Autumn Days

Its been pouring with rain absolutely non-stop. Today is not a working day for me so apart from taking and picking up from school I've stayed in the house. Normally I hate being stuck indoors, I like to spend my time outside whenever I can but somehow today I didn't seem to mind. I think it must be the time of year, with all living things slowing down for winter, with the cooler and shorter days it seems right to stay in and concentrate on the home.

Living in a modern centrally heated home, the changing seasons do not impact directly on my life. I don't have to think about getting fuel for the cold weather, all I can do is hope that there is no disruption to the gas supply. Likewise in todays world, food habits needn't change with the time of year. It is possible to get whatever we want whenever we want it from the supermarket. Most people are very removed from the natural cycles of the year.

Even so there are small changes of routine that take place at this time of year and I like to do these tasks that mark the passing of the seasons.

Yesterday I fetched the winter weight duvet from the loft and also sorted away some summer clothes and brought out my thicker woollen jumpers.

I have been taking cuttings of geraniums which I will keep on a windowsill so that I have plants for next year.

Yesterday when it was dry I brought these back from the allotment.

These are the seedheads from last winters leeks. I left a couple of plants to go to seed at the end of last winter and these are the seeds that I will plant next year. They are the last of my saved seeds for this year, I have already saved lettuce and parsnip. I meant to save broad beans but I forgot and ate them all and of course no marrows or squash this year as mine didn't grow well at all.

The colder weather also changes the foods we like to eat and I am starting to cook hot-pots and stews in the slow cooker. Its the time of year to make soups, butternut squash being one of my favourites even if I had to buy them this year.

Another thing I look forward to in the winter is longer evenings for knitting and spinning. As there is less to do outside at this time I can finish all my household chores during the day and then fit in a couple of hours knitting in the evening, a perfect end to a day spent at home.

A mini-greenhouse

I've wanted a greenhouse for ages but our garden is not very big and so I gave up on the idea. This spring a friend of mine got one of these mini-greenhouses to start her tomato plants and was very pleased with it.

I decided to get one as the chickens have taken over my garden. Last winter was very mild and I was able to harvest a few leaves of lambs lettuce all through the winter. I didn't buy any imported lettuce at all last winter. Lettuce seems to me to be a particularly bad crop either to import or to grow in heated greenhouses since it must take so much more energy to produce and transport it than can be obtained from eating it. The leaves from the garden at least meant that we could have some salad in the winter. The chickens have now scratched their way through any little seedlings and it has become obvious that I will not be able to have both lettuce and free range chickens.

So I am going to try to grow some salad leaves under cover, zipped up away from hungry hens. I am probably a bit late for this year as day length as well as temperature will effect germination and growth but I think its worth a try. I am looking forward to planting some lettuce and chard tomorrow.

Here are a couple of pictures of the chickens who having scratched over most of the garden are now investigating the pots on the patio.

They do look quite sweet though.

Conkers and Moths

One of the high points of Autumn for any child is collecting conkers. My boys loved them when they were younger although they never played conkers as much as I did when I was at school.

They don't go out looking for them anymore but I still do.

I will keep these in the bowl for a few days just to enjoy them and then when I am sure they are quite dry they will be put amongst woollen jumpers to repel moths. I've been doing this for years but haven't been able to find any scientific reason why it should work. Maybe it doesn't work and I've just been lucky to avoid moths.


In a few days I will be replacing last years conkers with the new ones and cleaning out the chests of drawers. Apparently moth infestation is happening more frequently these days mainly because a greater proportion of our clothing is made from natural fibres than a few years ago.

I've always used conkers but lavender and Cedar oil are also thought to help. I have some dried lavender so perhaps I'll add that as well to be sure.

Autumn, start of the cold season.

Two meanings for cold here, the temperature is definitely dropping and I have packed away my summer clothes and replaced them with wool jumpers. The change seems to have happened really quickly after the warm sunshine last week.

Perhaps the abrupt change of weather is responsible for the second type of cold, horrible, sniffly, sore throat like sandpaper, shaky, shivery, achy cold. My oldest son succumbed first and then in the way families share things he passed it on to me. I very rarely get colds but this one has totally wiped me out, I've slept for the best part of three days just managing to pull myself together for the school run and to get something resembling a meal on the table.

I'm feeling a bit less sleepy today so perhaps I can fit in a bit of gentle knitting between my naps.

Woolly Stuff

With the arrival of the darker cooler evenings I will doing more spinning and knitting. Its not that I stop in the summer its just that there always seems to be something I should be doing in the garden instead.

In a comment on my last post Tash at Vintage Pretty asked where I get my wool from, so I thought I would get together a short list of some of my favourite woolly places.

I have bought fleece from Garthenor Organic based in Wales. I have only bought bags of washed fleece but they have an impressive range of organic yarns. The website is also has a list of rare breed sheep with great photos. The third jumper down in the photo was made from a yarn blended from three colours of shetland fleece.




Another favourite, for other organic goodies as well, is Greenfibres. I been buying here for years. Its not always the cheapest organic option but the quality is good and I've bought bedlinen, T-shirts, underwear and thick winter tights, towelling bathrobes as well as wool. The wool I bought from here was chunky weight "Castlemilk Moorit". This breed of sheep is very rare and almost disappeared altogether some years ago which is a pity as it has a rich chocolate coloured fleece. Its the bottom cardigan in my picture but the colour is actually a lot richer than that.



I always like to support local sustainable business and came across John Arbon Textiles, "The Alpaca shop" when we spent a weekend at a Youth Hostel in Lynton, Exmoor. Here I bought some double knitting Alpaca. Its the second jumper down in the photo, naturally coloured alpaca. Alpaca knits up very softly though I have found it matts slightly after a while, even with very careful hand washing.




Most of my knitting is with natural uncoloured wool but when I do want some colour my first stop is one of the two Shetland wool firms Jamiesons of Shetland or Smith and Jamieson. I have received excellent mail order service from both companies. Shetland is one of my all time favourite places. We have spent three brilliant holidays exploring the islands from Fair Isle in the south to Unst in the North and I am sure this has influenced my liking for this wool. The wool from Jamiesons is actually spun on the island and I looked around the factory at Sandness on one of our holidays.



I think that covers most of the sources of my wool and fleece over the last few years. It has taken me ages to write this post because I keep getting sidetracked and start remembering the places we went on holiday and also looking at all the yarns and fibres available.






I must keep repeating ....



I will not buy any wool until I've used up some of my stash.... I will not buy any wool..... I will not buy.....