05.11.2015
My favourite Autumn challenge is on… to try to make good use of all the apples from our three small trees! The results can be quite colourful as you can see, using other locally available ingredients such as bramble, rhubarb, plum, rowan berry, quince, mint, crab apple and blackcurrant.
I must have made about 50 jars of jams and jellies so far and I still have a wheelbarrow and a half to go… I always put a sample in the cottage welcome packs, so guests can expect some interesting specimens to try out in weeks to come. Having said that, I also usually manage to store quite a lot of apples over the Winter. The ones which don’t survive intact make a wonderful surprise snack for the blackbirds in the colder months.
We managed another short trip to Caerlaverock at the weekend and spotted not only Chris Packham (of BBC Autumnwatch for the uninitiated) and hoards of yapping barnacle geese but – yes! – the snow goose. Astonishing to think that it could be picked out so clearly amongst all those thousands of other birds, even by us!
