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Foraging
Today, I have:
- picked 2.2kg of sloes, mostly from our field but a few from the bush at the end of the road, currently in the freezer (because, really, why would you faff about pricking each one with a pin when you can just do that instead?) awaiting combination with four bottles of gin to give six bottles of sloe gin;
- picked just over a kilo of blackberries, mostly from the woods (have also noted the bushes with lots of nearly-ripe ones!), which are in the freezer in four different bags;
- set two bowls of peaches (picked up by Mike in town for £1.50, and really needing to be sold that cheaply) to juicing;
- harvested most of the hop flowers, taken off the leaves, made a few stems into a little wreath and put the lot on the airer to dry;
- checked that our existing hop plant, which we found in the bee garden this year, didn't have any flowers: must be a male;
- planted the Canterbury Bells that the woman from the top of the hill left by the gate for me (she'd promised me some as they started to die back; as I came back from blackberrying, she said "I hope that the ducks won't have eaten them" but I was able to reassure her that they're not all that into plants); and
- got generally scratched, stung and pricked all over my arms and hands: short sleeves not the best idea when picking sloes....
I made the first batch of juice from out apples a few days ago: it's a wee bit sour for me, and the apples took forever to cook down so it's also a bit watery, but later ones should be better. The apples are noticably bigger than last year, from having been thinned out a few months ago. We did go up to the Minnis a few days ago, but the wilder apples there weren't ready for picking.
Oh, and ridden, mucked out and poo picked. We had a bedding delivery today: the pallet is currently by the gate, and Mike's just said "How about if we go and move the bedding into the tack room now?"
- picked 2.2kg of sloes, mostly from our field but a few from the bush at the end of the road, currently in the freezer (because, really, why would you faff about pricking each one with a pin when you can just do that instead?) awaiting combination with four bottles of gin to give six bottles of sloe gin;
- picked just over a kilo of blackberries, mostly from the woods (have also noted the bushes with lots of nearly-ripe ones!), which are in the freezer in four different bags;
- set two bowls of peaches (picked up by Mike in town for £1.50, and really needing to be sold that cheaply) to juicing;
- harvested most of the hop flowers, taken off the leaves, made a few stems into a little wreath and put the lot on the airer to dry;
- checked that our existing hop plant, which we found in the bee garden this year, didn't have any flowers: must be a male;
- planted the Canterbury Bells that the woman from the top of the hill left by the gate for me (she'd promised me some as they started to die back; as I came back from blackberrying, she said "I hope that the ducks won't have eaten them" but I was able to reassure her that they're not all that into plants); and
- got generally scratched, stung and pricked all over my arms and hands: short sleeves not the best idea when picking sloes....
I made the first batch of juice from out apples a few days ago: it's a wee bit sour for me, and the apples took forever to cook down so it's also a bit watery, but later ones should be better. The apples are noticably bigger than last year, from having been thinned out a few months ago. We did go up to the Minnis a few days ago, but the wilder apples there weren't ready for picking.
Oh, and ridden, mucked out and poo picked. We had a bedding delivery today: the pallet is currently by the gate, and Mike's just said "How about if we go and move the bedding into the tack room now?"