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.