Update

I picked some of the gorgeous flowers from my garden to decorate the house, while Henry looked on:

I took Mary off her 4 eggs for a wing stretch:

Scruff waited patiently for his bee-catching practice:

And again for his tea...they say dogs can't talk:

I tried to get a picture of the bunnies without them escaping:

...I just about managed! And the bees were busy bringing in pollen, nectar, and adopting a strict frisking policy for all those wishing to enter the hive as it's wasp time of year so there was a bit of a queue to get in:

I then went for a walk in the afternoon sunshine:

and got back in time to receive my Ocado order, the driver of which bought all the yellow courgettes off my stall! I did also crochet another oak leaf but I need to sew up the holes in the chain stitches so I'll post a pic of that tomorrow.

Sussex

The children were off to Airbourne Air Show today, although it was pouring down when I woke up and it still looked pretty murky by the time we'd had breakfast and a minor meltdown from Amber over a jeggings/laundry incident which was my fault apparently. Still, I packed 'em off and went off to lunch with Charles where we saw the Red Arrows fly over us. We went up on to Bo Peep Bostal to enjoy the countryside but it was rather blustery and after about 10 minutes we decided that yes, Sussex is lovely right let's go and have a cup of tea.

We let Mary out for a break from egg-incubating but she wanders around all puffed up and looking a bit crazed which is rather disconcerting so I caught her and popped her back on her eggs. I hope this spell of broodiness doesn't mentally unhinge her...chickens are funny things and I've got my bonkers poultry quota with Maud thanks very much.  The hens have worked out that if they tread on the chicken wire over my vegetables they can get at them, here demonstrated with Ida and my autumn crop of beetroot:

I decided to make some apple wine following the recipe for peapod wine (I'm not sure how transferable the recipes are but hey, nothing ventured) and Charles got to work with the apple processing for the pot:

So that's all cooked down and is cooling now for me to add the yeast, teabag and lemon slices later.

I popped over to Nicky's for a quick meeting of the CCG but I think we're both suffering from being at that difficult stage in any skill where one is too proficient to be happy with dodgy stitches and wonky bits but not good enough to not have dodgy stitches and wonky bits. Hmm. I'm doing a sunflower now as I want to make a big cushion but perhaps I'll make something up so that I have something to show for my crocheting rather than lots of little bags full of things.

It's quite a lovely evening now although doesn't it get dark early?? :-( I took this pic with the 'scene' mode on my camera which has the alarming function of not only being best for sunsets but states that "this mode is appropriate for shooting actively moving children". Well I'll bear that in mind...

Harvest

Walking the dog up through the cornfield this morning I thought to myself: they ought to get this in today. Lo and behold -

an hour later the combine negotiated the turn into the road and I had a momentary panic at the thought of bikes strewn across the entrance and chickens frantically trying to get out of the way but luckily it was too late for the chickens and too early for the bikes. I love harvest and the sight of a combine grinding up and down the field is fantastic. Plus it explains why my house is so dusty:

Gotta be a year's worth of dust just offloading that lot

The girls discovered that when the tractor took the above trailer away it slopped wheat all over the road which they helpfully picked up and put in the bag marked 'Poultry Corn' in the boot room. This of course was not looting, but as my father pointed out, the very biblical activity of 'gleaning'. We've got half a sack :-) although Amber decided she wanted to grind some to make bread (bloomin' home education giving them ideas!!) so washed a load in the kitchen which then needed drying...on our nice white bath towels, obviously.

How many loaves??

I have been trying to do some studying as I've got one more assignment before my exams and I've just had my previous one back; my tutor is brilliant and I really really appreciate her input but she isn't afraid to put the criticism into constructive criticism and I do wish she wouldn't use the word 'irrelevant' quite so much when marking my scripts :-(

I shut the hens in and let Mary out for her leg stretch, poor thing she is so hormonal and spiky:

Can't say I've never felt similar...

and then I sat down to crochet a Camberwell Beauty butterfly from my new book, an activity which had eluded me last night during our Country Crafters Guild meeting. Working out left from right isn't my strong point, nor are right and wrong sides so let's be honest it was never going to be easy to make something where you need a left wing starting on the wrong side which then makes the diagramatic instructions all back to front. Anyway here it is:

I have managed to crochet the lower left wing wrong side up but I went with the majority and luckily it doesn't really notice. I want to make some more (!) and put them into display frames.