February 2022

It's the end of summer and the vege garden has had relatively little attention beyond what's necessary to keep things alive.  The weeds are doing an amazing job of protecting the soil from the sun.  That said, it's not really looking any worse than usual.  Either that or I'm not really looking.  Yep, that's probably it.  If pushed, I'd probably call it a delightful sense of disorder, with the pumpkins and gourds rambling wherever they like.  The pumpkins are a variety called Baby Bear - I thought their small size would be more practical.  There are mountains of them, gorgeous little globes of bright orange popping up everywhere.  Outdoor tomatoes, greens, courgettes and beans are also on tap.  

The large tomatoes are a beefsteak variety called 'Tie Dye' - very well named.  There are heaps more to come, so plenty more can be cooked and blitzed to make tomato sauce.  Even the nibbled carrot tops look to have staged somewhat of a recovery - here's hoping there are actually carrots under there.

 

Madame Cholet is literally a hot-house of activity and a joy to enter.  Fresh tomatoes, peppers and basil are available anytime.  The rockmelons were picked and cut up, with most going in the freezer to be used in smoothies.  The aubergines are gorgeous, and the ginger and turmeric (particularly stunning) are looking great above soil level at least.  Chilis are starting to ripen - the little red rocket in the picture is a Bird's Eye Chili.  There are a few green Scotch Bonnets, the Jalapeno are fruiting and the Carolina Reaper is flowering.  Should be enough heat there to keep us warm for a while. 

The freezers have been emptied, transferred and cleaned, so we have a good idea of what's in there.  Right now not much meat, but heaps of plums.  The Red Bartlett pears ripen first and some of them have been chopped and frozen.  There were even enough cranberries from my one bush to justify freezing.  I think they were ripe.  They'd been red for a while but went from totally, disgustingly hideous to slightly edible so I guessed they were ready. 

My new toys - a fruit crusher and press - have been put to good use. They were trialled with a batch of windfall apples, and the resulting juice was more delicious than anticipated.  Clare came round and helped and that made it so much less of a chore.  The crushing bit is relatively easy, but manually winding a press down is quite a workout.  You have to remind yourself how grateful you are that you can't just press a button.  Karyn helped with the next batch of Nashi pears, and that juice is now bubbling on its way to becoming Nashi Perry.  Clare - aka glutton for punishment - came back to help with the next batch of Broxwood Foxwhelp apples (with the addition of the small Slack Ma Girdle crop).  That's also reinventing itself as cider.  It's the first time I've had the luxury of making cider from real apple juice, so very exciting and an appropriate nod to my Somerset roots.  Clare's agreed to return for batch 3: Cidre Bisque apples and batch 4: perry pears.

Another gin purchase resulted in 3.5 litres of damson gin and 1.5 of rhubarb gin.  Al usually orders the gin and we split it, but this time he wasn't in need.  So I did the order and split it with Clare, who also took a haul of damsons.  Amazingly it arrived at its destination (Jane's work) the very next day from Kaiapoi.  Damsons and rhubarb (gifted by Clare) were ready in the freezer and viola!  I've also racked the triple batch of elderberry wine and it's looking promising.  Surely the most beautiful colour of any wine ever - fingers crossed it's got the taste to match.  With my track record of one fabulous batch versus several less-than-fabulous, it's not very likely, but I like to remain optimistic on the home-brew front until proven otherwise.

The main honey season is here.  We harvested another 10 litres from Jane's hive and 23-ish from mine.  Both honeys are darker and thicker/more jelly than the spring honeys, but obviously just as delicious.  This batch will need tutin testing. Sting count so far - Jane 1: me 3.  I just managed to get my rings off before my finger swelled like that.

The cows are all in together after Peter gave up trying to keep the girls apart.  Too many munted fences and gates. At 18 months they're about old enough anyway, and are very sturdy beasts.  Not beyond a little scratch and tickle and particularly attentive when pressed apples are on the menu.  We thought Nike was pure white, but her summer coat reveals black splotches over her hide.   

Jill and George got permission to chop up a tree that was already cut down at George's golf club.  They invited us along and we got another load of firewood for our stash.  It'll need seasoning for a few months so probably not ready for this winter.  Peter has already split it so it should dry quicker.  We have lit the fire a couple of times recently, more because we could than we needed to.  Tonight's forecast is for 6 degrees and autumn officially starts tomorrow, so not long until that need does actually arise.

Jane and Al invited us round for croquet.  Peter was the winner of the last game of the previous season, so technically the reigning champion.  This year Al claimed to have crafted an actual trophy, and I should have been suspicious about that from the off.  Somehow Jane and Al played pretty badly and I won.  When I was presented with the said trophy, all the ducks lined up in my head.  Can't deny that COC could stand for Croquet Onamalutu Champion.  Well, I guess you've gotta just take those wins, however spurious. That trophy is definitely one for the mantelpiece.

Lucas and Laura should be with us in 2 weeks.  The border opened to Kiwis in Australia yesterday, so this time it's way more promising that they'll actually get into the country.  The sleepout has been ready for some time, just a few finishing-off jobs to complete.  Sam and Molly are good, and Sam is heading to Turkey (Gallipoli) for ANZAC day.  Billy has found new work with a family near Barcelona.

Omicron is ravaging its way through the population and there are several hospitalisations and sadly, a few deaths.  The health service is coping so far and it's nearly business as usual, but that could change at any moment.   Peter is having another week off (his 3rd) because his company has divided their workforce into 2 on/off teams - if anyone gets Covid then in theory at least the other team can continue.  It'll be his last week off like this, and he hopes to get a little fishing done among the many life-sentence block tasks that are building up.  I'm grateful to have paid work coming out of my arse for at least the rest of March, after which it should ease up a bit.  I'm still waiting to hear if my hypnotherapy portfolio has passed, but it's a relief not to have the work hanging over my head.  A little free time would enable me to do the remaining preparation tasks for my planned 'Mind and Body Approach to Labour and Birth' classes.   

The days are getting shorter and we're ready for autumn.  There are still a few crops yet to ripen, so a bit more processing time to account for.  Otherwise, it's just the big garden tidy-ups to get started on.  Plenty of time for that, so I keep telling myself.