Despite the hot weather lately, I love this time of year. The days are shortening, and there is that beautiful golden haze in the air some days that tells you autumn is here. The sun is getting lower on the northern horizon, and it feels like nearly time for the footy to start and for bonfires and picking brassicas in the garden. Summer has been a true summer this year it feels like, and I love each season in it’s proper place, but I am looking forward to some cooler, wetter weather!
The kids and I have picked some beautiful blackberries from a wettish spot below one of dams, and after a friend gave us bags and bags of beautiful apples yesterday, I’m hoping there are a few left so we can make some blackberry and apple jam; delicious! Liam’s tomato plant in his garden died early, so he picked all the green tomatoes and we invented a green tomato and apple chutney, which turned out quite well. It’s always good to experiment, and now Liam has plenty of little lemon cucumbers ready to pick, and Lucas and Stella have peas, yellow tomatoes, and lettuce. Our vegie garden has improved a lot since we turned the first sods over in it last summer when we moved here; the soil is much happier, and so are the vegies!
Greg is milling away tonight; wheat, spelt, and rye flours for Friday’s bake. Greg is a plumber by day and a talented multi-tasker the rest of the time. Our lives are certainly busy, but very rewarding, although that is a very clichéd thing to say. Going out on a limb to do what we are doing is not without it’s stressful moments, but it is something we have thought and planned and dreamed about for a long time, and seeing it all coming together is so great; to walk round the paddocks at sunrise with nothing except the mist in the valleys, cows grazing, birds, the hills, and the sky turning all colours makes you feel truly alive. Seeing the kids having such great fun gathering acorns under the oak trees, or getting pussy willow branches for bows and arrows, or as Stella is lately, so excited about the ‘little calfies’, well, at the end of the day, it’s why we are doing what we are doing.