Tuesday 2 October 2007

What is it about this time of year that brings out the need to make ready for winter? It isn't as though we live in an age of shortages or have to ensure the harvest sees us through the long cold months in an Ingalls Wilder sort of way (forgot those books yesterday Jane). And yet every year as the autumn gradually chills more and more I find myself preparing, making chutneys and jams to fill the shelves with their myriad colours, wrapping up for countryside rambles to collect the sloes and berries which will become rich gins and cordials to be sipped in time by the crackling flames of a winter fire. The children help chop and stack the logs in the woodshed, a job Elias is particularly skillful at and Sam is particularly half-hearted in, and I will make sure I am nowhere to be seen as I panic at the very notion of them weilding the axe! Dave is far better at over-seeing these things!

The garden is already wearing its shabby coat and I am underway with the spruce up - I love the raking of leaves and the tidying of the campfire ready for Hallowe'en and Bonfire Night when we shall sit on the larger logs as the fire roars and spits, keeping company with pumpkin lanterns carved by the gang earlier in the day. The older children (adults actually) 'help' the younger as all love this part of the festival. Seeds have been collected from lupins and lychnis, marigolds and herbs, and are stowed away in paper bags for the following spring. The last of the windfalls are gathered ready for the weekend's cider making which usually produces a flat cider not popular with all, but loved by us. I noticed a crop of blueberries outside the kitchen from a plant which I thought had not produced because of the torrential rains earlier on in the year, but it seems with nature's resilience it merely waited for better weather before deciding to fruit. Now is the time I will cut back the bedraggled plants after their summer dance to let them sleep away the cold days until the next ball calls. The birds will not go without as there are plenty of seedheads left untouched and berries enough on cotoneaster and ivy, berberis and bramble to keep them going in the chill air.

It is a time of nesting for me and I love it.

Have a lovely day everyone xx

11 comments:

  1. Ooooo I love it too. Spent Sunday 'getting ready for the winter' my favourite passtime.

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  2. I can just see you beavering away there 'safely gathering in'. The memory cloth is a lovely idea and I've always meant to do one as well.
    Best wishes from a fellow fabric junkie. Toady

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  3. I love this time of year to.

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  4. Hub3's favourite time of year, but not mine really. I love the sun. Lovely evocative blog though.

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  5. I've always adored this time of year and usually love doing all the things you describe, but this year I'm mourning the passing of the light more. Maybe it's because we had such a rotten summer? This was a gorgeous blog though, I love the thought of you beavering away, it's such a natural thing to do, to 'nest' like that, I only wish I was half as industrious as you - and you have five children and your own business - am feeling really inadequate now ...

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  6. Where do you find the time, Pipany?!

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  7. Ditto to SM, here, Pip, you're making us feel inadequate! All nice sighy stuff but have to confess have never made jam... I mourn the passing of the light too much, too, to contemplate seeing Autumn with anything other than a curled lip.

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  8. I think Autumn is a wonderful time of year, I love all the colour changes and the excitement as Christmas approaches!

    Crystal xx

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  9. SO Ok now I feel inadequite all over! You are so industrious!!!I am incredibly impressed!

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  10. lovely blog and I am totally with you on the nesting thing. I have next Friday and Saturday earmarked for some more chutney and jam making and for cutting back and tidying up in the veg garden. Our pumpkins were rubbish this year though - too much rain or cold? I dont know.
    We've been having log fires this week and I love that too.

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  11. Hello Pipany,

    What you have written is beautiful and so makes me want to not be in a city right now.

    Please put up a picture that shows you in this early autumn, or at least something visual to echo you beautiful words that really do summon us to the joys of the new season.

    xo

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