Friday 25 September 2020

Equinox

The youngsters flew off this morning, following in their parents' flight path.

The wind was up over the equinox, and still is down the East coast of England. Here we had a still starry night and all the shed roofs were white with frost in the morning.

We had a quieter day today after some hard work removing glass from a greenhouse from a neighbour over the road. Her sons are buying her a new one! This one has been there for about fifty years!!  Then it was carried over, including over her side fence and our side fence and gate...by four people, suitably distanced, one at each corner!


 Now the sums are being done..it will be on three courses of bricks to give a decent growing height...and of course we have bricks but not quite enough. At least bricks won't cost too much, compared to glass. Most of the glass is good, just needs a clean.

A good day to tick along quietly, finishing jobs started or just queueing to be done!

 Another small batch of fresh fig and date chutney, this time with some ripe tomatoes from the garden instead of apples.  Three half price punnets of mushrooms sliced and dried, and the dehydrator refilled with one layer each of pineapple pieces and halved dark cherries (grown in Scotland) and the rest full of sliced pears. 

Three punnets of cherries are now three mason jars of cherries. I might go back to the street stall in town tomorrow to see if they have more! They are the misshapes, the split and regrown...but just as tasty as the perfect fruit. There could be more to dry, and a few bottles of cordial to make..and fresh cherries to eat of course!!

Pirate has been busy sorting bike things and doing construction sums.

We would love to get on with my workshop verandah, but can't have our friend to stay...and we need his muscle and building know-how. Let's hope that when we can get together more, we will have the weather fit to do outside work.

8 comments:

Relatively Retiring said...

I really admire your hard work and determination in all this. I wish I could get my crop of crab apples up to you. No one around here likes crab apple jelly so I leave them for the birds, as I do the grapes which are also fairly sour.

Susan Heather said...

Nice glasshouse and everything sounds very productive.

Cro Magnon said...

You sound busy. More preserving here, I think, for next week. I suddenly have a glut of Toms, Courgettes, Peppers, and Aubergines. Time to make a few jars of Ratatouille.

Elderberry-Rob said...

what excellent recycling skills you have, i would love a greenhouse, I bet your donated one will be of far superior quality components than the new one replacing it - you win :) I wouldn't know where to start assembling one though. I am interested in your dehydrator, no room at this house for new contraptions, but something I would like to try when we have moved house - I think we waste a lot of food that could be dehydrated - fruit in particular and petals for pot pourri. The fig and date chutney sounds yummy, I tasted my first fig last week at the grand age of 61! quite nice, strange texture :)

Catalyst said...

I had to use the Mighty Google to learn what a "punnet" is. Sorry about the delay in your veranda roof but this too shall pass. Some day.

Lettice said...

All this industry, quite makes me feel a bit queer. All in the best possible taste obv. Out of interest how far off being self sufficient are you? It certainly seems to me that with all the bartering that goes on, you really should be showing the world the way forward, or maybe just the UK. Then pirate has his bike bits, as long as he isn’t tempted to buy more? Greenhouses flying over fences has distinct air of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang... love it.

LX

Zhoen said...

I love the idea of a greenhouse. And frost. Haven't had frost in way too long.

Sandy Miller said...

Best post! Love the greenhouse! That is on my project list to be sure! Good to hear bout your canning adventures! I went to a local farm and bought second peaches they’re a very discounted price.