Skip Autumn

It seems like winter has arrived here on the top of the Golden Valley once again and true to form skipped Autumn.
Though there is hardly any water in our spring and what is coming through is red from the soil. We are cleaner getting in the bath than when we get out sometimes it seems. The winds have really picked up, and the temperature has really dropped. So the wood is getting collected for the fire and the coats are on all day while indoors, electric blankets have been of now for a while.

With the water in the spring being so low, it might be OK if we have a fair amount of snow this year, it almost seems like we are trying to stock pile it in the fields ready to through down the well. That is after the pipes have defrosted.

The berries on the trees are heavy this year and ripe a little earlier than last year too, which makes for some good picking before the tree rats get a chance to take all of them. Though a fat tree rat is a tasty meal in it's self, I have wasted far too much time scaring them with my awful air rifle only to be laughed at as soon as they stop running.

When we first moved here, it was quite a novelty to be stranded. Stuck in doors with no way of getting out and no chance of anyone getting to us, not even the tractors were out during the first Winters snow. I think it is fair to say that the novelty wore off very quickly when the telephone wires came down, the spring froze, the electricity got cut off for days and you have no way of keeping warm other than to collect snow and try to boil it in a fire pit in a barn and use empty pop bottles as hot water bottles. Yep, that soon got tired!.

Last year we bought a log burning stove which allows you to burn wood, and when I say wood I mean stick. The fire box is so small that logs are just impossible. I remember Ray Mears saying that when lighting a log fire the wood heats you 3 times, collecting it, chopping it and then burning it. He was bloody right too. Although we cannot really cook on the stove, it does however keep the house a little warmer for us.

Well all we can do now is wait and see what will happen.

I am sure we will be fine!