Harvesting

There is something really satisfying about building a stash of food for future use. Harvest time has started, and the first onion and potato crops have been brought in from the veg plot and the first twenty two pots of jam have been made from our fruit. Gosh!

And hard work it is. Many a time we have wondered about the advisability of expending the energy needed to produce these harvests. The plod of prepping the ground, planting the seed, watering and weeding. It is a long journey and one which at any time can fail that end harvest: not watering, or leaving the weeds to grow over the young plants, or not keeping an eye on how things are going, will fail that end crop. As I say, it is a bit of a plod.

Perhaps that is why I tend to spend more time out in the front garden amongst the flowers. A flower garden, I think, is more restful, perhaps because one tills the soil, one plants the seed, shrub or tree, one waters and weeds, and then the flowers come, relieving one of the necessity of then bringing in the harvest. But then one is also robbed of the immense sense of satisfaction when one sees the produce heaped up for future use. A good balance, therefore, is to have both, which I am gradually coming to terms with. It takes time to cross over between two lives and one has to patient with the process, this is what I am learning. I have an expanding life, and at sixty four, I feel lucky to have such a life. 

Sometimes, however, I do fall out of the saddle. Sometimes, just sometimes, I do sigh.  But not today! Because I have just made some pots of jam and I feeeeelllllll goooooodddd!

Five pots of apricot. Eight pots of peach and apricot. Nine pots of yellow plum. In the midst of winter they will bring summer sunshine into us. And I will have forgotten the ages it took to prep the fruit....

....although I did have help to clean up the stickiness of the 'testing for the set of the jam' spoon, which requires a spoonful of jam being taken from the hot jam pot on the stove, taking it outside and then waving it about to cool the jam down. If it all falls off the spoon it is not done, but if it sticks then it is. This, however, produces puddles of jam on the floor / ground which is why it is best to this part outside! And it's nice to have a bit of help now and again to clean up the stickiness.

Harvesting things is good for the soul, and makes one feel in charge of one's life, that is what I am finding out. Hope you have something in your life which makes you feel equally as proud of yourself,...... and saying bye for now. x

PS: Would that one of the broody hens in the Tall Barn felt the same. Her lack of effort at keeping all the eggs underneath her at the same time tells me that we are unlikely to have any little ones hatching from those eggs. She might, I am thinking, just be regarding this 'broody' lark as an excuse to have a holiday from life!