welsh hills again

It has been an extraordinary autumn.  Morning after morning up here on our hillside we have woken to golden light and heavily dewed grass.  We face South East and the morning sunlight pours in through our bedroom window, pooling gold on the carpet.  Outside everything is still flowering and glowing.  By lunchtime it is warm enough to eat outside. On many mornings the sky has been full of sun while the valley below us is brimming with mist. But by lunchtime the world emerges bright and clear and warm. Sedum throbs with bees and butterflies. Everywhere berries are ripe.  Cotoneaster herringbones its way up the stone wall by the drive. Rosehips swell. The walnut tree is laden with nuts in their glossy green cases which stain your hands a vicious black. In the edge of the hen enclosure I find this huge fungus, the size of a small plate, ignored so far by the chickens.  They are moulting and looking a bit scraggy, their feath...

The mornings are misty just now.  Not a grey, damp mist but a pearly sheen of mist with the sun somewhere behind it, silvering the sky. It has been a perfect September day.  We have been working in the garden, Ian cutting some of the hedges and a lot of grass while I have cut back what feels like thirty wheelbarrows full of the self seeders which we like to have here but which take over the world if you let them seed: campanula, artemisia, alchemilla, feverfew.  I love them all but left to seed all over the place they squeeze out practically everything else. The whole garden is overflowing with harvest.  This summer has not been one for the garden as you can probably tell by the way it has not appeared in the blog.  But just now it doesn't seem to matter that we lost it under the demands of other things.  There has been a fantastic harvest of damsons. There are now twenty six jars of jam on the shelves, waiting for winter.  Damson jam is one of ...

Yesterday autumn roared in on a thundering wind, blowing over the bay tree, sending the wheelie bin rolling down the grass, filling the air with flying flowerpots.  On the heels of the wind came a downpour which overflowed the gutters, set the land drains spouting, hammered on the slates and turned the paths to water. It was a day for staying in the warm kitchen. Our bedroom faces east.  When I woke up this morning the sun was pouring in and the sky was a vivid blue behind the ridge on the other side of the valley.  Today has been a gold and blue day, the sun warm, the air still. The crab apple is loaded down with fruit.  This is malus Red Sentinel, planted to replace a little quince tree which slowly but surely lost the will to live.  I kept trying to persuade myself that the quince would survive, even though it would shed a branch or two every time the wind blew strong.  Eventually it split in two, falling open at its heart.  The crab apple we...

September can be a golden month, all soft gold light, tawny leaves, rosehips and shimmering dews.  Not today though.  Today there is a cold wind blowing with the faint, steely smell of winter in it.  Grey clouds scud fast on a low sky above the ridge.  Everywhere there are things to do before the cold weather comes. The second hatching of chicks this year produced these three: two Scots Dumpies, with the grey and white feathering now settling as they lose their fluffy chickness and emerge from the spiky teenage stage, and one brown Barnevelder, still a bit scraggy about the neck.  They are going outside in a week or so to a new chicken house which Ian has been weather proofing. I like the design of this one very much, with the area under the house to extend the run for the chickens when they are confined, a ramp down from the house and such refinements as a double nest box, just seen at the side, and a peephole at the back.  Ian tells...

Today has been a day of total perfection: the light was pure and clear, with a pale golden glow like a glass of wine. I have spent all day in the garden, with three wheelbarrow loads for the burn pile to show for my efforts but remarkably little difference showing in the garden. I love echinacea and I am stupidly proud of the fact that I grew these from seed. I love the way the petals curve back from the cone and way they hold their heads to the sun. I am going to have a go at taking root cuttings from this one. The cosmos has been flowering its heart out for weeks and weeks. I spent a happy half hour deadheading a dozen plants in the hope of keeping them going until the frosts. This year lots of cosmos had self seeded in the cutting garden (posh name for a big bed in the field). I suppose I had better not be too thorough with the deadheading if I want it to the same again, which I do. It is so exciting to find little seedlings busy pushing up in spring without any assistance from the ...