November feels like an awfully long time ago. The weeks are just running by right now, and work has been so busy I've barely stopped to draw breath. I'm counting down the days until I break for Christmas - seven working days left now, which seems simultaneously Far Too Long and not enough time to get everything done. Anyway, it seems I did get some non-work things done in November, despite feeling like I did nothing at all but stare at a computer screen. There even seems to have been a sunny day or two! The veg patch Lots of harvesting in November! Well, lots of turnips and kale and chard at any rate. And a single cabbage, which was almost hollow inside thanks to some kind of critter (not a chicken). I was surprised how well the garden was holding up, although it did start to look quite straggly towards the end of the month, and has now had a good tidy up. I've spread a combination of compost and green manure over all the cleared beds and am planning to leave them alone until the spring now. The meadow I finally got round to removing the last little bit of cut grass from the meadow. It's nothing you'd call hay - just a soggy mass. The new chickens loved roaming around after me, scratching for bugs in the newly exposed soil. They seem to have adopted this field as their own, and spend a lot of time in there, which is interesting, as the older ones barely go in it at all unless I'm in there. Funny bunch. The grass has been used as mulch round the fruit trees, and even just two or three weeks later is starting to rot down. Marvellous stuff. DIY Ah, poor neglected DIY. I did finally get round to some in November though, and finished painting wood oil onto the ceiling beams. I'm determined to get at least SOME insulation up before the year is out. I did this single piece as a test several months ago, but then decided it would be much easier to paint first, rather than trying to avoid getting paint on the plasterboard (I was right, but it still took a while). I've now started screwing battens to the joists so I can attach the plasterboard over the insulation. Let's see what December brings. Damson gin! (and more pie) I picked our first damsons in September, and threw them in the freezer, and finally in November got round to making damson gin. It probably took twenty minutes from start to finish, including finding jars with lids, and was one of those jobs where I wondered what on earth I'd been waiting for. There are a lot of those lately, and the answer is usually that I'm waiting for enough head space to be able to think clearly... Anyway, come January we will have damson gin, and that will make me Very Happy Indeed. While I was in the jar stash, I also got the calendula flowers that had been sat in the dehydrator for months and threw them into some almond oil, and picked the last of the ones in the garden, and threw them in olive oil (I'd run out of almond). Still not entirely sure what I'm going to do with them, possibly calendula salve, but they might as well be infusing in the meantime. Another job I'd been putting off that took about five minutes. And Peter made another pie! I'm growing to be quite reliant on these pies. They're a concoction of whatever's been brought in from the garden, or needs using in the fridge, with a large number of eggs broken over the top. They're massive, and I end up eating pie for every meal for days. Possibly need to start using a smaller tin. First frost (I think) We had quite a lot of weather in November, including what I think was our first frost. There's also been rather a lot of fog, and some extremely soggy days. I used one of them to put together my seed order for next year's veg patch. This year I just planted all the leftover, randomly acquired seeds I had in the house, which led to a rather higgledy piggledy mix of things that grew well (turnips, kale) and things that didn't (sweetcorn, peas). For next year, I've done a deliberate order of all kinds of things, but have chosen varieties that are suited to exposed, cold, windy sites. They've arrived now, and I need to spend another rainy day sorting out a planting plan so I don't end up leaving everything too late, as usual, and running out of growing season. So that was November. I'm always amazed when I write these posts that things have actually happened, because until I sit down to write I'm convinced nothing's happened at all. This is why I write this blog I suppose - to pin down the things I have done, to make myself remember, so I can look back and think yes, I was outside for a while, yes, things did grow, no, it wasn't raining all year, despite what it might feel like.
And what will December bring? Well, I know some of it, since we're already a third of the way through. So far December has brought trees! An awful lot of trees. Hopefully there will be some insulation in the kitchen, and maybe I'll even do a bit of dry stone walling - there are plenty of them in need of attention. And sadly December will also be bringing chicken lockdown, as our beaky friends will be confined to barracks after the outbreak of bird flu. What an end to the year.
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Hello!Sit down and make yourself comfortable. I'm Jenni, and I write here about our new foray into country living, which includes growing food, knitting, baking, wandering around the fields, and seeing which local cafe serves the best cake. Categories
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