Sunday 2 October 2011

Getting the Harvest in

This wee post is not a tour blog.  Tour season has ended, big sigh, sore feet, what day is it?

Now it's time to get the white board out and make the long list of winter projects to do.  One of which is to finish the harvest and get the garden put to bed.

Scot has been mowing the meadow and making hay stacks.  There's still a few wee beasites and bees around (unusually warm over 3 days) so he's been leaving some flowers up for them.
For tour guest Monique and other city dwellers: a haystack

I have become "smoothie girl", blending bulk spinach for fruit-smoothies that I will freeze for eeking out over winter.  There is a lot of eeking done here in the winter - Gabaldon and other books to read and make last; currently, "A Thousand Splendid Suns".  Firewood to eek out, sanity to make last a winter of snow.  (You've seen The Shining, aye?)

I have been keeping us healthy with nutritious blends of vegetables and fruit, much from the garden, to make smoothies.  (Scot:  "canny eat that. I's got froot init." ).  I'm running out of room in the freezer.  I grew my own spinach this year with great success, but the season is over and now I've gone to our local green grocer for a crate.

Scot has a cottage to thatch next week in Argyll and then it's down to book writing again.  He's set himself the target of 20,000 words to add to the book this winter.
Another note for city dwellers:  A thatched house that Scot's repairing.  This is only slightly smaller than our last wee house.

On the tour front, I am playing with the idea of an Ireland tour for next year (amazing country and people).  Some of my Outlandish Spirits from previous J&C tours are interested. 
Scot will be doing a "Journey to the Western Isles" tour for some previous old-tour-friends.  That one's private, but again, some interest from the Outlandish Spirits in the public one.  (See Scot's website for pics of that tour from last year Journey to the Western Isles)
Himself is also thinking of a dude tour called Grain and Stone.  It's just a "what if" at the moment, but the idea would be to visit a few clan chiefs in their castles, share a dram and experience the lives of highland chieftains.  That's the Stone part.  The Grain is to visit a couple of breweries and a few distilleries.  Throw all that on to the back of highland ponies and head into the wilderness hawking and hunting for their daily rations for a few days.
All a bit dudish for me (and perhaps you, the blog followers) but it might be a good way to get rid of your husbands for week, perhaps permanently if they can't keep up.  Visions of City Slickers (1991) come to mind.