Mid November

Heading for mid-November and haven't posted here for a onto. This is due to many and varied activities but equally due to very slow Eircom uploading on "broadband" - so many pictures left in folders on the laptop and iPhone.

However, this link to a video on youtube from Lily O'Sullivan is reflects a lot of what I too have seen over the past months - Autumn turning to winter soon - although the summer extended quite far into Autumn in Ireland this year, giving lots of fruits and well-fed wildlife (and livestock too ) .
Pit this in the youtube search to view:


http://youtu.be/7316cVNvyO0

For now….

*****************

On walks around Ballymahon and more grub

Cultivated bed by canal

"News Stand"

Happy Potentilla on the canal bank

Salmon and Spagetti based on a recipe from
"Food for one, tow and more"

Cheats Cheese cake with cream and berries -
shop-bought "lemon cheesecake" (not much cream cheese in this)
then whipped cream and garden berries on top

The green woods

Ash Tree full of berries

Gino's Gnocchi

I've not liked any commercial gnocchi I've had so far so I decided to try some homemade a lá Gino D'Aeampo.
It made basically from riced boiled potatoes blended into a dough with flour and an egg.

My ricer finally worked well on the boiled potatoes (it failed with tomatoes etc)

Yes I do use a ruler as I can't decide what is 1.5 cm etc off the top of my head, so why not use a ruler?

Dough divided into 2 equal portions then rolled into a sausage then cut into pieced
(the size of the pieces is a matter of taste I'm told)

\**************************************************/

Apples, Spider and Yarn

The apple trees have large crops this year, bending the boughs

Tree 1

Tree 2

The other 3 trees and the 2 pear trees have lots of fruit too

A spider decided to move into my glass candle holder for some reason

It was sent outside

Just to remin me of the had-spun yarn I made this July

(more on DroimAnUan blog)

\************************************************/

My Meadow Flowers early August

The Meadow boxes have been successful in growing wild flowers around the grassy paddock - first yellow ones then blue, red, and white  ones:

Hopefully they will spread their seeds around the paddock and come back next year.

***********************************************************************

Food and Flora; end July to early August

Butterfly in the house:

Red Honeysuckle

(i usually see only white)

There were some days of high temperature - especially by the front door.

Love the little guy in shorts

Blackcurrents galore this year

And then it turns into jam

Reflections in the lake

At Boora Parkland

Wildflowers:

Bucksome Ferns

Bridge

Sculptures Boora

**************************************************

Fine weather sunset

There's been quite a lot of warm sunny weather so there were several colorful sunsets:

Compare with one in March:

Just 'coz

******************************************

Strawberries

Strawberry Bed

This was the bed back in April.

It yielded plenty of nice strawberries in June

Some became a very delicious Strawberry, Balsamic and Black Pepper preserve:

Some combined with late rhubarb to make a tart

Some went into a cream sponge cake:

And several pounds are in the freezer.

A Good result this year - netting over the bed made a huge difference, protecting the fruit from marauding birds and Huddie, the ASBOdogs'a lazy bone-burying

************************************