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Monday July 7, 2008
Life is...
We have been having a great time at La Gonfrairie. I have spent a lot of time gardening as the weather has been good (for gardening) - warm but not too hot. The wind has been moderate to high; I had to effect repairs to the sun shade - and then we had to take it down altogether as the flimsy little guy ropes kept breaking. However, a lot of our time has been taken with fruit - July being the season.
These were the most surprising of all. I mean, we did know we
had cherry trees - and I have seen one or two cherries on them (literally
one - or two - we assumed the birds got them).
But this year several of the trees are simply bursting with fruit. [And,
one or two have no fruit at all. Our neighbour explained this - and possibly
the issue in previous years - that the success depends on the weather
when the tree is in blossom - and, of course, they do not all flower at
exactly the same time.]
The issue was actually getting to the fruit; there is a lot but way up
high, well out of reach, even with a ladder. I asked George if we had
"some kind of hook - like an umberella", and he said "yes
but ..." - and then produced a really ancient home-made implement
that we had inherited with the property; with hindsight it was obviously
intended for this very purpose.
So... George wobbled around on top of our ladder while I dangled on
a long hooked pole pulling the branches into reach. We dropped the cherries
on to a tarpaulin and in no time we had picked 10lbs. I admit a photo
of this would have been more fun but it took both of us to complete the
manoeuvres.
We were going to pick more cherries, but at the moment I am not sure what
to do with them. We have eaten a lot ... but there are also lots of other
fruits.
My raspberry bed has developed in leaps and bounds - and has no nasty stinging nettles to deter would-be pickers any more. Day one, I cleared the bed as much as I could - such a shame, as a lot of fruit was already rotting on the canes.
No problem in deciding what to do with these - I immediately made jam
- but then I ran out of containers there was so much!
We have also been picking and eating raspberries each day, as every day
a new lot ripen...
Prior to finding so much fruit on our own land, (spurred on by Alison's blog), I bought apricots in the market in Brécey, where we went on our way here from the ferry. So I was also bound to make some jam from these... It is such a pretty colour... like the fruit.
Finally, we found that the red and white currants in the goat field were also ripe. I cleared the red currants (about 1lb), and rendered them down to make red currant jelly. The white currants - will have to wait. I am all fruited out. George wants me to make cherry jam. I will think about that today - I have never had sufficient cherries to try that before.
Another excitement yesterday was George and Lloyd seeing a "big white bird" in the garden; I managed to see the last of it flying around the far side of the barn - and it was a barn owl. Lloyd seems to think we do have owls in the barn but I have not seen any sign of them in residence before this.
So today we are preparing to go home - and the rain has finally started - not a bad thing for the garden when we are not actually in residence...
Posted by Christina at 10:11 AM. Category: France
