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I love Autumn; all that bounty each day.

The honey bees were unable to visit this year, poor wee victims of mankind's greed & arrogance.

I was looking at the very sparse crop of runner beans in early summer, provided by a small number of valiant male bumble bees, with sad nostalgia.

Not so come Autumn.

Those wonderful Momma bumbles have increased their output of hard working males & I have beans for Africa.
Mother Nature is just grand.

I shall be putting Bumble houses in all the dark shady places to help this wonderful provider survive in my garden of no sprays.

Town is such a dangerous place though; with all the thoughtless use of toxic sprays to look after show flowers; that only feed the ego; or like my control freak neighbour who "can't stand bugs" & sprays anything that moves.S

If they keep it up much longer they will inherit a barren earth & wonder why they are starving.

Oops how did that wonderful warm glow turn into another rant? Sorry Ladies.

Oh yes - Autumn. Season of mellow fruitfulness and all that jazz. Love it. Cooler days, much cooler nights, so much of abundance to pick ,reap and gather. It's time for my squirreling instincts to take over and begin the preparation for winter. I make sauce and chutneys from whatever comes my way - never mind that we aren't really sauce and chutney fans. I drool over my jars of jam sitting in the cupboard. Watching the tomatoes slowly coming to an end is a bit of a heartbreak. The courgettes are finishing and we haven't had our fill yet. A pumpkin, scorned through the hot days of summer, promises rich soups and delicious pies as well as roasted alongside potatoes and kumara and potatoes. It's cool enough now for slow cooked meals rich with flavour. I think of my mother's apple pie and cream and know I can never achieve the inch high flaky pastry that she made.

Things are changing daily. Leaves are losing their greenness and a hint of yellow and red shines through. It won't be long before everything is a blaze of colour and mistsappear and frosts start to bite. I resolve to make the most of the warm autumn days and sleep filled nights. Life doesn't get much better than this.

Oh my...after this past long, cold, and snowy winter, I cannot relate to any of this talk of hearty soups. I am literally "yearning" for warmth and the sun. I swear, the first inch of snow that fell in October, is still on the ground! It was the first to fall, and will be the last inch to melt away. I think today actually was the day the last inch melted away, thank goodness. It's been a very long winter here., and we are all white and pastey faced because of it.. My grands will be tanned and their hair will be streaked with silver in a couple of months. I love that healthy glow summer brings.
Enjoy your Autumn, and I will enjoy my Spring.

I too love the changing of the seasons. This week I intend to find out how to preserve fruit (haven't done it since I was a kid and buy heaps from markets and do it all. I can't wait for being able to eat hearty soups also. Now to my preserving receipe books - any suggestions would be greatly appreciated for example how do I steralise flip top jars.. (These are jars with the lid attached and the rubber ring attached to it...

LJ We had glass top jars long before the Agee seal method & it was not good.

When Agee first came in you could buy boxes & boxes of glass top jars for a few pence at the Auction rooms, where people went to buy second hand goods then.

I had a friend who bought them by the boot load, so that when she got really frustrated & furious, she could hurl them up against a brick wall in memory of all the hard work she had wasted over the years on the damn things.

I think it stopped her taking a frying pan to her nasty husband & bad mouth kids.

The heat seal method is by far the safest if you are going to do all that hot work.

These days I freeze everything.

perhaps I'll freeze half and see what happens to the rest...