apple picking party

We spent the afternoon picking apples and damsons, along with other friends and relatives. not our fruit – we have already picked our apples, and our damsons – well we only have about eight on both our trees.  Early days yet..

But this annual event, followed by a meal, is a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon.  I made the first Devon apple cake of the year, and we brought a bottle of apple juice, pressed from apples from the same trees. We came home laden with yet more fruit.

And a sunshiney day too.

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pumpkin cake

It doesn’t look as though we are going to win the pumpkin competition we are having with my Dad this year (hi Dad)  - his smallest pumpkin is bigger than our only one.. we had problems with badgers digging them up..and everything held back as we dealt with probate etc on the other side of the country. That’s our excuse..  Still – we beat him last year.. we grew a barrow load compared to no harvest from him.  You win  some you lose some.  And it is with last year’s pumpkin that I made this cake.

Pumpkins keep very well – if stored in a cool dry place they will keep for months, and we cut the last of them in March of this year (harvested in October), but once cut – they don’t keep at all  – and the only way we have found to preserve them is to cook the flesh, strain the resulting pulp and freeze it. So – what can you make with the pulp?

We like pumpkin pie, and pumpkin scones, and now have made a successful pumpkin cake. – It’s moist and light, a bit like carrot cake, and the cream cheese topping is lovely.  I can’t tell yet if it keeps.. as my family are demolishing it at speed.

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already autumn

I like this time of year, wandering around the perimeter of our land, gathering blackberries from the hedgerows. It is a really good way to check the hedges and really look at the fields.  Although the bank holiday weekend, there is a cold snap to the air. We are gathering the first of the hazelnuts, and the elderberries are nearly ready.

Sharona (one of our ewes)  is hassling us, but she has plenty of grass, water and lick, – honestly.. I think she wants us to provide a ram..! we must organise a date.

The pigs look enormous.. though I have been absent, not wishing to give them the flu, so come to them with fresh eyes.  But I think it is nearly time to send them off.

A lot of the veg has ended, but the sweetcorn and squash family plants still have yet to produce.

So yes.. it feels like autumn

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pink socks

I’ve done very little knitting or crochet lately, finding myself slicing beans for the freezer rather than holding a crochet hook or the like, but I did finish these socks a while back, and as they were a present for my sister-in-law, I went to the effort this time of trying to make them match.  Just about. She seems pleased.

Now it is feeling a bit autumnal out there, and I have been thinking winter thoughts, it’s probably time I turned my mind to more sock making.

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red cabbages badgers and foxes

We harvested the rest of the red cabbages today as far from allowing them to get bigger, leaving them to the ravages of the slugs and caterpillars could mean we lose the crop. Fifteen, although to be fair some are only half size – and those along with the couple we had already put in the fridge, is our red cabbage mountain. We’ve already had a few and given one away.

Hard cabbages like these – and our white ones, keep excellently if wrapped and stored in the fridge, but our fridge is not that big, and we have the white ones in there too! – So I am slowly (I’m still pretty weak and slow…) braising them one by one, and stashing in the freezer (adding to our freezer space crisis).

I don’t follow a recipe any more, and each batch of red cabbage turns out differently. I use red cabbage, onion, garlic, sugar and malt vinegar as standard. Optionals are apple, mixed spice, caraway seed etc. We like it – and should have enough for a year…

While we were out there, harvesting (well himself harvesting me taking the invalid supervisors role) I saw a fox – not far from our hen run too. We have plenty of foxes in Devon – and we saw them all the time at our last home, but this is the first one we have seen here in three years. I hope the hens are reasonably safe in the run….

  We see badgers a fair bit and a lot of badger activity – runs under our fences and through the hedges, they dig up the lawn (distinctive badger digging) and have raided beer traps.

We like them. But something has trashed the carrot patch – I would assume rabbits – but we have never seen any, or any holes or any droppings and none at the scene of the crime. Not sure what did it, but we are assuming badgers.  The patch has been dug, there are a few big holes and lots of carrots lying on the surface.. some with teeth marks too.

So… we pulled the rest of the carrots.. and most of the beetroot just in case. So we have smaller carrot and beetroot mountains to go with the cabbages. August is the month of harvesting and preserving.

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flu

Some  Dr once said how to tell if you had ‘flu or a cold – was to imagine that there was a fifty quid note out on the front lawn, if you have a cold, you would go and get it, if you have flu, you wouldn’t bother.  I haven’t been to the doctor, or phoned the swine flu helpline, or taken tamiflu – but I’m fairly sure what I have had (and still have) is flu… probably that flu. Certainly this was no cold.

In the absence of a fifty quid note on the front lawn, or indeed, even a front lawn, I’m going to use the ‘could I care less about vegetables etc’ method of telling the difference.  On Thursday, feeling the first inkling of a lurgy brewing, I shot round trying to do as much as possible. By the weekend, I just couldn’t care less. I established someone else was worrying about the animals, and gave up. 

Sorry if I am going on a bit.. I am I know.. just this is all I have been doing.  I was even too ill to read.. and I always make time to read (often replacing sleeping time with reading time).

so anyway today was different.  I finally looked out of the curtain to see what that drilling sound actually was.  I noticed the sun was shining, and this afternoon went out with himself to chat to the sheep, and look about a bit.  Too much too soon, i had to have a lie down on the way back. But unfortunately, I am now caring about what is not happening too.

This is always the difficult bit of an illness, when you want to get back to it – but the body is unwilling.  And it seems that whilst (so far, touch wood, fingers crossed etc) the men in my life have not had it, a lot of the chore fairies were obviously knocked out with the flu virus too.  The laundry fairy has been absent, the harvesting fairy is missing, the remembering to pay bills fairy is awol. The greenhouse watering fairy obviously forgot what she was doing, then remembered after three days and overwatered to compensate, and the tomatoes are split.. I would announce the loss of the tidy kitchen fairy, but I fear we never had one.

Still no real harm done, and I had a gentle hour sitting in the sun slicing a hundred weight or so of french beans for the freezer, as it turns out there were masses waiting to be picked (by himself)  and yes I did overdo things today, and had to go lie down for a bit. – sorry mother hen.. sorry… I will listen…as itching though I am to get everything done, and August is the month of harvesting and preserving, I’m going to have to pace myself for a bit, still have a bit of a temperature, still coughing and wheezing and achy, but at least I feel I have turned the corner.

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dreaming of winter

“it’s freezing in here” I muttered.  The two men in my life looked at me, in my woolly jumper, wrapping my arms around my body to further ward off the cold, then looked at each other.. in t-shirts.  Then simultaneously, two hands leapt out and clamped onto my forehead.

“Temperature” announced my son, and backed up by himself.  And they are right… since then all the tasks and jobs on my to do list came to a crashing standstill, and I have been lurking in bed with my rainbow cosied hot water bottle, or found jumpered and thick socked under the fluffy blankie on the sofa watching drivel.  I have the lurgy.

I’m not so bad, but disappointed to be missing fibrefest - I’ve yet to manage to go and it only comes round every couple of years. But this sudden feeling of cold, has lead me to be thinking fondly of winter times just around the corner.

Whenever I am asked what my favourite season is.. I just can’t decide – I always say I like the change. I have a short attention span for these things and like to move on, and of course it is so easy to romanticise and forget the grim aspects. Spring is exciting and full of promise.. and work!, summer – warm days, low bills, barbecues etc …overlooking the work! and the flies…and the window open of a night means you can hear next door’s wannabe band, or the damned cockerel every morning.  Worst.. it’s our cockerel…

But now , tucked up with my hot water bottle, jumper wearing, wanting comforting hot food .. such as soup or porridge.. I’m dreaming of winter. I can imagine the early morning  frosts, that hold a sparkly excitement, the smell of apples in the store, log fires, mulled wine and evenings to spend on crafts etc. The squeak of the spinning wheel (must oil that), finding the tv again, the rayburn back on.. slow cooked meals.. pickles and chutney making..

Obviously, overlooking the grim side.. like the work! (there is always work), and being blummin cold, and the drafts, and the wet, and realising that the make house warmer plans are no further forward..

Still, with luck, in a week I should be over this, and maybe we shall get a few more barbecue days again before summer is truly out. It’s something to look forward to…

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grot

I feel grot.. cannot put my finger on exactly what.. but not right. however, we have been doing loads.. and yesterday drove long distance, attended a funeral, then drove back again to attend animals etc. So maybe just tired.

So taking it easy today. just doing the few things that absolutely have to be done (after work).  Like checking the animals, and moving the chick run. and picking the blackberries  – it’s been two days after all (picked over a kilo in 20 minutes), and it was very windy, gusty today, so we had to check out a fallen branch, (which the sheep were happily tucking into) and stake the sweetcorn that had fallen over. Thought we had better pick the apples off the other tree then, since they were being blown off. And pick a load of courgettes (and a small marrow that had escaped our notice), and the runner beans for tea (it has been two days after all ) then blanch and freeze the excess. And water the greenhouses, and pick the tomatoes…

well you get the drift.  Thing is if we do go down with the lurgy.. it will all go to waste.. so a little twinge in the lurgy department makes in inclined to rush about trying to do even more…

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