The end of June and first half of July has passed in a flash here at the Sparrowholding, with the usual manic running around in ever-decreasing circles. Suddenly it’s T in the Park weekend again, yet it seems like just yesterday that I was posting photos of forlorn, abandoned wellies in the local supermarket car park after last year’s festival. The organisers of this year’s festival must be thanking their lucky stars that they made a better job of their sun dance this time round, as Kinross-shire (like the rest of the country) has been basking in glorious unabated sunshine for days.
While the sun was welcomed by all with open (and bare, rapidly reddening…) arms, one of our Shetland sheep had resisted being caught and shorn for the past few weeks – a decision which it was now no doubt regretting. Today, very possibly because the Houdini-like ovine was considerably slowed down by heat exhaustion, HunterGatherer eventually managed to lure it towards him with a slice of brown bread, rugby tackle it while it was in mid-mouthful and then wheech* the offending fleece off before it knew what had happened. [*translation for non-Scots: to “wheech” means to remove rapidly!]
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| Happy shepherd and happy sheep |
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| Dark choc, milk choc and white choc fleeces |
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| A multicoloured woolly mountain |
With the wool “harvest” complete, there were other homegrown crops still to harvest – especially in our polytunnel, where the heatwave has encouraged the plant life to grow rapidly and profusely. Unfortunately, this also includes the ubiquitous triffid-like chickweed, which is the utter bane of our lives. Fortunately, despite its worst ravages, we have been able to salvage a selection of edibles this weekend, and we’re looking forward to consuming them very soon!
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| Now that’s what I call a strawberry 🙂 |
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| Little and large! |
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| Nectarines in the polytunnel – but will they ripen? |
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| Victoria the plum tree bodes to be prolific in 2013 🙂 |
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| Hanging out to dry – this year’s shallots |
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| Parsnips and potatoes – soup anyone? |
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| Pea crop is a bit miserly this year – perhaps too dry? |
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| Nothing to beat a “love”ly new potato… |
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| Goodbye flower – hello courgette! |
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| Small but perfectly formed – polytunnel caulis |
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| Why does our broccoli always flower so we can’t eat it?! |
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| One day we’ll be beans… |
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| DD2 always used to call spinach “sewage” – er, yum… |
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| Ah! Memories of my favourite TV show, The Herb Garden… |
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| An inedible polytunnel intruder – but so pretty |
