View from from my kitchen window........

 

River mists, not cold yet, nor frosty, just gently chilly, telling us that the year is marching on. Yesterday I sat outside on the front door step and did some spinning,

and watched the weather starting to change. It was fascinating to see the minute by minute changes as autumn crept closer. It was nice to take time out. Not that I have been particularly busy anyway, just pottling along at the moment, enjoying the still warm weather, knowing that soon  I shall be wrapped up in woolly winter clothing.

 

And straight from the grape vines......

 

 

........ of the man who provides us with the wood for our Rayburn stove.

We are OK for wood this winter now, but the store for next winter needs to be bought in so it can dry out. We shall be cutting some dead trees from our woodland, but not yet, other things to do first.

So our wood man took us round his vineyard, snipping bunches of grapes here and there, several different types, the smallest grape being the most meltingly sweet grape I have ever tasted.

We were never going to eat all these grapes before they rotted because they do not have preservatives sprayed on them to keep them fresh, so I thought I would a go at dehydrating them.

 

Trouble is, that these grapes have pips in which have to be got out first, and gosh but this was a fiddly job. Took ages, .... had to slice open the grape and then search out the pip (sometimes one, sometimes two) with my fingers. I haven't been playing the piano or accordion lately so my finger nails were quite long, which came in handy for fishing around in the pulp of the grape for the pips, but this was only for the larger grapes. The very small grapes I gave up on. I had spent enough time on the project, and needed to go do other things. In other words, I was getting bored!

 

Into the dehydrator over night. Got up in the early hours to make a visit to the loo, did a side track to visit the dehydrator to see how the grapes were doing, took a morsel of grape to see what it tasted like, was so bowled over by the explosion of taste that happened in my mouth, that I then spend another hour getting the fiddly little  black grapes, which I had given up on, into the dehydrator as well. I eventually ended up will all nine trays filled, after which I went back to bed. It was four o'clock in the morning.

 

I have broken my rule of not using any canned, frozen, or dehydrated produce from this current season until the clocks change in late October. This means that there can be a 'down' time when I don't have much to variety in the larder, although there is a fully stocked larder which I ban myself from using. So the other day I needed to make a cake. Didn't have time to rummage in my cupboard of stored dehydrated fruit and veg ( I am waiting for a rainy day to sort that untidyness out!)

 

A jumbly cupboard of dehydrates!

 

 

..... so I did a raid on the nearest dried fruit I had on hand, which just so happened to be the cooling trays of now dehydrated grapes, thereby breaking my rule of not using newly processed produce until the seasons had changed. Of course I could save the rest of the dried grapes but that is unlikely. They are delicious. They will be used up quickly.

 

Ah, but now the sun has broken through the mist, and the day is calling me. Lester is brimming with frustration about how he is supposed to fix the gate to one of the cow pens, the one which Bonny broke last year, and I had better get on to making the goat meat curry which I was supposed to get going early on this morning so the flavours would all mix and mingle, which they won't now because it is now only an hour away from lunch time!

 

Bye for now,

 

Vx