Showing posts with label Trees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trees. Show all posts

Wednesday, 29 October 2014

Winter is coming



Heh heh :) But it is not here yet.
I would love to have a cold winter. Hard frosts and clear blue skies, blizzards and deep snow. Fizz and I have never played snow balls or made snow angels or built a snow dog. That would all make for some memorable photographs.
I think that we are going to get mud. That's what we had last year. Grey skies, rain and floods and mud on mud. It's not so good.
It's sunshine Fizz. You remember sunshine don't you?

It's warm and it makes you feel sleepy.


She can have a little cat-nap while I photograph some berries.


These are Sloe Berries, the fruit of the Blackthorn. They are traditionally used to flavour Sloe Gin but I like to eat them straight of the tree.
They do have a large pip but also a lot of flesh and they are very juicy. The have an astringent quality, they leave your mouth feeling dry and puckered, the only cure for this is to eat another one.
A lot of people find them too tart and they are just a nibble for me, I have never sat down and ate a bowlful. The flavour is supposed to sweeten after the first frosts but I can never wait and I have been eating them since the end of August.








This has been a very good year for Sloe berries.


Wakey wakey :)


Come on we have got sunshine to see.



It is nice out but recent rains have left the tracks a bit muddy. I suppose that it is time to get the old Wellies out of storage.


We shall look back and laugh at this soon.
Looking back at old photo's I think that perhaps this year I should invest in waders or a full body wet suit. In this next picture she thinks that I am drowning and is trying to administer the kiss of life.

Come on it is not that wet yet. Well, not for me anyway :)


Our next berry is Black Bryony. This one is deadly poisonous of the painful blistering variety, you wouldn't eat one. Now that leaves are falling from the trees this is becoming more evident as it scrambles about in the hedgerow.







You might want to clean yourself up a bit, I can't really take you home like that.


Good Girl.


Tuesday, 28 October 2014

Get Your Spindle Berries Here!


I woke up this morning to disaster. Clear blue skies, the first that I have seen for weeks.


I checked the weather forecast and it told me the sun would only last till mid day.
I had promised to go to town with my landlord this morning to help him to purchase a CCTV system for the farm  shop. (He doesn't like technology)
But not until ten, there was time.
There are a few Spindle trees out on the common. This one was still in the shade but the light was good and it works for me.









We also have a small tree in the front garden and I thought that as I was doing Spindle that I should take a few shots of that one too.









Spindle berries are quite poisonous and would be great in poison pie (I am thinking of a colourful berry flan now). It causes liver and kidney damage and can lead to death.
Well that was my early morning rush about and I am very glad to have seen the sun for a few hours. As I am about to post this the sky has gone black again and it looks like rain but never mind...
At ten o'clock my landlord rung me and said that he couldn't go to town today as he had some stone being delivered and so I took Fizz for a walk and the sun shone on us for another couple of hours. There might be another post today :)

Saturday, 25 October 2014

Hawthorn


I didn't set out today to capture a Hawthorn, I was on a very different kind of mission, I was getting myself some new pets. I will show you them later.
Seeing the tree like this almost bereft of leaves and so heavy with fruit I just had to photograph it. This post might be a bit red.












It is quite a lot of photographs but then, I think that I may need these images in the future. I hope that you liked them. :)