DOING PORRIDGE WITH STYLE, APPLE HARVEST & A WASPS NEST

After our usual breakfast of porridge -

with a couple of additional ingredients - we were fortified enough to tackle the apple harvest.


We would have left this for a couple of weeks, but the weather forecast is for strong winds over the next week - so rather than be left with a lot of bruised fruit which would need lots of labour-intensive prep for the freezer, we decided to harvest.


You can imagine the fun and games we had, especially as the apple tree has not been pruned for a while; it is growing wild, free, and very tall!  My job was to make sure that the ladders didn't fall, so I was showered in leaves, lots of earwigs and several ladybirds - I also had to dodge quite a few very large cooking apples which slipped out of your Pa's grasp...


The haul was amazing, far larger than we expected.  We devised a method whereby George hung one of my cloth shopping bags, with long handles, around his neck - that formed a kangaroo-style pouch into which he put the apples.  It was surprisingly efficient.

 This is the apple harvest from the tree outside the utility room door - they are beauties.  George has spent quite some time this afternoon battling against the odds to construct some shelving upon which to store them in the cool and the dark.


I say battling because when he went to use the saw he found this

- remember all the wasps which were hanging around it during the early summer Jonny?  When you checked it out you couldn't find anything... well, they obviously returned later and built themselves a nest!


Isn't it magnficent?  It is only a tiny one (the one we found in our garden at Tetney was huge in comparison) but the engineering and design is simply astounding.  This must be where all the wood which got chewed off the small shed door has gone.  I have kept it so that I can show Harry it tomorrow.


Anyway, to return to the trials and tribulations of poor George, he had to cut his wood by hand and some of it using the log saw, so it has taken much longer to cut the slats for storage shelving than it should have done.    As I type this he is busy placing the apples carefully so that they don't touch one another, etc.  Dr Who is on, but he is recording it ready to watch later with a glass of wine.

Toby has felt a little under the weather today
and boy did he go for the sympathy.


Have no fear, he was an hour late eating his dinner, but when he did get started he was fine and seems completely perky now.


Pip's belly looks as though she has got an alien inside, but it feels soft - so I don't think she has anything to worry about at the moment.


The two cats have just been put into their compound for the night - the shame is that they will be confined to their quarters tomorrow until after the Enduro motor bike race has fininshed at about 4pm.  They will not be happy girls.


I made another batch of spinach and apple soup today.  It made for a quick and easy meal and there is plenty left over for tomorrow (when it should taste even better) with another couple of servings left to go into the freezer.  


I hope you are having a great weekend Jonny - don't forget to do your laundry!  Have you got an iron yet?


Lots of love,


Mum
xxx