Have You Noticed?

Hello Friends ~~~

Have you noticed that Autumn, the most blissful season of all, is here?

Quietly she came, and began whispering in my ear some weeks ago; the quality of light is softening daily as the sun drops closer to the horizon; the days are noticeably shorter; nights are drawing in; curtains are closed earlier now; the heating is needed to take the chill off the early morning and late evening air; the hedgerows and trees are offering up their ripening fruits; the world that dwells far above the Equator prepares to slow down and rest.

Although the air feels Autumnal, and the light is Autumnal, the trees and fruits seem still a little way behind, but here are some photos of what is happening in and around and near my cottage ~~~

Rosa Rugosa grown into rich ruby red hips

Japanese Wind Anemones fill my borders

Won't you join me on a gentle stroll around the valley this pleasantly warm and sunny Autumn afternoon?  Let us take a peek and see what is happening as we traipse along the high~hedge boundered byways of the Shire ~~~

A trout lies well camouflaged on the muddy river bottom

Leaves still wear the green of Summer and show no sign of turning yet

Conkers ripening high up on the Horse Chestnut Tree

View from Pen Lan looking up the river valley to the village

I think he might be stuck! He certainly chewed up the surface of the lane!

Looking down the river valley all is lush and verdant green and out of site the ocean lies

The winding shady lane that leads back to the village and a blue sunny sky

The stream is low in water and is nothing more than a trickle

Crab Apples ripening for jam and jelly making

My favourite Autumn fruit ~ Blackberries ~ deep juicy jewels ~ gems of goodness

A net of spiderweb covered in dewy crystal droplets of early morning rain

Each day now I am picking a small bowl of wild blackberries from the vines about my cottage and soon I will decide what to make with them as they assemble in the freezer ~~~ the more you pick, the more you get, and with heavy rains coming in tomorrow I hope the following days of sun will give a bumper crop to pick ~~~

Until next time
Deborah

Apple Sauce and Wasps

Hello Friends!

Oh, dear, there has been a mishap!  I'm not really sure what happened, but I managed to delete all my photos of the process before I uploaded them ~ sighs ~ so, my friends, only one photo of the ingredients and process today ~ sorry ~ but these things do happen ~~~ as I don't know what happened, I can't say 'lesson learned' can I?

As an aside, do you think we are more protective and precious about storing, and the possible loss, of our photographic memories since the advent of digital images and The Cloud? I make back ups of my back ups, but in the heady, good old days of real film all we had was our set of prints and our negatives and if something happened, well, it happened and they were gone. Today, if I lose a photo I wail and mourn it for days on end ~ we are a peculiar lot, we humans!

I digress.  In the garden there is an apple tree. I do not know the name of the apple, or the number of the dwarf stock upon which it is grafted, but I do know that it produces some of the most delicious rosy red apples worthy of The Wicked Queen's basket in Snow White {which just so happens is my favourite fairy tale}

During Springtime, the tree is a bridal bouquet of purest white blossoms with a delicate tinge of pink, then as the blossoms fall and fade, tiny hard green marbles appear, and slowly, over the Summer months they swell and grow, gradually changing colour as they aspire to the warm and rich candy apple red of the mature fruit.

For those of you who have not read it, I wrote a Haiku {actually, my first and only Haiku to date} about the apple blossom.  Here it is, superimposed on a photograph of the tree ~~~

and here are some images of the tree, the earlier blossoms, and the harvest of the fruits ~~~

Now, I have competition in the garden for my apples, the birds love them, and also the horrible wasps that nest in a neighbour's bird box, and which home in on the fragrant scent and nibble away at the tops, hidden from view, so that very often I pick an otherwise perfect looking apple only to find it is spoiled.  Wearing long sleeves and gloves is a must when picking these apples, as is exercising great caution and care not to be stung by the competition ~~~

Half eaten by the birds, the wasps come in to finish the job

Help yourself, please, do!

This year, however, the apples ripened a lot earlier and I got to them sooner so the damage is minimal compared to other years. Sadly, probably due to the unseasonably cold Spring and Summer, the fruits are not as big as they normally are, nor are they as many.  I am grateful for what I have harvested and now the time for putting the fruits up into storage is here!

Here is this year's harvest ~~~ about 20lbs or so ~~~

I love Apple Sauce, I use it a lot in yogurt or cream; poured over ice cream; on my porridge or muesli; or stirred into red cabbage; stirred in a warm mixed fruit compote for breakfast.  It's a quick and easy way of getting an extra portion of fruit, especially if you lower the sugar, as I do.

With a lot of apples to process each year, about twenty years ago I invested in a gizmo that peels, cores, and slices my apples at the turn of a handle. It has more than paid for itself as the wastage is minimal and it speeds up the process a lot.  Apple Master Peeler available at Lakeland Ltd.

And, yes, I buy my cinnamon in big bags! I really do use a lot of cinnamon in my cooking and baking, and buy it in bulk from Steenbergs.

So, I am making up lots of delicious Apple Sauce for the freezer as there are a lot of slightly under ripe and damaged apples that won't keep and are unfit for eating raw, but with the damage cut away they will be just fine made into delicious apple sauce. Here's what I do ~~~

3 1/2 to 4 lbs of apples, peeled, cored, and sliced
1 cup of brown sugar {you can use white if you prefer}
300 mls of good quality cloudy apple juice, such as Copella
1 tablespoon {or to taste} cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon {or to taste} ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon {or to taste} freshly ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Put all ingredients into a Crock Pot and cook on low for 6 hours, or until your preferred consistency is reached. I like mine chunky, so keep an eye on it after about 4 1/2 hours.  Cool and spoon into freezer containers.
Enjoy!

Of course, you can always make it more quickly in a large saucepan, but I find I like it better from the Crock Pot ~ I don't know if it is the stoneware pot or the slow cooking process, but the flavour is deeper and more apple~y.

~~~~~

One thing I love about working in the garden is the company of the extra little helpers, and here is one of my regulars who always pops up for a beak full of juicy bugs and worms ~~~

Until next time ~~~
Deborah

Celebrating Apple Time ~~~

Gentle Reader ~~~ it is that time of year when the garden and the hedgerows begin to give up the last of the seasonal bounties ~~~ the fruits that have silently and slowly formed, ripening during the warm Summer days are waiting to be harvested ~~~

Blackberries glisten as black jewels dripping from the bramble vines, wild damsons, bullace, sloes, rose hips, nuts of all sorts, and crab apples fill the hedgerows across The Shire ~~~ humans and animals alike are foraging for their Winter stores ~~~

Blackberries

Sweet Chestnuts

Rosehips full of Vitamin C

 

The apples in the garden are inviting and delicious. One of life's simple, yet sweetest, pleasures is stepping out from my cottage door in the early morning, walking barefoot over the dew kissed grass of the lawn to the apple tree and picking a fresh, perfectly fragrant, rosy red, apple, slightly warmed from the sun that is slowly climbing in the pale blue sky of an early Autumn day ~~~

Rosy Red Apples on the Bough

Yet, all is not well ~~~ I have fierce competition for these deliciously fragrant fruit call out and beckon wasps and crows to sample their delights ~~~

Crows have already nibbled away

making a perfect hole for a wasp to enter

and get his fill of the fragrant fruit

So I had an idea ~~~ I tied some of those net bags, the kind that come with washing powder tablets, over the reddest and most enticing looking apples to deter the marauding crows ~~~

It worked, up to a point ~~~ but there was a shortage of bags, for the bags are few and the apples are many and also very high up ~~~

So, today, although some of the apples are not fully ripe, I started picking them for storage. As you can see, there is a good lot of apples here, and I have about the same amount left to pick again.

Although they are eating apples, they do not store well.  I will take the best for my own fruit bowl and give some away.  The rest I will put up in the freezer or make jelly or wine. I am not a fan of Apple Butter. I will spend the next day or so using my Apple Master. I could not manage the processing of this amount of apples without this brilliant little gadget.  By tomorrow evening, these two baskets will be peeled, cored, sliced and either frozen ready to make into pies during the Winter months ahead, or into apple sauce for the plate.  I can then go and harvest the rest!

As with all foraging, do not eat anything unless you are completely certain what you are eating is safe. If in doubt, don't!

Until next time,
Sincerely yours
Deborah

For those of you who put your guesses down for the what is it? I will give you a few more days in case anyone has missed it, and tell you what it is in my next entry.