Autumny things :: garden

October 18, 2015April 30, 2026 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)31 Comments

‘Ode to Autumn’ by Keats sums up the arrival of Autumn here…

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless, With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells, With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells…

It’s all mellow fruitfulness here and my gourds have swelled nicely 😉 as you can see above. Although I don’t think they are actually as big as the ones I grew last year. Every year I vow to nurture the plants with regular watering and plant feed but my good intentions slip as the weeks fly past. Next year I’ll strive to be a better gardener.

The carrots have done quite well though and we’ve been enjoying them mixed with herbs and shop-bought sweet potatoes, fennel, onions and parsnips and roasted in the oven.

We’ve also had some wonderful cooking apples thanks to having generous and kind neighbours with very productive Bramley trees and so we’ve been enjoying a lot of apple cake, apple crumble and my current favourite ‘apple brown betty’ made with left-over homemade bread, butter and brown sugar.

The chickens are laying well and being rewarded with regular jaunts in the garden for a spot of free-range foraging.

Though I’ve not told them of the recent visitor that has been coming regularly to our front garden, as I think they’d be alarmed!

Seeing this beautiful fox has delighted me though. Last week I was really lucky to have a great view and took these pictures through my bedroom window just after dawn. I watched him for 20 minutes or so as he rooted round in the ruins of our front garden – we’ve had a lot of leylandii conifers taken out as they’d got too big and scraggy so the front garden is a complete mess at the moment but it is obviously the perfect playground for a curious and bold fox. I’d dumped the contents of the compost bin out there ready to be dug in and he was enjoying picking through and finding the egg shells. He didn’t even budge when a car drove by, just pricked up his ears and bristled with caution, ready to run should the need arise. I hope he sticks around because he’s a very handsome chap and is wonderful to watch but I also hope that the run keeps my fluffy ladies safe from becoming his dinner!

That’s all my news from the garden but I’ll pop back soon, hope you have a good week.

general stuff · summer · wildlife

snippets from the last week

August 17, 2015April 30, 2026 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)40 Comments

Gathering up the fallen plums from our tree to make jam and enjoying eating it on toast for breakfast.

Crocheting little supports for the squash which are getting heavy now.
Waving to the Dakota plane which flew directly over our house on it’s way to the VJ day commemorations in central London and thinking about everything faced by a generation we’ve come to view as the bravest and most selfless in our history.
Re-homing hydrangea heads bent by the heavy rain.
Rainy days wet enough to make a frog frolic and balmy August afternoons perfect for basking butterflies.

Summer is passing quickly and we’re trying to make the most of the long days. Hope the days are enjoyable with you too.

crafts & knitting · general stuff · wildlife

knitting time again

June 12, 2012May 1, 2026 Julie (little Cotton Rabbits)37 Comments

Sorry to have stayed away for so long. Unfortunately blogging is one of the first things to fall by the wayside when things get busy, and things have been far too busy for my liking recently. First there was Toby’s school play week (which was an upheaval for Toby and a tough time for us but happily in the past now) and then there was the half term break, which again Toby found difficult because of the change in routine. He and I went to stay with my Mum and Dad for a few days and playing with his cousin Zoe really helped him get through the week.

Happily we are now settling back into the term-time routine which is nicely predictable for Toby and brings me a calmer pace with some lovely knitting time. To celebrate my reunion with my pointy sticks and yarn I have cast on a new project.I’m using an ancient ball of stashed yarn that has no ball band but I think it’s Jaeger and the pattern is the lovely ‘catching butterflies’ by Tiny Owl Knits. I think these will be the perfect mittens for wearing on a cool summer evening, or even the cold summer days that we’ve been having rather a lot of recently.

There are also bunnies and foxes slowly emerging from my knitting bag and I’m still plodding along on my one-a-day misty afghan which is now getting big enough to sit under as I work on it – a bonus at the moment due to this cold, wet and windy start to June.

Hopefully the sun will rediscover our little patch soon. The newly-fledged birds would certainly benefit from better weather – like this little blue-tit who came out of the nest last week with a big chunk of it caught around his leg and wasn’t able to fly. I carefully caught him and managed to cut it off – thank goodness for the tiny points on embroidery scissors. He fluttered off into the shrubs and hopefully he’s doing fine now.