Early morning drive..

I knew when I got up this morning it was going to be a nice day...it wasnt dark when I opened the curtains. The sun was rising and there was frost on everything.

Dropped the boys to school and went for a drive to Lough Sillan.

Its a very large lake, great for watersports and fishing.

I knew driving into the village of Shercock that the views over the lake were going to be nice, it was -1 outside, and there was a fog over the other wee lakes around the town.

The picture above shows the sun rising over the village.

Made me feel good to be alive this morning, I felt so lucky to be witness to this gorgeous view.

The last time I was here with the lake this still I had the pleasure of seeing 2 Otters swimming across from the Mobile home park on the right of this picture out towards the middle of the lake and out to another wee island.

I have also spotted a Kingfisher on the banks of this lake! but I didnt have either my camera or my phone on me, so missed taking a picture of him.

New Years day

And its time to get off ones ass.
Its been ages since I last blogged, but my excuse is I have been pretty busy, all indoors I might add.

I did think about snuggling up on the couch today, while the kids played repeatedly on their Wii/Ds games but mother nature called loudly to me to go out and enjoy some fresh air.

And even though the sky was grey (dont think it brightened up all day) and rain loomed on the horizon (wishful thinking on my part), I packed up 2 boys and a dog into the car.

Five mins later we were parking outside the nicest public park in the northeast (I will stand corrected if anyone knows of a better one). Sometimes I forget how lucky we are to live so close to Dun Na Ri forest park, Cavan, and most of the time I neglect to remember its even there for us to use.

The river was flowing fast and the trees glistened in green. The forest took on a life of its own with weird creatures being talked about and philosophical issues being discussed between the 9 year old and 11 year old (what if we were all in a dream and were to waken up in a white room). All the while our Jack Russell dragging me along to find the newest scent/smell.

I couldnt upload any more pics, the blog refuses to comply, so these 2 will have to make do....

Death brings new life

At this time of year, when we look around the garden, we see the last of our flowers struggling to keep in bloom.
We filled 2 hanging baskets this year with Antirrhinum (Snapdragons) and Violas. And they were gorgeous when in full bloom.
But the past week they have started to look a bit dreary, so I took them down to see if I could tidy them up a bit to get the most out of them before they die off completely.
But look what I found....

One of the most curious seed pods I have ever come across belonging to the Violas...

So whats a gardener to do but collect some! and maybe next year we wont have to buy any Violas!

On the Snapdragon front ...

Its a bit like beauty n the beast! but I had to collect some of their seeds too...

Now I just have to get pots, compost and time to sow some seed.

Autumns arrived!

Finally we have Blackberries in this neck of the woods, we've been waiting for these flowers to come to something, so we can make some jam...

Bet the birds are happy, the hedgerows are laden down with berries..

And in our front garden we have rose hips, might be tempted to make some syrup with them this year, in case we have any head colds this winter.

And in our polytunnel the first courgette has grown a bit...

So I picked it a few days later, along with some of our Tomatos....

Had a bit of company in the polytunnel, havent seen many this year...

Pepper pots vs growbags

Well it seems like a life time since I first sowed our first ever Pepper seeds, and ages since I planted them out in growbags in the polytunnel.

I have watched them settle in and flower, then as time went on the fruit started to set.

With the help of the couple of frogs visiting the tunnel I have managed to keep the slugs at bay, the only pests attempting to get at the plants.

But the plants in the growbags never grew well, unlike the ones I potted up in the 2 litre pots!

I dont think we will grow Peppers next year, ya win some, ya lose some.

I was thinking the same for our Courgette plants, I planted 4 of them out, (I thought 4 Courgette plants would be enough to feed us) and they were attacked by slugs and all 4 died.

But I had another 3 plants on stand-by in pots,(am brutal for throwing stuff out) and when I got space in the polytunnel I decided to stick them in there, less slugs.....

But up until today all the flowers have been male, and no sign of a female flower or baby courgette!
So I'm celebrating the first baby courgette of the year for us! Just hope the bloody slugs keep away from it now!

Monty said to do it, so I did!

I dont know about everyone else but I find it sooo hard to throw away plants, or to thin out veg, or strip the leaves off beautiful leafy Tomato plants!
I just hate killing off anything, even though I do know it is a necessary evil.
I watched Gardeners World on Fri and Monty said it was time to strip the leaves off all the Tomato plants, letting the plant redirect all its energy into the fruit.

Before...

And after:

With the leaves cut away (and thrown on the compost heap) I have a great view of all our juicy ripening Tomatos! (& our Marigolds)

Time to pick a few for supper; I put them in my T-shirt, reminding me of when I was a child and being sent out for fresh eggs and the only thing we had to carry them back into the house with was our T-shirts.

Yummy!

Storing our fruit..yum yum

Well at the beginning of the year we never thought we would have so much fruit, and not have anything to do with the growing of it!

In spring we didnt even know we had a Plum tree, and only realised we had Damson trees growing in our ditch when the fruit started appearing, much to our delight!!

So the past couple of weeks have been spent making Plum jam, trying out Plum vodka and then this week I harvested the Damsons.....with help

The trees are laden down

But unfortunately most of the fruit are too high up for us to reach, even with the ladder, so we'll have to be content with 2 kg of 'em

But we dont mind really, I managed to get 11 pots of jam from them...yummy

As for the never ending fruit from the Plum tree I harvested the last of the fruit the other day, before the wind or the wasps got them. The tree gave us nearly 18 kg of fruit!  So apart from loads of jam I tried to make some Plum Compote but decided to blitz it instead and make a coulis. After trying some on ice-cream I spooned the remainder into ice cube trays to freeze

Then bagged them for use whenever we feel like some..