Plodding on

How come we always seem to be so busy? It's not from having to tend the garden at the moment. All we can do is water but despite trying the heat just evaporates it and things are keeling over. Even the tomatoes are suffering now. The various cherry toms are not too bad but the larger ones, even the Chocolate Stripes, a large and juicy variety which are supposed to be prolific well into autumn, look sick. Those particular ones are growing and withering at the same time. The San Marzano (bottling whole for  using whole or in sauces) have been attacked by blossom end rot, which they are prone to it seems, due to the water problem. The Rio Grande (for chutneys and bottling in chunks) have stopped growing all together and will come out soon. The rest of the odd bods with no name and the yellow ones are being pulped for sauce if they ripen. I have started to dry the cherry toms in the sun as we have a good amount bottled in mixed colours.

I use the trays from the dehydrator to dry tomatoes in the sun, covered with fly mesh

The beans are going to be pulled out to dry for when there is no browse for the goats. All the brassicas look sick as mentioned before, which is annoying as all the caulis were forming heads but have stalled, the curds opening and going yellow. The cues are bitter, again because of the water, though if you catch them immature they are ok. The peppers and chillis are withering on the pants too. All the potatoes are dug and will be graded into sacks or processing piles. The leeks are just sitting there and the chard....is doing OK! Oh, and the courgettes have given up! Some might say that's a good thing, but the goats like them.

Now, you could say,,,why not water at least twice a day? Afer all we have a well. But it seems like a waste of water when it will just be for veg we possibly have enough of. I know the neighbours do but they need to be able to sell what they can to make a few pennies. Yes it might get boring by the end of the year to have little variety, but it won't kill us. It is looking like another month before we get rain so we are unlikely to be able to get peas, carrots and beets in as we were hoping. The ground is just too hard to work.

What to do with walnuts and mis shapen carrots? 

Cake of course. There was a bit much mixture in a new recipe and I kept having to get more tins out

Today when Dave was out buying a new printer (the other is not old, but not worth fixing) as we suddenly need a working one (sod's law!) and Bella was outside waiting for him, she suddenly shot in with tail between her legs which was a bit worrying, so I went out but couldn't see any reason for her concern so thought she had maybe seen a snake or something. When Dave came home and pointed to the grape vines all over the garden I felt a right fool. The 4x4'' stakes had snapped and the vines were on the deck flattening the flower border....and I hadn't noticed! He has managed to prop it up with added straps around the apricot tree and hopefully they will be OK for a few more weeks till the grapes are ready. There are just so many that the weight was too much. I would hate to be the one to tell Jordan the grapes he is looking forward to for his rakia have gone on the compost heap

Flattened border. These plants look healthy in the shade of the apricot tree

So I think the reason we feel busy is because everything is such an effort. I have never sweated so much in my life...and I spent most of my working life on a stable yard or in a kitchen! Dave is making very good use of the pool, but I am fussy...I don't like it too warm! But when it's emptied a bit (onto the garden) and filled from the well it's lovely, almost worth getting hot and sweaty. I will confess we have also allowed Bonnie a minute a couple of times, she so misses a good play in water and a minute of swim time perks her up no end. I know we shouldn't, but it's worth it to see the puppy in the old girl.

I have got into a habit of making yoghurt and soft cheese now, there is only so much milk we can fit in the freezer and there is a lot you can do with soft cheese, especially when you still have a stash of Lidl cheddar to keep the need for 'real' cheese satisfied. Our neighbour is quite impressed that we are using it so and feeding the whey to dogs and chickens (and the compost heap) During the quieter times over the autumn, and especially winter, we will be experimenting with making harder cheese, but first we need to get to a cheese shop on our up and coming trip home to Kent and stock up on one or two things.

I love all these home produced meals, some of our cheese with a dusting of paprika and celery salt, carrot and walnut salad, home made mayo, some of our really sweet Cheltenham Greentop beetroot, home made garlic bread. Still can't produce flour and oil though....

We have just taken some honey from the hive, not a huge amount but plenty to keep us going. We can afford to take a bit more as there is enough and excess to keep the hive going over winter. But they are looking after it better than we can so if we don't need it we will leave it there. Meanwhile what we took is being filtered for the second time and has been tasted and tasted again...very thick and yummy. It is lovely with the yoghurt and the cheese (no figs this year though) and the last of the frozen walnuts from last year, with the fresh season's walnuts coming up soon. Hopefully better than last year's, they certainly look it but there are a lot of old black ones falling at the moment.

Uncapping ready to spin in the new honey extracter. The cappings go back to the bees after the honey has dripped out. They will take any honey left and the wax can then be cleaned ready to use...watch this space

Extracting

We worked fast before too many bees came to see what we were doing. They came and started to take the honey back

We only have one more car boot sale to do now so I have been able to cut back on the jam and chutney making. I am still making cordials for our own use as we need to keep the fluids up. Blackcurrant is definitely favourite, followed by gooseberry and strawberry. I like gooseberry and rhubarb as it's a bit lighter, but the peach I made last week (they being about 40p a kilo) I don't fancy and even sweet toothed Dave is not that keen on. I have some peach and raspberry which might be better but that is not being opened till this lot is drunk. The pepper and pear season is not yet over, with apples and quince to come too. We have not had any red peppers donated to our cause this year which is a relief, we had far too many last year (and green ones earlier this year) and if the neighbours can get a few pennies for their excess I would rather they did that. I know a lot of people make sauces to bottle ready to just grab, but I would rather just bottle the tomatoes as a base for the other veggies going in fresh, I prefer the just-cooked flavours...and anyway we seem to have acquired enough for emergencies!

The second half of the pantry is done, filling up with preserves very quickly.

The animals are now starting to get fed up with this weather. There has been a lot of moulting in the poultry pen with feathers everywhere but most are coming through it and are starting to lay...except the ducks who have almost stopped for the year. I have to say they have done very well, they have been laying consistantly since february and we have sold enough to pay for the food and some of the chicken food too. But we are going to have to do something about the boys. The older drake (looking rather washed out after a 'busy' summer) is harassing Ducky who is looking splendid, no doubting thet he is a boy with his curly tail feathers and squeaky voice. He still shacks up with the hens, but I think if the drake went the ladies would accept Ducky as the successor.

Picture for Mandy, the three amigos

Little grey chick will get a heck of a shock one day doing this!!!

Hot birds at bed time....notice the two naughty swallows above them...no doubt spreading their parasites! Cheeky pair

Ducky starting to look grown up

And the drake fading to look like a girl

The goats have really settled now and though sometimes they can't get into their house as it's full of feathered friends, they are happy in the shade of the walnut and pear. They are hilarious when they start playing with each other, Mum Milly being gentle with young Tilly, who is not so gentle back! Dave takes them for walks most days and they are slowly getting used to people and dogs suddenly appearing and the odd car or tractor. Foraging amongst the wild growth means they pick up allsorts and the variety has to be good, and of course, being ruminants, they can enjoy it all again later at their leisure (who knew goats burp so much?)

The cats and dogs are flat out all day, usually with legs in the air but sometimes they still want to cuddle up which is uncomfortably hot. I wouldn't have thought a small cat could generate so much heat! The two cats are playing a lot in the evenings and early mornings, getting on really well now with just the odd reminder that Splash is top cat. The boy occasionally visits us upstairs at night but the grey cat doesn't. It is far too cool for cats with the air con going full blast. Bonnie is happy with it, Bella hides under the bed.

Fascinated with the printer

The 'easy' apricot is abandoned for a game of chase in the big plum tree

Cuddle with Bonnie....

...and Bella

Splash checking his territory. He sits and watches the babas at night when they go out and sit on benches for a chat. They think he's hilarious

And finally, an early morning visit to the river revealed a couple of animals we have seen but have been rather camera shy. There was a lone jackal hunting rodents in the stubble, unfortunately a quarter mile away but fun to watch (there were buzzards and a hare in the same field)

The other thing was a terrapin basking on a log. We've caught glimpses before but this was the first picture on 'our'  stretch of the river.

Settling in

The little grey cat is settling in well....but it was touch and go. After only a couple of days he was so settled with the dogs and Splash had slowed down the swearing so we left the door open to see what would happen. The weather is not letting up at all and having the little chap locked in was not comfortable for him.

Unfortunately it was very nearly his undoing. There was a terrible loud cheeping of chick and the cat came running in with one of Cagney's chicks in his mouth. It was a traumatic happening and although Dave was quick to get the little bird from the cat he was shocked and died later. I told Dave he would have to go back, we can't risk him killing the neighbours' chicks...though there won't be any till next year now.

But after calming down and analysing what had happened, we realised that the chick must have gone through the wire gate straight into the cat's jaws. The chicks are used to having Splash around and without Mum to tell it this was not the normal cat  the inevitable happened. So he is staying on condition that he behaves. He has not been in with the chickens yet but when he does the ex-batts will put him in his place without doing him any harm, like they did with Splash, the dogs and even the goats!

Apart from that he is doing really well. The change of diet is playing havoc with his digestion but that is coming right. He sleeps a lot of the day away beside my side of the bed on an old quilt, goes into his room at night, comes into the garden with all of us when we are out there and is starting to play with Splash.

Up in Splash's favourite apricot tree

Where is he?

The garden is still looking parched despite a few thunder storms just lately...which has brought the beans in to flower. After doing some research we have decided to lift the potatoes and hope they will be OK in the cellar. It seems if you leave Sarpo Mira in the ground so long their skins set they do not soften properly when boiled. We tried this out on the tiddlers today and sure enough the ones with set skins were ....not exactly hard....more firm. They are also suffering a little with scab despite being hailed as disease resistant. So we will put them in the cellar and hope it's not too warm for them. Otherwise the Maris Bard are knobbly but a good size, Nadine are smoother but odd shapes, large but good inside so they've done OK really. We just need to be able to keep them now!

Nadine potatoes, with strange folds

Sarpo mira There are a lot more of these so I hope they will be OK in the cellar

Elsewhere the chard keeps producing, the British celery is struggling but not as badly as the local variety. Tomatoes are doing OK, though Venka won't have it and sends buckets of huge ones over....and we send her some small green ones (greeted with great suspicion by friends and family) So more sauce is made, making use of the pulper which works well with our firmer small tomatoes but not so well with the huge and rather delicate ones. Carrots and beets are still being harvested as and when needed, though the carrots are getting nibbled. And we had another couple of baby artichokes today. I am assured by my gardening friends that there is still time to get more seeds in but they will have to wait till the weather cools down a bit.

Chard again, some for the freezer, some for the animals

Half way through preparing the two artichokes from the last blog's picture

Tommy pulper in use, top left is the waste, skins and stalks

The flower garden is looking a bit worn out. I have cut back the nicotiana and antirrhinums to push them back into life, but everything really needs dead heading or cutting back. The good thing about nicotiana is that they attract hawk moths at dusk as the perfume encourages them to feed so the later developing self sown plants are pulling them in like a magnet. We are out there every night at the moment, being eaten alive and with dogs and cats in tow, trying to get a decent photo for ID. But there are so many I can't tell...but I know a girl who might. Picture overload to follow. All angles as requested!

Had to include this for the tongue!

And a couple of other night time visitors

It was Venka's 70th birthday last week. We didn't realise and they don't really celebrate birthdays. But at 9.30 there was a ding dong on the bell and there she was in her red sequinned top which is a clue that something is up. Dave had gone out but was due back any minute. I could hear lots of voices and when I went round there was a table full of friends and neighbours, table laid with tomatoes, cheese bread, salami and cheese, rakia, a bottle of scotch, beer and coke. Dave gave Venka a white canna we had bought recently and we sorted her another card to go with the others she has collected. Then there was coffee and huge bowls of honeydew and water melon. I'm so glad I didn't have breakfast!

Dave had offered to help with picking the beans in their field, but because of the storms they kept putting it off, but it eventually got done  on Sunday while I did yet more bottled tomatoes. All we have to do now is sort them and there aren't as many as last year. We went round later for a meal of tomatoes, mackerel and potatoes followed by the inevitable melons. And of course rakia and beer.

In the kitchen my new fridge freezer has arrived. It needs the doors changing round but I'm really pleased with it. The old one is upstairs for milk/overflow. And Dave has done the second set of shelves so all the bottles can be kept together.More and more we are having meals of home produced food with the addition of an occasional ingredient, like sausage for Dave's Scotch egg (mine was made with our own cheese, breadcrumbs and herbs) and sultanas for the white carrot salad.

We haven't another spoon to fit the new doors so will have to find a solution

Gooseberry chutney, a new one on me. Sweet and very sharp

I was trying to use up gooseberries to make room in the freezer but ended up putting rhubarb in....

Blackcurrant cordial on the go. Lovely

Rhubarb an gooseberry juice for cordial

 A couple of pics showing how grateful the goats are for giving them a wooden trough to keep the hay off the floor....first Tilly then the three amigos decided it was a good place to rest