Cottage Autumn - April recap

5 am start of the day brings its fruits.

The lemons that our roosters offer us in the way of early crowing make a wonderful lemonade in the way of the productive morning hours.

I have my "quiet" time that I can use in whatever way i want.

Usually it is reading and writing and indulging my cup of coffee with the velvety milk and mixed spices.

This is how this blog was revived and I hope will stay active.

Our animals are so sleepy in the mornings even the sheep are not in a hurry to stuff themselves with the grass as they usually did. And the grass is not in a hurry to grow either.

Everything is slowing down.

We still are having mama silkie hen with her three chicks inside for the night and move them outside for the day as I worry that rats will be there for a sophisticated dinner.

It started to get windy now and then. The signs of winter reveal themselves to the public every week.

I am preoccupied with “nesting” ideas particularly how to grow micro-greens - decided to give a go to mustard, buckwheat, and radishes - need to look for seeds.

Buckwheat is amazing for sprouting and may be it will be the same great for greens too. I will let you know.

Also at the moment I am trying to utilise as much as I can of what we managed to grow this wet year.

I put my birds eyes little peppers and chillies into the oven to dry with a temperature 60-70 - hard to say with this oven. I have the best intentions to turn them into the chilly powder and oh it is going to be brutally spicy!

Then I thoughtI would cook one of our pumpkins. So not happy with a taste - quite blend. Not sure what variety it is.

However it performed very well in a new dish I invented: pumpkin and beans ragout - flavoursome as it can be - with garlic, onion, caraway seeds, turmeric and curry powder, it is getting cooked at the moment and smells and tastes delicious.

I would add there my crab apple and chilly paste but Polly would not eat it.

I guess she would not eat it anyway so.. :) added chopped silver beats, pinch f mint leaves and thyme, green onion and lots of parsley… left for several more minutes and it is soo nice! I love a hint of exotic travels from caraway seeds ..

It is like a Light breeze from the shore when you are sailing by and it invites you to anchor and go to explore..

Thinking of what I can turn the pumpkins into ( and no not the Cinderella carriages, they won't get popular locally :) and sell at the market.. Pumpkin Latte Paste? Pumpkin puree??? Need to investigate..

I also started allowing a thought of an old clydesdale horse in the paddock one day. Not soon :) Before it was just a huge NO.

But now I find this thought quite entertaining.

Also I am playing with the idea of quieting the mental chatter and discovering the soothing sounds around. It is superfascinatoing to catch the thoughts and some of them I want to keep but the others!!! :) - definitely need to be evicted out of premises.

I discovered a saying: "You are an equivalent to the voices sounding in your head". As spooky as it is I find it very true. And I decided to do a bit of a declutter of thoughts replacing some and cleaning and polishing those to keep.

So my autumn is filled with aesthetically pleasing experiences. Hope your season is full of them as well.

Wishing you as many as you can create!

Yulia