Early Summer Fruits & Pickled Walnuts

We picked the first of our Brown or Sugar figs on the 3rd of December this year, which is amazingly early. They are big at this stage and not numerous as the major crop won't start until about mid January. By that stage there will be that many that I can start making jars of sticky figs to enjoy during the winter months.
at present though we are enjoying them for breakfast or lunch sliced with cheese. I may also do some in vodka like I have done with the cherries we picked up from a local grower.

On the right is a bowl of walnuts , pricked ready to soak in brine for ten days, refreshing the brine once. I did that ten days ago and now had them out in the sun yesterday to turn black. It got so hot though, yesterday, I had to rescue them otherwise they would have been cooked.
we have had the hottest start to December on record, we were 40C yesterday while Adelaide was 42C and Pt Augusta a massive 45C....

So on the left are the walnuts all turned black and ready to be put into jars and spiced vinegar which is made with various spices and herbs. They then have to sit in the jars for a month before eating them either whole (if you are a pickled walnut fan) or thinly sliced with cheese or meat. I also have a rather nice casserole using pickled walnuts. If anyone is interested I could put it in my next blog. It is a matter of either liking them or hating them. In the 1960ies we had a blacksmith who used to come to Hughes Park and shoe our horses as we still mustered on horseback.

Harry used to organize the shoeing so the
blacksmith could join our Christmas party for the men when he was finished with the shoeing . We would send him home later, feeling full of good cheer with a large jar of pickled walnuts as he loved them. We would see him going down the garden path furtively dipping into the jar and eating one....We had three walnut trees there so there was always plenty to pickle and pick later in the autumn.

I had been watching the young Murray Magpie or Piping Shrike, by our pond two days ago and wondered if something was wrong with it. It hardly got out of my way and sure enough I found it last night , dead by the plum tree with its beautifully marked feathers blowing in the wind.
So sad really, we seem to have had quite a few young birds snuff it this year....
On the left is a series of mulga vases I suppose you could call them. The were offcuts from posts our friend David was using to make yards in the Sandstone Western Australia area where they had a sheep station.He was trapping feral goats. I brought the off cuts home and a young wood turner in Victor Harbor made them int these lovely shapes. Australian hard woods can be so lovely, I adore the Sheoak's wood as well and many more. I have  friend who used to do amazing scroll work in native woods......that may be another story.....

Early Summer and Christmas Break Ups

 Our Book Group meets on the first Friday of each month after lunch. The first Friday in December though, we meet in the morning to wind up the year and have a discussion on the last book we have read. Then we go off to lunch at a previously booked restaurant or pub.
This year however, we had a treat in that Catherine and Sue gave us a mini concert first off. Both women are accomplished musicians so we were privileged to hear some very fine music indeed. It helped to put us in a good mood before we tackled the book discussion.

The book we discussed was Nora Webster
by Colm Toibin, a fine and well known Irish writer. Most of us however were not enthralled with his social realism in this rather boring and lengthy tale of a young Irish widow finding her way after her husbands death. She was left with two young boys still at home and grown up daughters living away from home in the big city.
We were glad to escape to our chosen pub, high on the hill overlooking the beautiful Aldinga Bay. On the right you can see we enjoyed ourselves immensely despite the fact we had to wait over an hour for our food to arrive.......

We've decided to do something different next year...all going well of course.....
Remember to click on the photos to get a better look.
Our summer has started to affect our gardens rather early as we have had so little rain over the past three months. We did have 4ml of rain two days ago and it never ceases to amaze me how the Jacobean Lilies respond to quickly and show their elegant forms above the dry and brittle mulch.

 We were also delighted to see we still have a yellow water lily and since putting some bacterial stuff in the water the pond is starting to look so much better.
The white faced herons are hanging around again and looking to see if any fish are easy targets.
The birds some times land on the roof of the house and you'd think an army of clodhoppers had arrived. We had some rock pigeons land on the roof yesterday and they will get short shrift from me if they persist....

 The summer garden is just that, beige and dry.
I am trying to get a few Holm oaks going along the drive way, they have been in for three years now and are hardly making any headway.
The other plants are hardy geraniums and even they are finding it hard going.
I hope if and when when I get to the Pearly Gates
and asked what I might like to do in eternity, I can say I would like a garden with easy to work soil and unlimited water......

Brian's vegies have been an absolute disaster this year for unknown reasons... the seedling are eaten the moment they pop their heads up, the strawberry plants died in that terrible heat,
(the ones on the right are some I planted in the ground where as Brian's were in raised baskets )
and his tomatoes sit and sulk....
Never mind, the black birds are having a ball scattering the mulch and finding the bugs and the gum leaves rain down in great profusion......