Late Summer Busy-ness

I know I’ve slipped a little with my blog.  I made a commitment to myself when I started it that I would write a minimum of one blog post each day.  The holidays and houseguests put that a little out of whack, but then we reached this time of year.

Normally, once I have kids off to school, animals fed and washing out I sit down on my deck with a cup of coffee and my laptop and write.  Sometimes I have to spend half my day doing what I’m writing about so that I can take photos of what I’m doing.

At this time of year though, the plums were ripe, the blackberries are coming ripe, the elderberries are ripe, but the days are still very hot.  The best time for me to be out foraging is first thing in the morning before it gets too hot - something I learned the hard way, there’s nothing quite like a dose of heatstroke and sweat running into your eyes (I had never before appreciated just how painful that can be) to make you rethink how things are done.

So lately, I get back from the school bus run (it doesn’t come to our gate sadly), feed the chooks and pigs, let the puppy out and we go foraging until the heat drives us back to the house.  Then I usually have several kg of fruit to deal to before the sun comes around into my kitchen making it a hellish place to work.

By the time I’ve finished with this, I’m usually quite exhausted and still have a lot of jobs on my list to get through and somehow, sitting down with my laptop just hasn’t been happening.

We’re starting to get dew in the mornings now though, so I’m not particularly interested in being thigh deep in damp blackberry and long grass, so any berries I’m picking today will happen tonight when it starts to get cooler rather than this morning.

I’ve got a swede patch to do some work on, it’s half dug and as the ground is a little damp, this is much easier at times like this than in the middle of the day when it’s drying out.

The strawberries are spreading, with their runners going everywhere, so if I’m going to move them (I have a cunning plan) that needs to happen fairly soon.  I’m moving the whole plants, not breaking off the runners by the way - that shouldn’t happen for a year I’m told.

The other thing about this time of year is the early preparations we make for winter.  There are things that we need to be looking at now.  The herbs that die off over winter need to be picked and dried now - I use comfrey and lemon balm in my eczema cream which comes into use more in winter, so I need to make sure I have enough dried to be available for making creams in winter. 

Fire wood needs to be stored in the woodshed to keep it dry for winter.  As the mornings are getting to be a bit damp, this needs to start now.  The chimney needs to be swept before we start using it, the mortar on the bricks on the chimney need checking and tidying up before the roof is too slippery to stand on.  Gaps and draughts taken care of.  The holes in the driveway need filling with gravel before they become messy mud puddles.  The days are noticeably shortening, it’s dark nearly an hour earlier than it was 6 weeks ago which makes the time we can spend outside shorter too.

It’s a time when the vermin seem to be active too.  Last year we lost 12 hens in the space of a week to a ferret at about this time.  I’ve already trapped a hedgehog that was stealing my eggs and think I’ve got at least one more to deal with.  Time to fill the bait stations with rat poison, although, with four cats and a puppy, I’ve seen and heard little evidence of their presence.  Well, except for the odd dead and half eaten mouse on the lawn.

It all seems quite strange to be talking about winter preparations when we’ve been having such stinking hot weather, but out here it can change quite quickly.  I know this is the lifestyle I want and I’m thoroughly enjoying being flat out living it.