WANTED: GRAIN MOISTURE TESTER AND COLD WEATHER!

My husband asked me when I was planning to malt another batch of barley.  I'm anxious to go through the process again with some modifications.  Before I do another batch, I want to buy a barley moisture tester.  The cost on these can run from a few hundred to thousands of dollar$$$.  I've been keeping an eye out online for a used one that won't break the bank.

In the meantime, I'm preparing to replace my raised vegetable gardens with barley.  We've had an unusually hot winter making it less than ideal to plant at this time.  Barley germinates best in cool weather so I'm not planning to put down any seed until the weather cools down, hopefully in mid-to-late February which is our wettest month, then allow it to grow through our "gray" cool spring months (April, May and June here in San Diego).  Yes, I know I'm sitting here in a t-shirt and flip-flops complaining about 80ºF weather in January!  I figure at least others can live vicariously through the picture below.