a couple of nice days

it has been a beautiful couple of days even though we are all still reeling from the loss of SciFiChick. my friend Harry Flashman just received a set of books from her that he won during one of her give-aways. he says here that if feels kind of strange and i am sure that it does. but i am also sure that Sci would have wanted him to enjoy those books.

our Sweet Sandy made contact with Sci's husband, Mars, and he left a beautiful message to all of us about how much the blogging community and friends of Sci's from the internet meant to her. you can read his message here on Sweet Sandy's blog.

my friend Phelan left a comment on one of our blogs (?) saying that Sci would not want us all blubbering and would be yelling for us to get back out in the garden. she's right.

for us at The Manor it has been several wonderful days gardening, getting the fall garden in, getting the harvest in, harvesting some seed and berries. imagine - we have wild raspberries and wild blackberries growing all over our land?!?!?? the next 2 weeks are perfect for picking them and that is what we have been doing for a few hours each day. here is one small picking - we put them on the tray to let any little bugs get away before rinsing them and bagging them.



we've only been picking a few days now, the wild raspberries are really tiny but man are they sweet. the blackberries are to die for.

here's our haul so far: (minus the bucketfulls we have been eating while picking and telling each other we are not eating bucketfulls each - bahahahahah!)



by the time we are done both of those bags will be filled to the brim and made into many fine and delicious things! and now remember - these berries just grow here. we don't tend to them, we don't baby them, we don't do anything to them. we just forage. we like that!

speaking of fine and delicious things, it was my friend Sweet Sandy who taught us about taking the bottoms of celery, rooting them in water and then re-planting them. we don't have access to any local, organic celery but at this time of year we get beautiful green onions, locally, and still with all of the roots attached.



i cut off the bottoms leaving the roots intact, soak them in water for a few days, stick them in pots and blammo! delicious, local, organic green onions for months.

you just keep clipping them and they keep coming back!

in other local news - it's corn season baby. corn and strawberry season.

that's local organic corn and strawberries right there. in our nearest little town, you can't drive 5 ft without hitting a truck selling corn or strawberries. we have a ton of corn that we cooked, cobbed and froze. so far this winter, we'll be eating a ton of peas, a ton of beans, a ton of pickled radish, a ton of squash puree, and a bunch of frozen berries - woohoo! and we haven't even hit the glut of our harvest time yet - it's pretty awesome!

want more awesomeness? how about 10 and a half litres of home-made bone and veg stock? yummeh!

here's some seeds that we harvested today for our garden next year. on the left is viceroy spinach seeds that we will plant immediately to get a fall harvest of. some shelling peas. and more nappa cabbage seeds than i know what to do with!!!! does anyone need nappa cabbage seeds?

finally some proper korean bbq steak (bulgogi) done on the bbq with extra sauce made on the stove. jambaloney's awesome almond rice, some sauteed green beans and some cabbage kimchi which i swear is the best kimchi ever.

in closing, i would like to thank you all for your outpouring of comments and support on our blog, and on several other friends blogs due to our loss of our very good friend SciFiChick. it has really meant a lot to me and posting tributes to her below helped me work through my grief. having my friends Phelan and Sweet Sandy only a phone call away made all the difference. hearing from my friends Felinae, Herbalpagan and mmpaints - a group that we call the "core crew" made it all that much easier. thank you all again.