Harvest pumpkins

I'm delighted that my pumpkins have survived until our church harvest lunch this Sunday. There is the possibility of a frost and so while it's still sunny I've picked them and they are having a brief moment of ripening in the late October sunshine (the larger orange ones are 'kuri').

Sunbathing

Puss has been a stranger to us this year, coming and prowling the fields but keeping even more distance between her and us than usual (she is a wild/feral cat born here on the farm before we arrived and never became tame). Today I walked down the garden and found her sunbathing in a sheltered spot in the cart shed.

Good morning

This morning as I went to collect the last few raspberries for breakfast I heard the robin singing his heart out high in our hawthorn hedge.

Already here

As I was washing up there was a huge flurry of bird activity and a flock of Fieldfares landed in the holly, I can't believe they've come so early. Last year I had to pick branches of holly and put them in water in the barn so that I could have the berried version for my Christmas decorating, the previous year in a 48 hour period they stripped every berry off every bush. I hadn't thought I'd need to watch out for them in October - I'm very happy to share the harvest, but they sadly are not.

The moon - just!

Just a small sliver of moon here at Hill Farm tonight. The nights are already drawing in and we've still to turn back the clocks.

Dark skies

The stormy weather has produced some amazing skies here, as they say 'every cloud has a silver lining' ...

Middleport Pottery

For Dave's birthday we went to Stoke and visited the Middleport Pottery. It was a good plan for a day that threatened to be unpredictable as regards the weather. We booked a tour and this is something I'd definitely recommend, just leave plenty of time to see everything that's there.

More sheep

We've a new set of neighbours and I guess it would be rather mean spirited of me to comment that they look rather on the tatty side. Hopefully the nice grass will improve their appearance!

Happy men

We went to The Horseshoes tonight to celebrate Dave's birthday - a little early but the only day Tom was around (that's the problem with his jet set life working in the travel industry!) It was fun to be out as a family, it must be the first time in ages and they were lucky enough to have me as chauffeur!!

A good hare day

Today I went on a course to make a little felted hare. He looks rather on the skinny side but it was a case of getting him done in the 3 hours then rushing home to welcome a last minute booking. There were four of us taking part at Sticky Fingers in the recently opened Sudbury Courtyard.