NO-vember

I remember this poem as a kid - about the limit of my poetry-remembering skills! (If it was me writing I could nearly add No blog!)

November by Thomas Hood

No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! -
November! 

Don't know much about Mr Hood (read Wikipedia entry here when I get a chance) but I think he was being a bit pessimistic or perhaps he was a townie.

Today - last day of November - we've had a few hours of bright sunshine and blue skies, lovely for walking, and during this month the moon has been bright and large when we've had clear night skies.

As for "no birds"!

The bare trees provide a great opportunity to see birds of all kinds which are normally hidden by leaves. Our maple was alive with long-tail tits. And this year we have some winter visitors - fieldfares. I don't remember seeing them so close to the garden before, only in ploughed fields when I've been out walking. This afternoon there were 20 or more at the top of the walnut trees taking advantage of the last rays of the setting sun.

Image from BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Fieldfare

Fantastic storm

We're having wild, wet, windy autumn weather. On Saturday we had a fantastic storm. The sky was yellow and the colours in the garden were very strange. The sun was shining on the yellow leaves of the walnut tree while the rain was hammering on the conservatory roof and a big rainbow arced over the whole garden. So I had to run out and take some shots and got very wet!

Rainbow with our little apple tree - still hanging onto its red fruit.

Yellow sky - looking across the field to Clay Lane

Rainbow over our two walnut trees - leaves turning an Autumn yellow

Cooking the harvest

The garden is still producing a great harvest. We picked more than 50 lbs of Russet apples - lovely golden-yellow apples with a sharp but sweet taste. There's still loads of squashes and courgettes and the late raspberries are just staring to ripen.

This evening we had a meal where about the only thing bought from the shops was the leg of pork.
I rubbed the fatty skin with salt and fennel seeds saved from last year. We had potatoes (Setanta - which are great roasters but fall apart when boiled) roasted with one of the oddball squashes that came from seeds saved from a shop-bought butterbut squash and the last of the french beans. Instead of apple sauce with the pork we had Crab Apple Jelly with rosemary - very tasty.

To follow I made baked apples with the Russet apples.
Buttered a baking dish. Cored the apples (2 per person) leaving the skins on, and placed them in the dish. Mixed up sultanas, chopped walnuts and demerara sugar with some orange juice and filled the centre of each apple. Some falls out the bottom but it all gets sticky & gooey anyway.
Cook in fan oven 160 C for 30-40 mins.
Serve warm with cream.