Gathering moss - and hops

Since my post explaining how, during a nocturnal meditative state I was inspired to make an indoor moss garden, I have been filling numerous containers with various mosses. Starting from the moss growing in the cracks between paving stones outside my house, moving onto different species of moss in the forest, I have been using old plastic packaging from blue cheese and ready meals. 

Now after four weeks of practice, seeing that the moss is happy with indoor life on the działka, I have invested in a porcelain container, this one being a savoury nibbles tray, below. The moss is from the pine forest beyond the orchards. Before gently removing the moss from the ground, I covered the bottom of the tray with the same sandy soil on which it was growing. 

Growing moss indoors is said to have positive effects for the health, filtering indoor air and generally exuding a sense of calm. I dive into Wikipedia to read up about the different mosses; I can identify three distinct types so far. Quite different to the forest moss is the stuff growing along the southern margin of the old DK50, close to where it diverges from the Chynów bypass (below). Rich, spongy-soft and almost neon-green in the sunlight, this is lovely...

And here it is in its new home, where it will be well looked after (I hope it doesn't mind)... Now all I need to do is to accelerate my consumption of Castello DanaBlu cheese. Six to a wheel! 

Also collecting this week - hop cones. Around the junction of ulica Główna, ul, Grójecka and ul. Miodowa there are four hop bushes that seem to be wild and uncultivated, overhanging public land. I have helped myself to enough to boil up several litres of hop extract. The sad thing about this wonderfully thirst-quenching beverage (non-alcoholic) is that the weather is now too cold for this purpose. The traditional way of treating hop cones - drying them, storing them, and the adding them to the brewing process - is the only means of getting hops to work their magic the following summer.

I have found one good use for my hop extract - adding it 50/50 to the mighty BRNX 12% Super Strong Beer (3.39 złotys/63p for a half-litre tin). This way, I have a litre of 6% beer with the intensely bitter taste of an IPA or APA. This works out at 35p a pint, for something with all the attributes of a decent craft ale.

This time last year:
Gdańsk, Northern Europe

This time two years ago:
Herons in Jeziorki, summer's end

This time three years ago:

Sublime September sun, Ealing

This time five years ago:
Stepping up the pace

This time six years ago:
Evolution of human consciousness

This time seven years ago:
Farewell to Ciocia Jadzia

This time eight years ago:
By train from to Konstancin and Siekierki

This time nine years ago:
Summer's end, Jeziorki

This time 11 years ago:
Ząbkowska, Praga's newly-hip thoroughfare

This time 13 years ago:
Catching the klimat

This time 15 years ago:
Road to Łuków - a road trip into the sublime