Summing up Sunday 25th

A busy week full of autumnal events.

It always seems odd that the mulberry is the last to get leaves and the first to loose them and it's no different this year. The  shower of yellow dinner plate sized leaves has been going on for a week or so and without a frost and an avalanche of leaves  the steady trickle will continue. Joyce visited to swing whilst J did the sweeping up...

The biggest event of the week was the arrival of Jacob, a visiting shetland ram, last weekend. He's gradually been accepted by our rather flighty group of girls. Initially Cleo and Bunty bossed him about but they are now being a little more accepting of him and he's showing the right kind of interest in them, so we hope for the patter of tiny feet at Easter. However, he seems to be encouraging bad behaviour, and on the  first very rainy autumnal day they wickedly knocked down the mollytunnel defences and ate through the plastic to get into a nice dry space with hay!

The second autumnal event was an amazing apple day in cambridge botanic gardens visited by a and t . We went in with a mission to try and identify some varieties for the end of our field and found 7 great ones to bring home to the south west for a bit more of a trial. We realise we are going to have to do a bit more of a search in South west pomonas ( fruit encyclopaedias for areas ...) but it was a good start.

Autumnal event number 3 is the start of the grand pickle and chutney preserving which starts now and will go on, traditionally in this house anyway, to Boxing Day when the final pumpkin will be pickled. T in cambridge has been making quince cheese and setting it in lovely containers with wax seals, and here we have been using up all the green tomatoes in chutney before blight takes them over.