Short Of Breath...Eek!

Totally choosing not to remember the wind has me gasping for breath within seconds of venturing outside, I walked...or rather...sort of lurched...round the garden this afternoon because the rain had stopped and I swear I was going slightly stir crazy with not having had any fresh air for a couple of days.

Every single last Gooseberry has gone...eaten by the Blackbirds I suppose...no Redcurrants either...not a Raspberry to be had. There are some Blackcurrants left but it's such a faff topping and tailing them...and they will squidge in your fingers if you're a bit heavy handed.

Had a quick look inside the poly-tunnel...don't think Himself has been watering the Peppers actually...those he grew last year were delicious...a hundred times better than those from a shop.

Said hello to the Rabbit...it's been so wet he had to be moved back into the tunnel...the poor thing would have drowned if he'd stayed outside. Feeling sorry for him having to live on his own when I first had him, I gave him a Guinea-Pig as a friend...he murdered it. Rabbit is now sixteen years old...probably too long in the tooth to introduce another hapless furry friend.

He isn't very friendly anyway...screams blue murder if you dare to pick him up and beats the daylights out of your arms with his back feet...Himself wears thick gardening gloves that reach his elbows if he does need to pick Rabbit up...

Had to keep stopping every few steps to get my breath back...leaning on tree trunks and pretending to myself that I was grand and had just stopped to look at the river...

The Orange Blossom has almost finished and there isn't a single plum on either Plum tree this year...last year they were both laden down with fruit. The Hazel tree doesn't have any nuts either...I wonder whether this fruiting every other year is a 'modern' trend...if you were relying on gathering nuts for the winter it must have been quite a shock to realise there weren't any.

There haven't been any Beech nuts for years...the shells fall off...thousands of them all over the road and our little field, but none have those sweet little nuts inside. We used to dawdle on the way home from school...eating Beech nuts and with a pocket full of shiny Conkers...

I made my way back indoors eventually...had to sit down for ages to recover.

[Colours23]

The little fury things have taken all the nuts for the winter and hid them. Sounds reall interesting going round your garden,it did pour with rain all day here, mainly on the coach as usual. But a garden would be nice to explore,I can't do too much wind it's chokes me,good to breath when y ou even been in for days .but allergy can be a problem too.

[Pentreath Volunteer]

Quick tip for sorting out blackcurrants. Pick the 'tassle' from the bush and put in basket. Back indoors get fork from drawer and slide it down from the top. Currants will drop off into receptacle. Never bothered with taking the little bits off the bottom, never notic them when they have been cooked or made into jam.

[freefaller in reply to Pentreath]

We picked some of our blackcurrants yesterday. We used to take the "beards" off but stopped that years ago - such a faff. We make blackcurrant jam for our weekend croissants using less sugar and more fruit - delicious. Had lots of fruit this year - summer raspberries - for cream tea jam and a lot to make raspberry pavlovas. Hope the autumn raspberries are the same. not too many goosberries so just made goosberry sauce to have with mackerel. Think the blackbirds had them - never begrudge anything to the blackbirds as their song is so joyous. Looks like we have loads of plums too. best thing is to eat them straight off the tree. Any damaged ones we make into plum chutney - the best. Oh and again out of two damson trees we have on damson again this year! A friend suggests we freeze each damson and in a few decades we may get enough top make damson jam. We get damsons from friends of ours in Swindon whose son has a hedge with wild damsons - sometimes they don't even make it to the jam pot as they are so large and luscious. Scrummy. Hungry now and only just had breccy.

Sian

xoxoxoxox

[hufferpuffer]

Hi Vashti, the birds have been tucking into what I left on the bushes a couple of weeks ago I left the ones that weren't quite ready 😀 you have to be quick to get to them first lol!😀

How is Murphy today? 😻 my first crush was a boy called Patrick Murphy lol 😀 he lived in Crumlin 😃💙💟💙

huff 😏😳😜

[piggi]

Hi Vashti. I chuckled reading about rabbit. We had a girl rabbit called Millie for years who was so sweet. Then we got a boy rabbit called Charlie.....well! He would have got on well with yours. And he spent 3 years trying to make himself scarce and I spent 24/7 trying to catch him.... it was almost a relief when he did get away.. probably to run rampant with the local rabbit population... so I told myself, at least he had his myxomatosis jab.. probably pass on immunity in his genes... ha ha ha! I've felt rough today too. Think the wind contributed a lot. Seem to have almost lost my hearing over night. So I can feel the wind but not hear it. And, like you, more sob than usual. Oh well....all the best x piggi

[snappy1]

Hi Vashsti, people tend to think bunnies are cute and furry, little do they know the fun they have kicking hell out of you. I have peppers coming along nicely and waiting for my toms to redden, hopefully next couple of days if the thing that glows in the sky comes out. We've got all our stuff in containers as garden not big, but it is joy to sit with french doors open and look at our little patch of joy.