AUTUMN-WINTER

Lord: it is time.  The summer was immense
Lay your shoulders on the sundials
And let loose the wind in the fields.
Bid the last fruits to be full,
Press them to ripeness and chase
The last sweetness into the heavy wine.

I pinned this bit of Rilke to the shepel wall in late Nov. with fresh raspberries still in my mouth.  I've never known them last as long.  It means that jobs that are usually consecutive and with a decent interval between: picking fruit, planting for future seasons, were carried out side by side.

I rotavated out 3 new rows for currants and extended the rows of the top plot raspberries.

I hire the rotavator once a year.  It makes a much better bed than the small plough I tried once, even if after a day of milling through Cotswold brash I feel like I've been working a pneumatic drill in thick concrete.

Austerity Britain has delivered the project a talented local wwoof-er!  Above Alice models a post planting glow on completing the extension to an existing raspberry row.  These canes have been transplanted from the lanes between the old rows where they were allowed to spring up.

Other autumn-winter jobs have been running repairs, here a hessian bandage for one of the newer trees in the eastern windbreak.

As much as I would have liked to spend more time in the field over the last couple of months, most of the action has been in the winery and the marketplace.

Ding Dong Merrily!  Finally a batch of a finished product, which is rapidly flying out of the cellar, through markets:

and shops:

Shoulder to shoulder with the big boys!

Meanwhile re. that wind loosed in the field, the matting I'd laid over the new currant rows didn't survive the early Dec. gales too well.

Still and mild days recently however have given opportunity for restoration and a bit more planting. 

Below replacing the white currants that didn't survive in the currant tricolore row, next to the shepel.

Christmas - Dickens - Child labour: 3 easy steps

And finally the shepel got a pair of pear trees for Crimbo