Autumn Broth

As the weather turns, I get a hankering for soup. I love making soup, the delicate warmth and simplicity of an autumn broth makes my heart sing. A splendid way to warm the cockles on a blustery day.

My favourite is chicken broth, I prepare my chicken stock over two days, simmering the carcass of a leftover roast chicken and chicken thighs, with nothing more than a whole bulb of garlic, celeriac and an onion. The longer you simmer it, the deeper the colour and the richer the taste.

I then strain it all in a collander, return the stock to the heat, chop some celery and onion, add more garlic (we love garlic) and continue to heat gently, whilst I pick all the chicken from the collander, it falls off the bones, and melts into the broth.

A sprinkling of chopped parsley, a splash of cream, and some sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, and I am all aglow with the wonder of it all. The children, thankfully, are as enamoured with broth as I am, sometimes we add pearl barley, or lentils, or yellow split peas. However it is made, it is always served with hunks of wholewheat bread, fresh from the oven, and made by my very own Amber's hands (for she is the chief maker of bread in this house).

There is lots of knitting and stitching going on over here, I will be posting more of that soon, in the meantime, I am supping on my Autumn Broth, picking apples, planting Bluebell bulbs, making jam, and enjoying the low autumn sun, whilst it lasts.

Last of the Summer Sun

The day's are getting shorter, there is a crispness in the air that wasn't there before, and yet it's balmy, and we have had no rain. Today there was a lovely warm breeze and sunshine all day, so we all trooped outside to bask in it, whilst it lasts.

I am drawing a winner for the Skitchbook tomorrow, so get your name in the hat and leave a comment, if you haven't already.
Happy weekending to you :)

Hazel's Budget Bedroom Makeover

At last, I have taken some photo's of the Hoozel's bedroom makeover.

Hazel was very clear about what she wanted, Cath Kidston prints, vintage inspired decorations, lots of handmade goodness... my budget couldn't stretch to the former, but I did have some Cath inspired curtains, which we dolled up with some polka dot tie backs, hung high like the bow on a little girl's dress.

The floors were painted white, quite hastily I might add, add's to the rustic charm?

The sewing machine has hardly been out of action, I made most all of the cushions, the bunting, the lampshade, the polka dot pen pot, the drawstring bags, all in pretty fabrics from my stash, chosen by Hazel.





The Ikea malm chest had it's drawers covered with pretty fabric's, and the wardrobe was a lucky find on ebay.















I picked up a plain drum lampshade at a carboot sale, and covered it in patchwork squares and hung beaded dangles all the way around, before attaching a poom pom trim. All the beads are glass and each dangle is different, it took a long time!





The Hoozel is most delighted with her new space!

Hacked

Hazel's bedroom is receiving a budget makeover. So the dull Ikea malm chest of drawers got hacked, I am not sure why they call it hacking when you revamp Ikea furniture, it sounds so naughty...anyway, the flooring got attacked with a paintbrush (modelled by our frequently naked in the summer heat Bear)...



and, lot's of handmade decor is underway, so much fun!



sprry for the fuzzy photos, these were taken on my phone, more (less fuzzy) soon!

Raspberry Thieves

We have some rather lovely Raspberry canes at River Cottage, beside a sweet little blackcurrant bush. I was most pleased to make this discovery after moving in, being as we consume vast amounts of raspberry jam, and nothing tastes better than the homemade variety.

However, there are trecherous raspberry thieves on the loose. Each afternoon, upon our return from work and nursery, I visit said canes and find them quite bare, when only the previous evening I had spied plenty of sweet raspberries, almost ripe, and thought how lovely it would be to pick them the next day to make some jam.

I have looked about for possible culprits. Wee ones in tow, we looked for tracks or sneaky clues which may lead us to a vast haul of raspberries. Alas, no tracks or clues were found. Boo and Bear assure me it must be rabbits, because they are greedy animals and like raspberries very much. My wee ones even stand right beside the canes, guarding them from further ambush.

I commented upon their surprisingly red moustaches, but was assured this was merely a clever guise with which to deter said greedy rabbits and other beastly robbers of raspberries, and nothing at all to do with the actual consumption of raspberries, as one might first conclude.

I think they must be right about the rabbits, for right at the top of the canes just a few raspberries remained, and we all know small rabbits cannot stretch so high. So my single bowl of raspberries and a few blackcurrants made just 1.5 pots of jam.





The strawberries are ripening nicely too, now the sun has arrived, but Boo and Bear offered to guard them aswell, just in case the berry thief should strike again. I was assured that rabbits do no like tomatoes or peas, so these should not require guarding. Thank goodness for that, and for little guards!

* To make jam, weigh the (any) fruit and boil wih equal weight in sugar, when a set is achieved (a small blob of the jam on a plate wrinkles when pushed with finger), decant into sterilised jars and consume spread on warm buttered toast or stirred into hot porridge. Simple!

Bundle Dyeing

I am really enjoying tinkering with dyes, it is truly an addictive past time, and SO easy! The garden, fields and woods at River Cottage provide plenty of suitable specimens with which to dye, so I seem to be constantly stuffing things into jars and marvelling at the results.

The most awesome thing about it all, is the joyous surprises. Of pulling a piece of fabric from it's dye bath and watching it's colour change radically on contact with air or water or even washing soda. It is truly exhilirating and the children are also intrigued and keen to take part.

My lack of utensils has meant I have been limited to solar dying in jars, so imagine my delight when I stumbled upon these...





These vintage aluminium jam pots were an absolute steal from my local carboot sale. They are the perfect size for larger pieces of fabrics and bundles. The nifty carry handles and shaped pourer work a treat.



Needless to say, I set to work immediately with my fabulous new dye pots.
I collected oak leaves and a little reddish fern type plant (I am a bit slack with plant names, as you can tell!) to eco print on to the fabric.



These were then placed on to mordanted linen and cotton, carefully rolled and tied into bundles, and then tossed into a pre-heated dye bath of red robin leaves (photinia).



Now, I have used red robin before... I have not found any mention of this plant being used for dying, so was intrigued to see what the results might be. Some weeks ago I stuffed some alum mordanted fabric into a jar with the reddish green leaves of red robin, and left it to cure. I was hoping for a red or orange hue, and was dissapointed to find that the water and leaves went a rather dull grey. When I removed the fabric, it was the same colour as my white bra's after Simon has helpfully washed them with his black socks, a hopeless dirty white.

Because I was unsure if red robin is poisonous or an irritant, I decided to wash it in washing powder (Fairy non Bio to be more precise), and to my absolute delight, when I plunged the bra grey fabric into the water, both the fabric and water turned such a vibrant shade of acid green that it looked almost radioactive!
It is THIS that excites me about natural dying, what a surprising treat. The fabric dried to a lovely pale lime green.

So, I was keen to use red robin again, into the dye pot it went, with the oak leaf bundles.



7 days later, the water and loose bits of fabric are a glorious deep orange. I am unsure if this is due to the addition of oak leaves or something else, it is certainly a very different (but pleasing) result, when compared with my red robin jar experiment.



The piece of fabric on top is an old bit of muslin which I tossed in with the bundles.
I am going to leave the whole thing to sit as long as I can bare. I must confess I have already unwrapped one bundle, and there were no leaf impressions, so I wrapped and tied it back up and popped it back in, this time I will wait more patiently.

Visitors

Little grey friend all fluffy and cute,

Scampers about in his little grey suit,

Gathering nuts and other tasty stuff,

hiding it away ready for when there's not enough.


Hanging upside down and doing all sorts of tricks,

Getting into feeders the birds' food he nicks,

Running amuck all over the place,

Such a loveable rogue, such a loveable face.


Some say he's a pest and should be got rid,

But not our friendly Squirrel heaven forbid,

He lives his own life and is entitled to that,

He just needs to watch out for the big neighbours cat.



We love to see him and all his grey mates,

They visit us daily and empty the plates,

We don't even mind if he scoffs the lot,

There's plenty more in the bird food pot.


How would it be if he stopped coming to feed,

We won't even mind that he has a little greed,

He's always welcome on our feeding tree,

There'll always be food for the birds and for he.


You keep on coming our fluffy little friend,

We'll make sure you don't meet with a nasty end,

And come the Spring when your family grows,

Bring them as well and we'll be glad it's us you chose.

- Author Unknown

Isn't he a darling? This is actually one of the babe's, one of three, who visit our bird table each day. They are young enough to be less shy than their mama. Our bird table sits right in front of our dining room window, so we have breakfast together, the squirrels and my family of 6, and dinner, and at weekends, lunch too!

Happy Weekending to you :)

Moo Beginnings

I've never really cared much for cows... that's to say, of all the livestock I would love to have (some day), cows never really featured much on my agenda.

Our garden backs on to open fields, being bang smack in the middle of a working farm means there are many cows, it's nice to see them from the windows, to hear their gentle moo's as I pass by, they seem nice, and gentle, but did not inspire much of a reaction from me, until...

Our landlord took down several large trees from the rear of our garden, I wouldn't normally condone such senseless tree slaying, but they were fast growing leylandi, ugly, and they blocked out sunlight and views, so they came down, and behold, the cows, can now lean right into our garden.





Something quite unexpected happenned.
The children like the cows a lot, this isn't so surprising. However, there is one cow, she looks different from the others, the same sweet Jersey eyes, but somehow different. They don't care much for treats, they don't like to be touched, but this cow, she is different.

She hangs around long after her friends had moved to the other side of the field, she bows her head low so I can tickle her ears, I like this, she has a little heart shaped tuft atop her head, it makes me smile....



I arrive home from work, and there she is, waiting....



Now, I can call her over, a quick whistle or deep moo, and she turns slowly, watches me for a while, then ambles over, slow, calm, patient...



She doesn't have a name, just a number... I toyed with the idea of naming her, but she isn't mine to name. I toyed with the idea of making her mine...
but what does a family do with 20 litres of milk a day? One can only drink so much milk, or eat so much cheese and cream, and she might get lonely. I even bought a book about keeping cows. The timing is all wrong, but it has opened up a new vista, one with cows in it, some day...

but for now, she's still here, I will miss her when she is gone.

4 is the magic number

Did you know that Boo is now 2? What a big girl my baby has become, isn't is crazy how fast they grow?


Nala and Pip are still with us, I say this with a degree of surprise as Nala is getting on a bit now, she will be 14 on her next birthday and is feeling her age, her whiskers have never been more grey and she is a bit slower these days, but she is a strong old girl and still enjoying life, Boo loves the naughty dogs!


Our return to the UK in March has seen us go through a period of crazy upheaval, moving house when you are pregnant is never a walk in the park, but moving countrie's, and then moving house AGAIN, is really a bit much. Alas, I lived to tell the tale, and our new house is so lovely! We are only renting at the moment, and after months of searching, we finally stumbled upon River Cottage.

After staying at my sisters cottage, with no garden to speak of and bang smack in the centre of town, we are utterly relieved to be back in the countryside with some room to breathe. I never realised just how much I valued our space and some peace, our new home does not have quite as much land (about 1/5 of an acre) as we had in France, but even just a little is medicine to my soul, and the views are tremendous. I haven't taken any photos from the upstairs windows yet, but will do today, the views are awesome in every direction, and there are cows everywhere!




The bridge over the river, this lane leads to a creepy old school, a bit like hogwarts, and we never see anyone coming or going from there, so strange....


Views from the garden



Anyway, no sooner had we moved into our lovely new house, and set about getting ourselves settled, baby number 4 decided to make an appearance!



Our beatiful baby was born on the 17th of September (just 3 days after Boo's 2nd bday), weighing 6.9lbs, and it was the hardest of ALL my pregnancies AND labours, so really it was no surprise it was a boy that inflicted all that discomfort :) He is an absoloute peach and sleeps like a dream though, so I shant complain too much!

Introducing, Bear Geoffrey (Geoffrey after my papa). I cannot believe I have FOUR children, FOUR, you need a special car to get 4 kids in you know, it's a big number, and really, I am still in shock! Needless to say, I think we might be stopping at 4!





He is a very serious little chap, as you can see, all frowns and grimaces, and so unlike my girls, honestly, if the midwife has not handed him straight to me as he popped out, I might not have believed he was mine, he looks so different to how the girls did as newborns - they all look more like me, where as The Bear, is the double of his (very handsome!) father.

I will take more photos soon, as I have a little more time now, what with me being on semi maternity leave, and I say semi because technically speaking I am still working, just from home, and not quite so much. Oh and in the woeful absence of my fabric and bead stash, my crafty fingers have begun to twitch, so I cracked open the felt tip pens and started doodling again, it feels good to be creating after such a long break! I will share photos soon....

Fruit for Jam

I have been swinging between crazy tiredness and random bursts of energy, hence my recent absence! Just 12 weeks to go before baby is due and I feel so unprepared, for everything! How did the time go so fast?

Anyways, I have been busily stitching, lots of new creations, mostly all for swaps, will share soon, I haven't had a chance to photograph them yet, but will be back ASAP with pics galore!

I have also been busily stirring up a storm at the stove for the last few days. Lots of fruit grows on our land, and lots comes from our kind neighbours, so the Jam Pot has barely been out of use in recent weeks.
I now have enough Jam to feed a small country, I'm sure!

Check out the scrumptious fruit!



Raspberries and blackberries mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!



The cherries came from Monsieur Honesty's garden, despite the fact we have 4 cherry tree's, and he only has 1! Our tree's netted us a total of about um, 2 cherries, the birds were just too fast for us lazy pickers and gobbled them all up. Monsieur Honesty had about 50kg off his one tree, and he didn't net his either, I can only assume the local resident Swallows think our cherries taste better, though this I can't guarantee since I barely tasted a single one, look, here is one lone cherry in our tree, ces't la vie!



The children reminded me that cherrie's are much more than a delicious snack....



Cherry earrings! How sad that stores don't sell cherries in bunches like this anymore, in the UK at least, all cherries have to be seperated (some bizarre Government food legislation), millions of kids will grow up not knowing about cherry earrings, someone should write to the Primeminister! :) Or at least, plant a cherry tree in your garden, just make sure you get there before the birdies!

I forgot to photograph the HUGE glut of apricots we had too, in the jam pot they went!
Everything else is sprouting foliage like wild fire, we can barely keep up with the growth in recent weeks. This being our first summer here (and previously having had a gardener for our French house when we lived full time in the UK), we had no idea how much work was involved with simply cutting the acres of grass and meadow, pruning tree's and generally keeping things from turning into a Jungle!
I dare say, I shouldn't really complain too much about this, since Simon does most of the hard labour (given my present condition), whilst I sun myself and watch :)

I am now plotting what on earth we are going to do with the apples this autumn, the tree's are bowing under the weight of more kinds of apples than I even knew existed, and to think the orchard is only at 1/4 of it's potential capacity, owing to most of it being buried (still!) under a bramble jungle.
So apples, any ideas? Cider is a must, apple puree for baby, what else is there to do with several hundred KG of apples?



One of my favourite things about summer..... BASIL.
I just planted these up in an old French crate I found at a local brocante recently, I LOVE the smell of Basil, to me, Basil IS summer, torn up and tossed into salads, on to fresh tomatoes drizzled with olive oil, mmmmmmmmmmmm.



AnyhooOOoO, duty calls, dinner will not cook itself! I am using more apricots to make an Apricot Bread and Butter Pudding this evening, will share the results and recipe tomorrow :) Until then, Bon Weekend!