And it ends on the balcony

It is early evening as I start typing this, sat out on the balcony with some chicken sizzling on the BBQ behind me. It would be absolutely perfect other than the fact that the water (which was at a really high pressure just yesterday) has dwindled during the day ad just now has finally gone off. Great. Hopefully it is only off for a short time though I did just see some people collecting water from the tap on the hill - not the best of signs. Anyway, on with the blog.

Boiling the rest of the apples

The day started pretty much as normal, with an alarm call, a bit of a snooze and then getting up to feed the terrors. There was no washing to hang out today so I joined the feeding session and today Ralf ate all but a couple of his biscuits; a much better showing. I headed inside after this and set to on the blog for yesterday, then set off to collect the men. I was a few minutes early so I parked up and waited but then I decided to get more jam jars from the shop so I should have just driven straight in. They did not have enough lids today so I need to remember to pop in tomorrow to pick them up. I need some more eggs anyway so that isn't a problem. When I got back it was egg in a cup for breakfast while I carried on writing the blog but first of all I decided to make best use of the time by making Apple Struper, initially just putting all the apples left over from yesterday (they had been put in the fridge in water) on to boil.

Apples to be pushed through the sieve

Blog still in progress I paused midway through and processed the soft apples through my sieve to get a paste. This took a little while and I went from using the wooden spoon to a tea spoon to mash the fruit as it worked a bit better, and the paste stuck to the metal spoon a bit less.

Pouring Apple Struper into the jam jars

Apple Struper is basically Apple and Cinnamon jam and so to the liquid and paste I added sugar and cinnamon and then bubbled it away until I figured it was ready to be put into the jars. These had, as per usual, been put into the oven at 180 degrees for quite a while so when the liquid was poured into them it bubbled and sizzled again. The smell was divine as well.

Apple Struper

Shortly after I poured the finished product out I also completed typing the blog for this morning, which was a great relief. I was able to fill three jam jars, plus a small wine glass with the overflow, which has gone into the fridge for immediate consumption. One thing about all this activity is I have not got the largest quantities of fruit (other than the plums, huh) so each different preserve is only creating a small amount. It'll be nice to try each and once we get larger crops we'll know what we like.

The men are working so hard again today

Finally able to leave my desk I went up to see what had been going on up on the roof. It is not an exaggeration to say that I was astounded; loads more of the ridge beams had been put in place, and the men were on with the final corner that went above the bedroom. I snapped a few pictures then left them to it as I think the slightly cooler morning is when they wanted to work hardest.

A getting scratched to bits

The first job for today was to go out and pick as many blackberries as we could; normally I don't think they grow that well here as it is too dry however with all the rain we are getting a bumper crop. A went out before me as I tided up and washed up and when I joined her she was reaching into the depths of the brambles to get any fruits she could find. There are loads of not-quite-ripe fruits all over so this is now going to be a task for me in the mornings; to find the ones that have ripened over the previous day.

I feel NO PAIN! Honest

I joined in the harvest and, being a stupid boy, climbed right into the middle of the patch and got scratched to bits for my efforts, but we did nearly fill one box with ripe fruit. There are several patches around the land and this is the result of stripping every ripe fruit we spotted within reach. I want maybe two box fulls before I do anything with them. It takes me back to Beckondale where I did this for months and ended up with 3kg of fruit but it was maybe easier there as it was cold so you were diving into the bushes with jeans on, not sandals and shorts and a vest top.

Well she lasted a week.... ;)

On the rounds we found that the elderberries were super ripe and so we got a little distracted harvesting them as well. It was a really messy job pulling the berries off the stalks and we both finished up with really stained hands. We also filled more than one box with fruit and this went into the freezer along with the blackberries as I plan on blackberry and elderberry jam. We also seem to have a large number of blueberries so I think that could be on the harvesting list also. So much produce just for free.

Pear peelings and cores in water

With the harvest today going into the freezer I set myself down to the major and much-avoided task of removing the stones from all the plums we collected the other day. So as to not waste cooker time I first of all peeled, cored and chopped the few pears we had managed to get yesterday and put them on to make Pear Preserve. This involved boiling up the wastings and then straining that out, adding the chopped fruit and sugar and boiling for a while before jarring. It was not high impact and I was able to do this while chop chop chop chop chopping the plums.

Rambo just after not destroying the Zinnias

While I was chained to my desk (where I would remain for much of the next three hours with only a short break to eat some tuna mayo butties) A took the boys and went on the watering round. While she was up near the Zinnias Rambo nearly took them out but she was able to get him to sit and then took a picture to prove that he had been obedient for her!

This melon is getting huge

Further round the round she took a picture of the largest of the non-edible melons, with her foot as a scale comparison. It is typical that we can't eat these however I think the Little Lady will be really grateful for them at the end of the year. Jumping out of this for a second we have spread the honeydew melons out a bit more to prevent them getting too humid and tomorrow I will build a framework to raise them to allow better air circulation.

An unusual shape for a plum

When she came back in I was not even half way through the chopping and so I roped her in to the process by asking her to go through the bucket and discard any obviously bad fruit (even though they had only sat for a day there was a large number of bruised and wormy fruits already). This really helped speed me up as I had a ready supply to chop and she had fun by finding a couple of fruits that look like bottoms. I found quite a few worms while I was chopping and it is a good thing to be steady while doing this, boring as it is, as you wouldn't want to accidentally eat one.

How does he look so comfortable up there?!

It was with great celebration that I finally completed the task of chopping all the plums and I covered the bowl and stood and stretched my neck and legs as everything cricked and clicked. A had gone to bed for a rest so rather than disturb her I went onto the roof and found that loads more had been done and Bekir was chilling as is his wont sat on something I'd never sit on in a 100 years. They are so calm with heights. Orhan and Mahmet had the donkey work of bringing the huge beams upstairs and when I went back down after this picture I found them resting half way and gasping with the effort. There are some seriously sizable chunks of wood in this roof.

Three hours, three kilograms.

After a short rest myself in bed I dragged my dozy head off the pillow and went to do something with the plums which I had put so much effort into chopping. First of all, though, here is a picture of 2.8kg of chopped plums.

Boiling up some plum jam

I took 500g of the plums and made some plum jam with it, very simple indeed to do with a dash of water, boil gently to break apart the skins, then add the sugar and keep boiling not too hard until you are ready to bottle. We got a yield of about three jam jars out of the 500g of chopped fruit and this is now sat on the new shelving unit. I had put that together, while A built one of the fans, as the temperature is really starting to rise again now and Room 13 was unbearable. The rest of the plums were put, 400g a time, into pots and into the freezer.

Putting in the last of the ribs in

We took a turn around the grounds after this (sorting out the melons as I described earlier) and went up onto the back bank where we played with the boys a bit and watched as the men worked away at heights that would cause me to freeze. Ralf had a few snaps at Rambo and had to be told off a couple of times but in general they really are so much better now than even a few weeks ago.

Current state of play

A bit more time spent chilling out with the fan going in Room 13 and then it was time to take the men. We had opened the doors on Thomas while walking round the land just before so it was a slightly cooler car to get into however the temperature still said 34 degrees. Wow. The drive was uneventful apart from a mid sized tortoise running down the other side of the road towards a stream of about six cars which probably didn't end well but there was no way I could save the poor creature, and when I got back the BBQ was lit and, as I've said, the water off. Progress today has been outstanding and there are ribs all the way on both sides to the middle of the final section.

Your happy author

I took the table and chairs out onto the balcony to turn the chicken on the BBQ, and also took my other laptop out to do the blog. This is a Very Good Idea and I think may have to be done more often. Other than being attacked by flies quite regularly it has been a lovely way to type up and I've found myself churning out these words faster than usual.

Sunset from the balcony

And so the sun is going down and the food is nearly ready (not quick enough for either of us but you can't have uncooked chicken) and I am coming to the end of this blog. I'm going to put those pictures in and publicise, then settle down for my dinner.

If the water is still off tomorrow then it could be a welcome day off preserving; maybe I will spend a day doing paid work instead.