Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Golden October

Nothing is better than standing in the garden, all around you is a crisp frosty day with a brilliant blue sky and you are eating raspberries warmed from the sun fresh from a shrub.





Passages and set backs

Yesterday one of the original chickens we bought with the house last year died during the night. When we brought the chickens in for the night, they were alright but during the night one of them (one of the black ones) was eggbound (in German Legenot where birds want to lay an egg and push and push but as they are too old to still produce an egg they push out their cloaca :s It's messy, enough said).
She is now at rest with the rest of our pets on our little cemetary.
Sammy is shier than ever. We needed to give her some medicine and she was so afraid and angsty that now she is actually crying when we come near her. *sigh* I don't know what to do .. we need to give her the medicine as she still has open patches on her back. And she still needs a good claw clip but that is out of the question so far, she doesn't want to get touched .. let alone being captured and held. I doubt she will ever be a normal family dog. which is really sad. So now we are back to square one and I have to find a way where I can touch her without her taking flight.
Lir on the other hand is getting more and more comfortable with us every day. He is a big clown with a boyish attitude and you can actually feel that he loves his home and us. It will be so heart breaking when he finds his forever home. But then again ... so far only two ppl were interested in him but when they heard he was only using three legs, they didn't want him anymore. Jeesh, he is not disabled. His right hind leg is just shorter, but he uses it for getting up and down the stairs and all.
With the days now getting much colder, we are still trying to find our indoors pace compared to our outdoor pace of the summer. While the door to our court yard and garden was open 24/7 now it is closed as we try to keep the warmth in and the cold outside.
All have adjusted so far though it gets increasingly more difficult to persuade Careto and the two little girls to go outside LOL They are sooo typically Southern dogs, as soon as it gets cold, they rather stay indoors in the warmth. Lir on the other hand with his big fur loves to lie in the courtyard (while my Southern terrors sit on the coconut mats in front of the door and look as if they are dying of frost bite LOL

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Plans and projects

Life has slowed down, most vegetable beds are bare now and ready for winter but my aubergines are still striving. This is the second time we experience harvest season now here in our little abode and I have to say it is even more fun than last year. We still have lots and lots of apples but with giving away a lot of them this year (opening up our garden for the public) we haven't had the sinking feeling of drowning in apples. We made apple juice (which has already been drunk!!!) and baked and cooked and it all has been fun.

However, I still have the feeling as if I'm mere dabbling in the way of homesteading. Probably because when I read blogs whose owners have been harvesting like mad and conserving full time this season I feel so incompetent. LOL IOh well, next year .. next year with the fence now sturdily in place and no way that the marauding chickens can eat up my budding cucumbers and courgettes etc. we will have a smashing good time. Over the winter I want to fix the greenhouse as well. Ever since Careto has ripped it apart I need to sew it again and hopefully it will be fixed easily.

I also want to do some sewing and crafting again ... there is a new quilt in the works as well as a crafting project for the bedroom (which still isn't painted btw) and I need to put up the finishing touches in the sewing room. *sigh* So much to do and so little time but with this coming winter hopefully being a cold long one again with lots of snow I hope to fin the time to finish up all my projects :)

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

The last of the summer wine ...

Though we had a not so nice summer, the end of September/beginning of October was warm and sunny ... everyone flocked to the garden ... and I mean everyone :)











The vegetable garden is now better secured than Fort Knox

My aubergines

Monday, October 10, 2011

Giving Thanks

The following entry was supposed to be posted on September 1st ... so much has been happening I hadn't have the time to sit in front of the computer :s
Is it already a year since we moved into our little paradise in the country?
In the past 12 months I have made memories and experiences that have been both exhilarating and annoying, truly wonderful and deeply hurtful. But we persevere. We all do and with each little life that comes and goes, we strive on.
This slowness, this de-accelaration, it works for us. Especially for me as I have never been happier than on our little smallhold here.
September ... a year from now I wonder what will have happe4ned. Will I be busy doing all the things that I had already scheduled for this year and didn't get around doing because of the continued attack of the vicious chickens? Will my garden strive and be full of plentiful harvest or will it wither like it did this year because of the chickens?
The past year has offered many great experiences. We have become richer and wiser, but also a bit more lonely (in the winter) and much more secluded. Friends come and go, my great grandfather used to say, good friends stay. Well, I haven't had any good friends, or so it seems. During winter most of my so-called friends turned away because of little petty schemes from someone I had never thought would be so ruthless. But where doors close, windows open and since spring, as with the first blossoms on our apple trees, friendship has sprung and abounded. This village and it villagers are not so strange, so utterly different anymore. I know a lot of ppl now, and friendship slowly blossoming.
Over the past few weeks, ever since our anniversary of the move from D to B occurred, I've been thinking about all the things I've been and should have been grateful about. The garden ... our delicious potatoes even though they are quite small, the courgettes and tomatoes fresh from the garden. Did you know that lettuce freshly picked and eaten is actually SWEET????
Nothing to compare with the lettuce you get from the supermarket. The vitamins turn bitter once lettuce is picked. The wonder of eating freshly picked strawberries and tomatoes still warm from the sun is something I wish a lot more ppl can experience. Of course, it's more work. You need to find the time to tend, to grow, to weed.