Friday 18 September 2015

From The Wild Garden of the Waning Year

Hedgerow Bouquets
 
I had written the word Cornucopia in my notebook but couldn't remember why.  Then it struck me that this time of year the hedgerows are a veritable Cornucopia of wonderful things to gather.  Berries and fruits shine out like beacons waiting to be plucked from their often thorny stems.  Scarlet hips, crimson haws, indigo sloes  with a pale bloom on their skins.  Glistening purple elderberries drooping under the weight of the fruit.  Burnt orange rowan berries hanging in clusters.  Acid green crab apples like perfect miniatures.  Knobbly horse chestnuts.  Spiky sweet chestnuts.  Food for free that Mother Nature provides from her wild garden.

It has been a pretty chaotic week and I have had very little time for visiting blogs or even thinking about my own post - so I will just let the pictures do the talking.
 
 


The last berries, apples and plums, wet and almost rotting from the late sun and autumn rain, lend a mellow, alcoholic scent to the space, like the dregs of an abandoned glass of wine.  The garden is falling asleep with an air of damp tobacco and wood smoke, but it is still abundant too, with late blackberries, damsons and a grapevine at breaking point.  Each year I race to get to those blackberries before the feast of Michaelmas, when the devil is said to piss on them. ~ Nigel Slater




Autumn cooking is for storing, squirrelling and hoarding, in larder and cupboard, attic and cellar and freezer.  In the mornings, a mist rises and wreathes in and out between the tree trunks.  On the damp grass lie windfall apples and pears, burrowed into by late wasps.  By noon, the sun is high, and it is warm.  The leaves are beginning to yellow and curl.  Runner bean flowers are shrivelling at the tops of their poles.  Fruits hang thickly clustered from their stems, over-ripe, ready to fall, plums and damsons, apples and pears, rowan and elderberries and dark succulent brambles. ~ Susan Hill
 
Garden Bounty - early September 2015



My home is turned upside-down at the moment with inches of dust everywhere. The electrician has been to put in new wall sockets.  The radiators have been taken off the walls and drained leaving black sludge on the carpet. Oh my.    The plasterer comes next week to do the walls so we are going away for a few days to leave him to it.  It will be bliss to stay somewhere that is normal and clean and organised with everything in its place - and hopefully I can leave all the stress of it behind too.  Just for a few days anyway.

I wish you Adieu - 'til next time.

Elaine


 

32 comments:

  1. Getting away is an excellent idea. Coming back to face the latest changes may need a few days of rest and relaxation (and normality).

    Ms Soup

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  2. Enjoy your break away. Love your harvest as the seasons turn again - you into autumn and us into spring.

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  3. Good luck next week. I hope that you managed to remove the black sludge successfully

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  4. Rich colours indeed. With the sun out here today the world is sparkling after rain.

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  5. The hedgerow bouquets are beautiful. The colors are soul-soothing. Remodeling is difficult to get through. We have done quite a bit of it here on our farm. It is so good when the chaos and dust of a project are over. Enjoy your respite!

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  6. Beautiful photos, Elaine. Hope the plasterer does a good job and that you enjoy your few days away. xxx

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  7. What a lovely Post Title... And what a lovely post, to go with it.

    Your photos are amazing... Your quotes are also...

    Enjoy your time of peace and neatness!!!!!

    Gentle hugs,
    Tessa

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  8. Your blog looks beautifully Victorian nowadays, Elaine; I feel like I should wear my best dress to read it.

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  9. Lovely pictures. Enjoy your few days away. Flighty xx

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  10. The best bouquets are always foraged. When I lived in Kent, I so enjoyed this time of year for exactly this reason. We used to cut branches loaded with hazelnuts to bring home and enjoy in our vase. They looked so rustic and architectural at the same time. Now it seems, everyone is bringing branches in doors but back in the early 1980s I don't recall anyone doing this.

    Blackberries were another treat, as were hips and other berries.

    Your photographs capture the beauty of the season - just wonderful!

    Enjoy your break.

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  11. Glorious bounty from the hedgerows. Guess in the older days, people used all of it or at least, the animals did. Good luck with the repairs. I can't stand all of that stuff either.

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  12. A good time to go away! I must remember that - we might be having air source heat pump heating installed - Aaargh...

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  13. Good idea to go away when they are plastering your walls. I enjoyed the photos of your collected berries very much, fall is beautiful!
    In the meantime, have some wonderful days away from it all.

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  14. Elaine - your photo's are a joy to look at.

    Have a lovely few days away and when all the work is finished you will say 'it's all been worth it'.

    Thinking of you.

    All the best Jan

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  15. Beautiful words and photos Elaine. I had a smile on my face until that spider stared out at me from the screen. I hope it stays put. Decorating is inevitably discombobulating so I hope that you can just chill out next week. Enjoy your break.

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  16. What a colorful harvest! Enjoy your time away!

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  17. Beautiful images. I hope the house will not take too long to clean up.

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  18. What a lovely group of images! Fall at its most beautiful. I hope the dust settles soon.

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  19. A beautiful cornucopia of autumn! I hope that the works on your house will all be done soon and will all be OK. xx

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  20. Such a lovely post with wonderful photos and quotes from two of my favourite authors as well. Oh how unsettling are those building works - enjoy your time away from them:)

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  21. Oh goodness.. I hope you were able to have a relaxing break and not worry about the house too much. Getting away from it all sounds like a very good plan.

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  22. Love your beautiful images of natures larder. The colours are so vivid.....

    Oh dear.....so difficult when we have people working in the house.
    You are wise to have a break....such a good idea.
    I hope when you return everything is neat and tidy and you can start to enjoy your new space.......

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  23. Hope everything feels more normal when you return home! Your autumn collection is so beautiful! Sarah x

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  24. What beautiful autumnal pictures, such abundance indeed! A break sounds much needed! I do hope your are enjoying yourselves, cleaning after workmen is a big job, still....it shall all be very beautiful soon!xxx

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  25. September 22

    Happy Autumn Equinox Eve!

    Gentle hugs,
    Tessa

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  26. Such bounty! The pictures really do speak for themselves! All the beauty of Autumn held therein. I wish you many delights of the season. And happy squirrelling : ) xx

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  27. I missed you Elaine and wondered where you'd been, no word from you while I was in the Azores and no word when I got home. I caught up with you here today and so I can relax and you will soon be back.

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    1. Nice to know I have been missed - thanks Rachel. I'm sure I did comment on one or two of your earlier posts from the Azores. Glad you are back safely - back to normal now for me.

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  28. Goodness, what a hectic time -- in the garden with so much late summer production and in your home! Hope all will go well and you'll be happily settled in. I love your descriptions of all the berries and hips and fruit. So unlike what we see here. ('tis nikkipolani; Blogger won't let me post otherwise)

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  29. Being too busy to visit blogs ... me too! Yours is one of the ones I most miss at such times though, visiting here is almost as good as a walk in the fresh country air.

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  30. Ah Elaine I am reading this post late. Your bounty seems to know no bounds. The harvest looks wonderful. Hope they are now all finished with this project. Take care friend.

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