Barley is a great grain!

It is that. I've read that it is the third largest grain crop in the United States; about half of that goes toward beer making, most of the rest goes for animal fodder, and only a small portion given over for human eating.

I don't want to begrudge our four-legged friends any goodness -- I just want my bipedal companions to join in on the party.

Barley trivia:

I read, about the time that I originally posted the entry at the start of this thread, that the old legal standard for an inch as a unit of measure, was derived from three barleycorns, dried, laid end-to-end.

Today, since I was curious, I laid three dried barleycorns end-to-end. Sure enough, they equaled the length of the first joint of my right thumb... which, as "a rule of thumb," can also be taken as a casual inch. Neither barleycorn nor thumb are standard enough for the Department of weights and Measures, but both are close enough to give credance to the oral tradition...