Season of Mists

 So its the season of mists and total apathy ,  my daughter has charged me with crocheting dozens of xmas somethings for a craft fair because shes not well and promised them to someone , can you imagine anything more depressing for someone who loathes xmas?  im bad enough this time of year without dozens of little xmas trees haunting my life ...lol  Anyway im removed from the tyranny of the garden by the weather but still it haunts me , im constantly tending the dehydrator , himself having discovered Pear Chips his new favourite food , i have yet to figure out the exploding raspberries problem but ive tons coming ready so they may end up in the freezer instead of the dehydrator , despite being on 24 hrs a day the dehydrator uses little electricity , next project will be lemon cucumber chips we have a glut of those coming the next week . Then theres the weird way we have a huge crop of Pink Fir Apple potatoes  they were a couple of strays that were hiding under the pumpkin leaves and have produced the best crop ive ever had , Nature is a funny old thing . Strange request time , does anyone have a couple of fresh walnuts for me to plant , i can pay postage if you have Paypal . 

I seem to be reaching saturation on the winter groceries front , im more well stocked than ever this year and im running out of places to hide stuff from him...lol . The freezer looks healthy and i will collar a turkey something as soon as they are released into the wild its just an extra few big things like more pet food , Maggi catering mash and dried milk , there will be more fresh stuff this year , sprouting seeds is proving popular and i will have a multitude of different squash and cabbages along with leeks . i wish sweet potatoes grew better here but your reliant on the weather for them , but they keep well so im picking small ones up cheaply at the moment .

So thats my exciting life at the moment ...what are you all up to?

Prep ??

So im doing my usual prep for winter routine , stock up on a few things, look round at water butts in the sales, inspect the sheds for repairs and buy weird shit from the auctions..lol                                                    On the weird stuff from the auctions , once again crappy photos and my view of sizes went a little awry , i have looked for a fish kettle all summer to plant winter salad into , i figured it would slot up the side of his scooter in the porch . I have had numerous plastic windowsill boxes they all go brittle by spring and snap and fall apart  so it seemed quite logical to me and i payed next to nothing for the auction lot . Its huge , its french, its aluminium it weighs  nothing , it still has the vintage stickers on it and i think you could cook a small whale in it , weirdly it came with a brand new pickaxe , which my agrophobic son claimed and dragged off to his lair, should i be worried ? it also had two big caravan water containers which have been sterilized and dried in the sun , prepper mind says they may come in useful  in the event and they can reside in a shed wrapped in plastic , nothing does my head in more than the filth that comes from nowhere in a shed when you want to use something .                                                                                  Then i went to the carboot sale and something winked at me , i wandered all round the place but when i went to the car it was still winking to me , asked the old bloke selling it and he said hed ruined the top trying to clean it , so im now the proud owner of a long arts and craft stool its big and chunky and i havent decided whether to recover it or live with it in ruin we shall see, i seem to have amassed loads of projects for the winter plus my daughter has roped me into crochet a load of xmas stuff for a craft fair , its all go. which with my nine millionth batch of shingles is just great , just got to pop out and struggle to plant out 20 spring cabbages and Japanese onions...aaarrrrgggghhhhh 

Refugees

 So as a woman of the working class and of a certain age , you may be expecting a whole rant about immigration . Guess what it isnt, its about the chucking up of houses on every spare inch of the village one of the ancient touch your forelock farmers having turned over the business to his offspring . They are selling off every inch they possibly can to be used for building overpriced houses , last year we had them building a huge eco house mansion about 200 yards away , it took forever because she changed her mind every 4 minutes about everything , best laugh she planted a huge line of £100 trees all across the front  probably to block out the view of us poor folk and every one is now a large dead twig due to planting them at the wrong time of year , then there was the row with the cable layers when they started digging her block paving up at the end of her drive , pure street theatre provided me with entertainment for days , council officials, management from the cable companies blokes with tape measures you name it they were there only for her to be told you cant annex a strip of verge because it made your drive entrance look untidy . The sense of entitlement is epic . but now we are getting 4 more of these eco monstrosities directly in the field over the road and i have had to rehome the refugees at hedgehog feeding time i have between 6 and 18 of the hungry nosed buggers . A tawny owl, a grunty squirrel and snakes . You see they have ripped all the trees and ancient hedgerows out , the wildlife is all homeless and hiding here . Guess thats how you designate an eco home ? 

While cutting the front hedge the other day i was accosted by a rather posh lady driving a Tesla Betamax, she wanted to know what the village was like , she really did pick the wrong day , so i told her ... just behind the pretty trees there is a huge chicken farm that stinks , theres a pig farm just over the fields and the worst smell is its shit spreading season , just to cheer me up the RAF obliged with a full on performance of we are late for our lunch with a couple of  jets screaming overhead because they are on day and night war games at the moment . Oh and theyre building the largest anerobic digester in Europe up the road , she cant say she wasnt warned...lol