It's so dark. In the morning kids use flashlight to get to school, I have hunted the whole house for reflectors - in spring there is always dozens of them, and in autunm you just can't find more than three - and we need four.
I might have to start sewing them again, I have nice amount of M3 reflective fabric (the same that is used on hi-vis clothing), but I also would need some space to cut and sew, and the space is always amiss in our house...
Kids get home when there is still light, but at 5pm when I drive home, if not pitch dark, but already need of full headlights on my car. Yesterday I got home, and D told me there's something on the field. Couldn't see a thing, so I guessed it was a deer or something. This morning I took dog for a walk and realized there was a pile of horse manure! Well, that was unexpected. Nice suprise though, Now maybe my carrots and beets will grow better next summer!
I have to wait until weekend to actually see the pile. I suppose my father delivered it, he has a tractor and carriage and here is a couple of horses in our village, he has fetched some to himself earlier this autunm.
Strange things happen in the dark.
Tuesday 1 November 2016
Monday 19 September 2016
Winter is coming
Today has been a bleary day. Mist in the early morning, fog in the morning and clouds all through the day. No rain thoug, a week late, at least. This is September, it is supposed to rain! No frost today either, we had it last week, thank you. Not on my garden nor on my veg plot, thanks for that, I still have an odd cucumber and beanstalk there.
All marks of autumn is here. Threes have shedded half of their leaves, rest are golden (or brown, there is some fungal disease which is drying the leaves, it shouldn't have lasting effect).
I have been foragin food all summer and early autumn. Berries, veggies and mushrooms. Some more mushrooms, and then some. I pick chanterelles in my dreams, and I find maggot filled porcinos in my nightmares. When I close my eyes during daytime, I see black trumpets...
Berries have been freezed, rendered into cordial (by my mother), dried (by my sister) or cooked to jams and marmalades. I also made few jars of liqueur (1 part berries, 1 part sugar 1 part vodka; you can use brown sugar but I just use the cheapest available granulated sugar). Blueberries, raspberries, black-, red- and whitecurrants (red and white from our only but mosty absent neighbour). I also tried this with some rowan berries, but I forgot to freese them beforehand, so I think they may not come up the way I want... Time will see.
Mushrooms have been dried, pickled and freezed. No liqueur here.
Bullbeans and green beans are blanced (bullbeans peeled, I'm glad I have teenagers to do that).
Potatoes last till end of this month, then I have to forage my parents cellar. Carrots are barely there, they just don't like clay. Beetroots are almost as miserable as carrots, and I have no idea why. Maybe it was too cold?
Wood has been chopped and stacked to dry, they should do till next summer.
What I do need is a wood burner. A new one. I have one already in our extension, but it burnt out last winter (I got it for free from my colleague, and it was already a bit worn, we replaced some cast iron pieces with fire bricks, but now the top plate broke and it really must not be used without it). It is old, and although I can get spare parts for it, I would prefer a brand new burner (for it is going to stay there the next decade or something before I can replace it with decent brick fireplace). We have few other fireplaces, nice and sturdy wood-burning stove in our old kitchen and a fireplace in the livingroom.
We do have a central heating, but because of the long renevation process, it is electric at the moment, so burning some wood makes my energy bills cheaper. We don't need to buy wood, but of course, we bought the forest few years ago. You can count that on the energy bills if you like.
But I haven't started knitting socks yet.
All marks of autumn is here. Threes have shedded half of their leaves, rest are golden (or brown, there is some fungal disease which is drying the leaves, it shouldn't have lasting effect).
I have been foragin food all summer and early autumn. Berries, veggies and mushrooms. Some more mushrooms, and then some. I pick chanterelles in my dreams, and I find maggot filled porcinos in my nightmares. When I close my eyes during daytime, I see black trumpets...
Berries have been freezed, rendered into cordial (by my mother), dried (by my sister) or cooked to jams and marmalades. I also made few jars of liqueur (1 part berries, 1 part sugar 1 part vodka; you can use brown sugar but I just use the cheapest available granulated sugar). Blueberries, raspberries, black-, red- and whitecurrants (red and white from our only but mosty absent neighbour). I also tried this with some rowan berries, but I forgot to freese them beforehand, so I think they may not come up the way I want... Time will see.
Mushrooms have been dried, pickled and freezed. No liqueur here.
Bullbeans and green beans are blanced (bullbeans peeled, I'm glad I have teenagers to do that).
Potatoes last till end of this month, then I have to forage my parents cellar. Carrots are barely there, they just don't like clay. Beetroots are almost as miserable as carrots, and I have no idea why. Maybe it was too cold?
Wood has been chopped and stacked to dry, they should do till next summer.
What I do need is a wood burner. A new one. I have one already in our extension, but it burnt out last winter (I got it for free from my colleague, and it was already a bit worn, we replaced some cast iron pieces with fire bricks, but now the top plate broke and it really must not be used without it). It is old, and although I can get spare parts for it, I would prefer a brand new burner (for it is going to stay there the next decade or something before I can replace it with decent brick fireplace). We have few other fireplaces, nice and sturdy wood-burning stove in our old kitchen and a fireplace in the livingroom.
We do have a central heating, but because of the long renevation process, it is electric at the moment, so burning some wood makes my energy bills cheaper. We don't need to buy wood, but of course, we bought the forest few years ago. You can count that on the energy bills if you like.
But I haven't started knitting socks yet.
This is me
This is me.
Fat and ugly, tired and fed up.
But who cares? Just me, and that's enough.
This is my blog. I write it as a diary to remember, to sort out my thoughts, to vent my frustration. This is my safe haven.
I'm middle-aged well-educated mother of six-minus-two (I'll come to that later, maybe), have a spouse and a house in the middle of nowhere. Actually, not. If it is really really dark and there are no leaves on the threes, I might get a glimpse of light from our neighbour, about 400m (quarter a mile) away. If it's not very windy, I might go by the edge of the field and shout really really loudly - and someone might hear me across the field. I work in public service, so I really shouldn't be shouting really really loudly.
We are renovating and building an extension to our house. The house was semi-ok, but with only two bedrooms and one loo it really was way too small for our family. We have already built the extension, it's (mostly) well insulated, wheather-proof and partly livable. We still don't have another loo (but we do have an outhouse with state-of-the-art composting seat!), no new kitchen or decent bath, but at least all children have a room of their own (or as our two youngers prefer, a room for them, they don't like to sleep alone).
I have a vegetable patch, a potato patch, few bushes of black currants and one miserable twig of damson. We have a forest. A bit smaller than Winnie the Pooh's Hundred Acre Wood. But it's ours.
And you know - winter is coming.
Fat and ugly, tired and fed up.
But who cares? Just me, and that's enough.
This is my blog. I write it as a diary to remember, to sort out my thoughts, to vent my frustration. This is my safe haven.
I'm middle-aged well-educated mother of six-minus-two (I'll come to that later, maybe), have a spouse and a house in the middle of nowhere. Actually, not. If it is really really dark and there are no leaves on the threes, I might get a glimpse of light from our neighbour, about 400m (quarter a mile) away. If it's not very windy, I might go by the edge of the field and shout really really loudly - and someone might hear me across the field. I work in public service, so I really shouldn't be shouting really really loudly.
We are renovating and building an extension to our house. The house was semi-ok, but with only two bedrooms and one loo it really was way too small for our family. We have already built the extension, it's (mostly) well insulated, wheather-proof and partly livable. We still don't have another loo (but we do have an outhouse with state-of-the-art composting seat!), no new kitchen or decent bath, but at least all children have a room of their own (or as our two youngers prefer, a room for them, they don't like to sleep alone).
I have a vegetable patch, a potato patch, few bushes of black currants and one miserable twig of damson. We have a forest. A bit smaller than Winnie the Pooh's Hundred Acre Wood. But it's ours.
And you know - winter is coming.
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