Apple juice

 Cheers! 

Not alcoholic...but delicious!

A slow day

 We started late..and a lie in always unsettles me, even after a late night.

Pirate vacuumed the stairs...he has to do his share, and insists on that...then had a nap...very sensibly. He wanted to do more, but I said No!! 

A friend called by on his way back from a bike ride..it was good to have a cuppa and natter, the three of us sitting in the sun.

Another short nap..and lunch.

While the light was good, I photographed a few more items...

The day was heavy and humid..but the washing still dried, before we took a walk over the fields to pick some good apples...and some plums on the way back!

That was today's exercise as well..all the better for being in the fresh air, and back before the rain.  Looking at the clouds, and the radar maps, any heavy rain went each side of us. The garden needs rain, but not heavy rain.

Not a lot

 To say...busy listing bike bits. I have almost got all of these chainrings on fleabay.  

All assorted, all needed cleaning! Next up some brakes and bits and bobs, then some things I need help with gathering all the relevant bits together so that I can sell them as one unit.

A book sold yesterday..AJCronin, The Stars Look Down.  Time to look out a few more that I don't need to keep, and that will be economic to post!!

We had a little foray a few days ago picking brambles and rewarded ourselves with an ice cream...sat up on a hill to eat it and enjoy the view.

And on Wednesday we went to the Velodrome, for Pirate to try out his new saddle...only for 25 laps total of rolling around with only a couple of others there, and two of the in house coaches.

Getting back on the track helped him physically and mentally. It means he can deal with what he has with a tad more equanimity!!

We came back with a gift if a bag of windfall eating apples....time to get juicing!!

A fine weekend

On Saturday we went to meet friends at an event..The Georgetown Cup.

Only a short individual time trial..7½ miles...but a team event!

There were 151 riders going off at minute intervals on a side road with a halfway roundabout turn. At the same time the annual Flying Scot Association meet was held, with at least forty Flying Scots...and at least a dozen ride the time trial as well. The Flying Scot frame was first built in the early 1920s by Rattrays until the 1970s.  The oldest one at the meeting was dated to 1939.                                                                                           

             

                                                                                                         

 

This was near Erskine, at the back of Glasgow Airport. Being so near it gave us a chance to go through the lanes to Bridge of Weir and to see another friend that we hadn't seen properly for months.

Then head for home, with a stop for an ice lolly!

Unfortunately Pirate insisted on giving the meadow its final cut and lift..and not stopping before he had finished..learning to split jobs is a hard lesson.

Consequently today was a very slow and painful start for him.

The good side of that is that I get a chance to quietly get on with things..washing, making breakfast, packing two fleabay sales..all sorts of little jobs.

I have listed a number...well, quite a lot! ...of chainrings today...and another good sale just waiting for payment.

The Tour of Britain started today, so we had an afternoon of cycle racing on TV!

It was such a beautiful afternoon, we went for a short walk over the fields by The Big Hedge to check on future foraging.

And happened to meet the farmer on whose land this is. We say thanks with apple juice, jam and chutney, and he likes to give us eggs.

At 82 he no longer runs a dairy farm or chickens on a large scale..

He lets his fields out to grazing sheep..and keeps a regular eye on them, thanks to his quad bike.

It was a good meeting, as with Pirate's health problems we hadn't seen him since before we went to NZ last time. He has family in NZ..so it was good to chat.

Then home for more bikes on TV , the highlights of the Vuelta Espana, and supper.

How housework takes up time....

 1. Sheets and towels wash...and dry outside while we had a neighbour's morning..Paddy over for his regular morning cuppa with Pirate, then over to see Nan to swap a jar of plum chutney for a dozen empty jars...and back with half a bucket of Victoria Plums from Paddy!

2. Start yoghurt, lunch then off out when Pirate went for a siesta

3. Do the shopping that got missed yesterday... don't go without a list! and forage apples in our usual seaside place...a full large shopper of cooker-ish apples and half of the eaterish apples. Both needed thinning out, the crops are heavy but smaller fruit than usual...not enough rain at the "right" time....

I will share these around here and hope to get back to pick more in a week or so for keeping.

Started a batch of bramble and apple jelly which will drip overnight.....

And plaited the shallots that had long enough "tails" to plait!

You end the day feeling yes, you have achieved a fair bit....but much is just day to day, day after day stuff!

Tomorrow will have to be preserving day before some of the fruit goes over!!

Bike bits and foraging

 Cleaning and sorting continues...I have got this lot clean, just needs checking, describing, pricing...as do nearly thirty chainrings that have had their first clean.

It takes time... but it is worth it.

We have been on one forage

The greengages and cooking plums came from a friend's garden.

Today should have been apple day.... But I couldn't face getting soaked getting through grass and bracken on the way to the trees!

The apple trees are in the area in the foreground, between the promenade and the dunes.

You can see Dunure Castle and the Heads of Ayr behind in the distance and the Carrick Hills hidden in the clouds

We are both looking forward to Pirate's reviews...so many questions to answer...what did the treatment achieve, why the pain, how long for, what next? I hope they will give him some sort of scan to compare before and after..how else will they be able to judge?

Tomatoes and other fruit

 

This was the biggest tomato this year! Quite unexpected...and more than twice as big as any of the others. It weighed nearly 800 g / 1¾ pounds.

That went into a batch of aubergine and peppers with tomatoes, some of which we enjoyed without visitor.

I am working through the rest...one large batch of non-spicy green tomato and apple chutney, as some people can't tolerate spices.   Then yesterday a very hot tomato and ginger chutney, a friend's recipe that is on the downsizer forum recipe base. 

It was for yellow tomatoes, but I used all the green tomatoes that needed using straight away, plus all the half ripe red ones.

Much bubbling......

It is certainly hot and spicy...and very nice indeed. It will be good to see how it matures.

We took advantage of a break in the weather yesterday afternoon....not that it lasted very long! And had a walk along the big hedge in the field.   Of course we had bags with us! 

We picked a bagfull of sweet crabapples, and a smaller amount of wild pears. The variety I had hoped to get had finished and gone while we were away...they are still as hard, but sweeter...so again, wait until next year and hope. But those we did get will hopefully mix with the sweet apples to make a pleasant enough juice. We will see!!

Then retreat..as the rain came in again.

This morning I awoke to more of the heavy rain and high winds that were keeping us awake last night. A little further north and west from us has a yellow weather warning, as their winds will be in the 70 miles and hour range not the 40s like ours!

Pirate isn't up yet....who blames him?!!

Foraging walk.....and neighbours..and history

 We walked across the field, down the big hedge...which is covered in apples and pears....

We picked half a carrier bag of some fairly sweet crab apples for a neighbour to make bramble and apple jelly..Scriby Apples in Ayrshire Scots.

Then up to the farm on the hill that we see between us and the Isle of Arran.

We took a bottle of last year's apple juice made from apples growing by one of his fields, and damson plum chutney made from damsons from a croft on his land...that in 1850 had 78 acres...a considerable holding then.

He nearly emigrated to New Zealand along with others of his family when he was young....and I think that two of his children have followed their relations to Nelson.

At 81 he no longer has cattle, just 40 hens or so for eggs and overwinters hill sheep on his fields. 

His wife is a vet, and also a brilliant gardener! For the first time, he showed us their front garden...it is fantastic, not huge, but with paths and sheltered corners..and a good windbreak fence!! They have an open day for charity every year, and are open in the summer by appointment.

Then Pirate and him talked tractors!!!! Before we realised that lunchtime had passed..

First stop was the special apple tree. We picked another large bagful..they ripen fully after picking...the ground was covered with windfalls.

This tree has been noticed by apple specialists looking for Scottish varieties..they took lengths for grafting and are returning soon to take DNA samples to see if it is linked to any known variety.

After that, we headed towards home...via the croft with damsons, as Farmer told us of the trees that still had fruit....

The bottom two feet of the croft building walls are still there. It would be a good place to live...but was probably badly affected by the coal mining on what is now Hannahston nature reserve, just up the burn from it.

A goodly bag of plums collected...and home, via our neighbour with the Scriby apples she wanted plus a share of the damsons.

We were lucky to stay reasonably dry...we started our walk after a morning hail shower and it started to rain again once we were home!

Preserving for Winter

 Freezing and drying started, loose rasberries to be packed in a box when frozen. 

Two medium bags of runner beans are in the freezer as well, as with the change of weather fewer are growing. I am leaving the rest to ripen and hope to have enough to grow next year as well as eat as beans, not the whole pod.

Today it has been Washing Machine weather....showers, wind, sun.....so more work indoors, plus collecting some old tongue and groove panelling from a neighbour. This will go over the insulation in my workshop and make shelving and cleaning easier!!

The garden is looking decidedly battered by the wind and rain and I don't know if we will have many sweetcorn cobs worth eating.  It was supposed to be a shorter variety, , but looks as if it wants to outdo the sunflowers!!

Pirate has started setting up the turbo trainers in the back bedroom...this winter we don't want to get overweight and unfit!! Preserving our health!!

Result

 

Eight jars of dark plum chutney!

Foraged plums and apples, homegrown shallots.

Foraging foray

 We had an evening wander down our favourite hedgerow..the crabapples and wild pears are not quite ready..another week or so? Possibly another fortnight for the apples that we forage for juicing.

And for a change blogger didn't reverse the picture order!!

It was a lovely evening, although the midgies were beginning to bite!

What we did find was a largish boxworth of ripe sloes (now in the freezer) and masses of small dark plums..possibly damsons..at a derelict croft near here.

So far today I have bottled the elderberry (plus a few other  series) cordial made yesterday and now need to deal with the plums... possibly more chutney as that is proving a welcome gift...and I need some for our larder as well!!

The birds are slowly returning here, but the heat and drought has decimated the populations.  We have starlings, magpies and gulls, but very few blackbirds. A robin showed his face yesterday, and we saw a couple of bluetits and great tits in the hedgerows..but far fewer than usual.

On track...then a walk

 Yesterday Pirate was part of a Masters' practice session before the national championships ..and we are back again for another four hours today! 

A series of events is run during the four hours...there are two groups, fast and...not so fast! A lot of it is practicing techniques, as unless you do a lot of travelling to race, it's easy to get a bit rusty.

Our club is well spread out so it was a good chance for a get together!

We do have more than these...not everyone could get the time or money for a weekend away. When you consider the furthest travelled this weekend was from four hours north of Glasgow. Another Scot, now living in Manchester came north for the weekend...he lives nearer than some of our members!! as the velodrome building there is being renovated and the track closed for now.

After coming home we had a walk , a bit of exercise for me and walk the riding and car sitting out of his legs. Plus a chance to review for future foraging!

Other trees look laden too

And a beautiful sky...

Hot... but successful ...and Rain!

 Yesterday was foraging day.

Still dry but more high clouds coming over, hot but not oppressively so.

Wheat was being harvested, but looking more closely it wasn't a good crop and was being harvested late...but better save what you have, than lose the lot when it does rain.

We looked north towards Ayr....you can see three tower blocks in the middle, which are due to be demolished due to unsafe cladding.  Cheaper to demolish fifty year old buildings than to renovate, probably.  The VAT ...20% tax ..on renovation as opposed to none on new builds has a lot to answer for .

Then the tallest building in Ayr will be a large hotel near the centre.

Brambles and elderberries are just ready to harvest...very few sloes are, but it is very early for them. We gathered litre boxfull, enough, with some odds and ends of berries in the freezer, for the first batch of mixed berry cordial.

The success was two bags of apples. 5kg of small eaters and 15kg of what may be cookers.

The former, thinning out the ripe fruit from our usual foraging tree, the latter doing the same from a tree that had little fruit last year, and this year is laden! 

Having managed to get to the tree, we discovered that it was next to a large well laden crab apple tree...next time!

We are not the only people foraging there and there is plenty for all including fruit for the birds! I was sad that I hadn't taken a box as well as a bag to the apple trees as the Rosa Rugosa hips were just ready.

There will be another day. I need to get making and storing what I have first.

This morning we have awakened to freshness and rain, after a night of thunder and lightning and heavy showers. Luckily not torrential rain here, what is falling now should soak in not just run off.

Foraging and life and stuff

 

Pirate had a CT scan yesterday, at a hospital twenty miles away.not the usual...so we took the bikes and had a ride on different lanes...and found some wild cherries.

The first forage this year!

As usual it was nice weather while we were out...but we did get some work done after we returned.

This is the one side of the front of the building..

We got the other side to within three strips of the top.

The strips are pieces of pallet wood.

Today is yet again cold windy and damp...we have been doing bits of this and that indoors...and now to wrap up warm and get a few more strips of wood on and make a template for the angles of the ends of the drips above door level, where they meet the roof.

It is hard to believe that it is July...even the tomatoes are growing slowly..

Evening walk

crab apples... surprisingly there doesn't seem to have been a June drop...I think they may be still small as we haven't had that much rainfall...

And high up in the trees are...

Pears...it will be a short window when they will be just right to juice...fingers crossed!!

 And we could just see Arran. Today we have had gusty winds again...we had planned a bike ride, but wind and showers again wrote that off.

After our walk I started harvesting gooseberries, black and red currants and Alpine strawberries... Without netting the birds would have already cleared the lot!!