Slowing down...

Well, autumn is fairly well established and starting to make way for winter which is noticeably getting closer.

I had a lovely walk along a local coastal area with the kids a few days back and took our library's Wildflower guide with us. I like it for listing the plants with medicinal properties and is good to be reminded of what is practically in our backyard even if it means taking a little walk.

The garden is ticking along. We've had a bit of a slow patch after the end of the summer garden died down (the daily courgettes and runner beans mainly) and just limped along with spinach, silverbeet and lettuces while things were growing. In the past few weeks we've been having some lovely sized leeks, red cabbages, spring onions, beetroot and broccoli shoots (I left the plants in place after I'd removed the heads) coming through along with the continued supply of lettuce, silverbeet and spinach!

Today was a bit of a miserable one weather-wise, but that suited me perfectly! It meant everyone would be keen on a hot soup for lunch. So after pulling up leeks (had no onions in the pantry), red cabbage, beetroot, and removed a container of homemade chicken stock from the freezer and our garlic from the pantry that we're still making our way through, I had most of what I required for making Borscht. Yum! It went down well (especially since it's been about a year since we last ate it).

The fire was put on mid-morning. Not that it was really needed temperature-wise, but I just felt we needed something cheery around the place to make up for the gloominess and dampness outside. Simon and the kids disappeared outside to restack firewood from the semi-sheltered area against the back wall to under the house.

I had the house to myself to get out my herbal books and make another start at getting back into my learning. It's been a continual thing as we move through the seasons with making up or trying out the occasional remedy, but the weather really had me hankering for settling in front of the fire with a cup of lemon balm tea and read up.