…but it’s the perennial complaint – not enough! Our UK readers will decry me for this comment but we had been looking forward to thunderstorms and heavy rain which had been forecast for last night. This morning however we were greeted by nothing more than a damp squib. We are now well and truly scraping the bottom of the barrel or rather in our case, the well, which will be bone dry very soon.

The pigs were happy though, as their dustbowl of a field is at least damp. They also continue to grow. they are now 90kgs each and getting ever closer to the chop!

The bees have also done well. Or at least one hive has. I took a further 4 frames last week which means we’ve had a total of 14kgs of honey from this one hive and absolutely nothing from the other hive. At least the bees from the second hive have produced some honey which should see them through the winter. As I have no honey extractor, I cut the honeycomb off the frames and then strain the honey out. With the remainder, I can then extract the wax by heating it and then straining it through a pair of tights.

So we’ve now got almost a kilogramme of wax so once we get some wicks we’ll be able to make some candles.

I’ve also been busy doing more woodworking and made another chair:

Although there is plenty to eat from the garden, we’ve also been doing a lot of foraging hereabouts. There are a number of ruined houses in our village and a lot of them have mature fruit trees. Therefore we’ve been enjoying fresh peaches, apples and especially damsons. Jackie has made damson jam and a most delicious damson ice cream. We’ve also collected some sloes, so the sloe gin should be ready by Christmas.