October Ramblings

 

It is nearly eight weeks since my Mum fell and broke two bones in her pelvis and, for the last three weeks she has been back to living completely independently again! Her determination to regain full mobility has been inspirational, not just to her immediate family, but to everyone who knows her. Even one of the Reablement Team said that she is going to use her as an example of what can be achieved with grit and determination. She is still not venturing outside much, but there are plans afoot to make it safer for her to access her beloved garden, and her wonderful handyman, Pete, has already been and fitted handrails in the conservatory and a handrail by the steps up from the patio. He really is a gem and an unsung hero, so I shall sing his praises here. One of the things that needed doing to make Mum’s life a bit easier, was to raise her fridge up, in some way, to enable her to access the bottom shelf safely;  within a few hours of being called to look at the job, he turned up, discussed what needed doing, took measurements and then turned up the next day, having made a box the previous evening!

Nature's Bounty!

I have been back to Cheltenham for a couple of short visits, this month but, generally life has returned to its previous pace – very slow! I have still not gone back to selling my produce at markets although I can’t resist making things when I have a glut, or the produce is in season. After mentioning Nature’s hedgerow bounty in my previous blog, I couldn’t stop myself taking a foraging bag and going off for a walk around the fields! The result is yet another few jars of jelly to add to my collection – Hedgerow Jelly, with blackberries, sloes, hips and haws and a handful of rowan berries! Sloe gin is also on the go and I am experimenting with a damson gin and a blueberry gin, too! I never measure any of the ingredients for the gin, so it is probably slightly different every year, but I haven’t had any complaints yet!

Hedgerow Jelly and Sloe Gin

I have not been exactly overrun with gardening jobs this month, either, and several have had to be rearranged due to rain stopping play, so I have re-volunteered at my local organic market garden, because I can always weed in the polytunnel or greenhouse, whatever the weather is doing outside and I am still moving about a bit! I even ended up doing two stints in one week as the rain kept pouring down and I was fed up with being indoors and sedentary, so I earned a bigger veg box, which I shared with Mum and Jeni.

Bunty had a little run out the other weekend. Jeni's partner wanted to meet up with a friend to go mountain bike riding on some trails at the top of Burrington Combe, on the other side of the Mendips, but his car was in the garage and Jeni's is too small to carry his bike. The plan was that we would all go off to the venue and Adrian and his friend would go bike riding for a couple of hours, while Jeni and I went for a walk. It was a dry afternoon, but strangely still and very overcast, but we walked up to the trig point, the highest point on Mendip, where we had a surprisingly clear view in all directions. We then made our way into the woods and walked beneath the magnificent beech trees and between the stands of conifers. There was no birdsong, but voices seemed to carry over long distances, and it all felt a bit eerie. After we had been walking for quite some time, we bumped into Adrian and his friend and walked back with them towards the trig point - it seemed such a long way and the terrain was quite uneven, so my ankles, knees and, eventually, my back all started hurting, ages before we got back to the van. However, as the light was beginning to fade we came across the herd of Exmoor ponies that roam loose on the hill as part of a conservation grazing scheme and that perked me up a bit! They really are very beautiful.

Exmoor pony herd on Mendip

Exmoor's at twilight

On 3rd and 4th October, we had the heaviest rainfall that I had experienced, whilst living here, and the usually minor trickle that is the Whitelake Stream turned into a raging torrent, flooding its banks in a few places and gushing over the little footbridge almost to handrail height. It was augmented by the huge amount of water pouring across the yard from the main road as the drains overflowed and the water found its easiest escape route! Luckily, it didn't flood up as far as my annexe, but I was a little concerned for a while.

The swollen Whitelake Stream

The flooded path out to the fields!

I have also taken myself off for a couple of walks around the fields and was rewarded on one walk by seeing no less than seven herons in the field at the back of us. The majority of them looked like young birds, although it was difficult to tell from the distance that I was at, and they appeared to be feeding. I can only guess that the huge deluge and subsequent flooding of our little Whitelake Stream had caused lots of earthworms to come to the surface and the herons were gorging on those. At the beginning of this week, I went out again and saw at least five buzzards feeding on earthworms in the fodder bean stubble, plus huge flocks of wood pigeons feasting on the beans that had been dropped by the harvester and which have all started sprouting again, thanks to the wet conditions. One of my WWOOF hosts used to feed sprouted seeds to her cattle and pigs, as the nutrient value is much greater in sprouted seeds, so I guess the same is true of fodder beans.

Herons feeding in the field

On another day, I decided to walk a bit further and do a circular walk, which took me across a couple of maize stubble fields. In one of the fields was an old barn that I wanted to look at more closely (I love old buildings) but, back in the Spring, when I had first done this walk, the maize had been newly sprouted and I hadn’t dare walk across to the barn, as there was no track to it. However, with the crop all gone, I ventured across and had a look. I couldn’t go inside, as there was a gate across the open end, so I was going to just take a photo of the interior. Imagine my surprise when a beautiful Barn Owl flew out, just over my head, and flapped off towards the trees! Unfortunately, I was too slow to take a photo and just stood there going ‘Wow!’ What a treat!

The old barn/Barn Owl roost

The old barn interior