough stuff to start a good number of fires. It’s Aug. 10 and I’m already thinking about winter; my squash aren’t even ripe yet. Perhaps I’ll lay out the sequence of fertilizers that I have used so I don’t forget — another useful aspect of the diary. The soil was enriched with well-rotted cow manure over winter and covered with cardboard. When the plants were in the ground they received a high nitrogen organic fish-based fertilizer, then once flowering began, I switched to a high phosphorus fertilizer, and now that we have robust flowering, I have moved to bat guano and worm castings, which are high in phosphorus and potassium.
It is working well, and if the crops are robust at the end of the growing season, then I’ll stick with this approach.
Aug. 15, 2024
An exciting day today: Yellow Springs Brewery is making the English pale ale “Wyatt’s Eviction,” and so I shall show up to empty the mash tun and generally get in the way.
Wyatt’s Eviction is based on the recipe for Timothy Taylor’s Landlord, which is my favorite British beer. Landlord is made from Golden Promise malt and Styrian Goldings hops; Eviction is made from Golden Promise malt, Styrian Goldings (Celeia) and East Kent Goldings hops.
I’m keen to find out what yeast will be used and what the starting and finishing gravities will be. Landlord is 4.2% alcohol by volume, and I suspect Eviction will be closer to 5%. It is very wonderful to have a beer named after you, and I’m really happy that after 11 and a half years, Yellow Springs Brewery is still brewing it. It really is a very simple, clean-tasting and refreshing beer.
But why exactly do I have a beer named after me? Well, many years ago I was driving to judge beer at Bockfest in Cincinnati with Jeffrey, the original head brewer at YSB. At that point he was just a very successful homebrewer. On the way, I mentioned that if he ever became a professional brewer, he should make a clone of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord as it was a very simple beer to make, was delicious and had won more medals in competitions than any other British beer. About a year later Jeffery became the brewer at YSB and Wyatt’s Eviction was on tap the day they opened their doors.
Why “Eviction?” Well, landlords evict, simple as that. The beer should be on tap again in mid-September.
Aug. 16, 2024
People are trespassing on the property again.
Random pickup trucks driving up to the house while Karen is there alone. I have put the chain back up and locked it, though it won’t stop anyone who really wants to get out there. Our neighbor has described folk out in the country as “brazen;” she routinely has folk parking on her property and wandering through their yard and woods looking for mushrooms.
I wonder if police realize that these simple country folk are actually armed to the teeth. Trespass seems a dangerous game out here.
*Originally from Manchester, England, Chris Wyatt is an associate professor of neuroscience, cell biology and physiology at Wright State University. He has lived in Yellow Springs for 17 years, is married and has two children and an insane Patterdale terrier.
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