What we've been up to

Hi all, ive finally got round to finishing this post, its taken a while but im done now so i can go round after this and catch up with you all!
I thought id start with a couple of photos of myself and some good friends having an amazing night out on friday evening, after all your support from the last post i thought it the decent thing to do. My best friends little sis is going to oz for a year out so we went for goodbye drinks in a few of our favourite posh bars for cocktails galore!
This is me(right)and my friend Julie, im drinking a pina colada-my ultimate fave!

And here's (almost)the whole gang, im bottom left, happy times!.

Onto less glamorous things, we've been making the most of this sunshine lately, on saturday we headed over to Mr P's mum and dads farm to gather some essentials from their veg patch. You wont be surprised to learn that the little ladies adore pulling picking and digging the veg. They also picked a couple of the beautifully pretty Gladioli which are planted around the border.

Mrs P and Ruby personally selecting me a perfik cabbage!

The apple tree next to the patch is heavy with fruit, almost ready to harvest for lovely pies!

Pops did her bit for the garden by gathering as many cabbage butterfly catterpillars as possible!

From the patch we got-Beetroot-for chutney making, new pots, carrots, runners, and a cabbage. Not bad for 10 mins pilfering!

I must say, the main reason we went to the farm was to collect some purple gems from Granny P's garden.....thats what the jam pan below was borrowed for....

Ah those purple gems! These are Damsons, from the plum family(sorry if you all knew that already!) but with an acidic skin, so too sour for eating off the tree-but perfect for jam! I implore you all to plant one-this is really interesting to read.

This lovely lady with my girls is Granny P, Mr P's granny(obviously!). She's a wonderful lady who is so knowledgable, having been a farmers wife for 50 years! The Damson tree was planted in her garden many years ago when she first moved onto the farm with her beloved husband Grandad P, who sadly is no longer with us.

We collected lots and lots of fruit, so now i just need to get onto freecycle and see if i can get a few more jam jars!
Last week the girls and i picked blackberries, 3.5lbs worth to be exact! This was definitely the highlight of their holidays so far-i cant tell you how great they thought it was. They've eaten them every day since. Who said you have to spend money to have fun?

With our lovely free fruit i set to work making a crumble(read more about the beautiful apples further down-such a pretty pink inside and out!). I used lots of oats in the topping which tasted really yummy-i defy you to make a crumble and not have double cream poured over it!

So, thats one sort of harvesting over, onto another....

Over the hoidays i like to make the best of the lie-ins, this is how im found until about 9am . New snuggly matalan pj bottoms(love that check!), laying there admiring my heavenly greengate cushions.Usually with a dog and two cats for company getting hairs all over my new LA duvet cover!

Lately, as i lie here and see this view out of my bedroom window...another bright sunny hazy morning, i know it means another day will go by when i wont see Mr P.

All this sunshine, spells only one thing for us-harvest time. Ive been missing him terribly this last ten days or so, we've hardly had any rain here down south and its been go go go to get all the straw bailed on all the different farms he contract harvests.

On one he'll do at least 300 hours of bailing this month alone, as well as lots of other jobs inbetween.

This was on saturday, he was on our farm so we thought we'd meet him for a picnic and some family time, we snatched a lovely hour together.....

This photo shows his spangly new square Bailer, boys and their toys!

Neither of the girls have had any tractor time lately as they cant sit still for the 4 or more hours they'd need to to do a whole field so they just did a few rows of this one.
I got the blankets out of the car so we had comfy bottoms and we enjoyed eating and chatting and playing for a while.

Considering how much hay bale wrap is(the black plastic) this was a quick posed photo, we plonked the girls on then whipped them off before they could scuff it!

Daddy always has his binocoulars in his tractor so when i noticed something at the far end of the field he grabbed them and gave the girls a lesson in how to use them(supervised as they're tres expensive!)...

And just look what they saw, two beautiful deer...they were fascinated, kept very still and quiet and watched them for a good ten minutes or so.

On such a sunny day the fields look so beautiful, i was inspired to take a few arty photos! Hope you can appreciate how lovely it was. I love the neatness of how the rows are sown, and the bails dotted about the field look like lego blocks!

Of course i had my beautiful boy with me and did a little mosaic as i couldnt choose just one picture of him, he gave me the fright of my life today so im spoiling him with cuddles this evening!

This photo was taken last week; of the boys wholecropping. The vehicle on the right is Mr P's 'Claas' forrage harvester, it cuts the crop, and then little metal teeth called tynes flick it up into the inner part where its then sucked up into the arm and then spat out into a trailer driving alondside pulled by a tractor. This is the method which will be used when the maize corn is ready to be harvested sometime next month.

When i arrived home on saturday evening i discovered these fab french beans hanging in my porch, my dad had popped over to drop them off earlier in the day after picking them from his veg patch. They taste amazing!

He had also picked me these beautiful apples from my nannies tree. They smell just as amazing as they taste, i couldnt believe my luck! You just cant get apples like these from the supermarket. And have you noticed how bloody expensive apples are?!

Earlier on saturday Mr P's mum had said she had something she thought id like, i nearly wet myself with excitement when she presented me with this enamel 'tapioca' tin, its really really old and im totally in love with it! Just look at that blue!

The CK mug is what id bought her for her birthday earlier this year-fine bona china-she'll only drink from the best! But sadly when she poured boiling water into it, it cracked, when she told me, i said dont worry i'll have it and put it on my shelf among my other pretties and get you a new one! She duely obliged but did remark that as ive got so much in my house where they hell was i going to put it-i assured her id manage to fit it in. She also said she's got tons of other stuff for me but she'll need to have a sort out-result!

Back home then and there's been lots of fun to be had in the garden in this lovely weather....

The above pictures are of my mum and aunties new pup Stanley-he's a real sweetie, and of course little Archie, he loved playing with the hose, and jumping on the trampoline when they were all in the garden-he's a cheeky little monkey but totally gorgeous as you can see!

Little miss Roo decided to take up residence in my spot on the lounger! Wellies and CL, a girl after my own heart!

So, thats life for us this month, missing daddy, playing-for as little money as possible, harvesting, eating, baking, making the most of each other.

Hope i havnt bamboosled you with all the machinery talk-i'll stop if you tell me to, its just thats our day-to-day so thought id involve you all.

I thought id leave you with a little shot of our garden gate which goes through to next doors garden, when the first pigman lived in our house when the farm was originally up and running he needed to be able to cut straight through to the quickest route to check on the sows when they were farrowing.

Its nailed shut at the moment but will soon be in use again, hurrah!

Do you like the LA beach hut bunting?....

Lots of love Kirsty xxx