Thread 15 - TalkLair: “I Can't Lie To You About Your Chances, But... You Have My Sympathies.”

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 14).

Autumn seems to have gone straight into winter. It's cold, wet and windy. In the TalkLair, the hearth is glowing, the walls covered in dubious artwork, books by non-approved authors line the shelves, rugs are down on the floors (and assorted pets curled up on them). The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch though, always eager for general chit-chat on all manner of topics.

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

Ugh, bullies. I think I'll avoid that bit of memory lane.

It's been a nice day here but the forecast says windy tomorrow so I've been filling cans with water for flushing and jugs with water for drinking in case the electricity goes out and have brought in a couple of sacks of logs.

In between doing that I have let 6 wasps out. The were of various sizes so not all the same one. I presume the atmospheric pressure is dropping in advance of the storm, triggering them to take shelter. Which reminds me, I must close the windows.

I do hate seeing the typo just as I press post - though the errant apostrophe on another thread that I didn't notice until the next day is worse.

It's been a weird day here - cold, then cool and wet, then neutral but windy, then (around 5) sunny and warm.

I've just fast-forwarded through Strictly (the only way to watch it) and laughed my arse off at the inevitable judges' response to "Couple's Choice". MrG came in to see what the chortling was about and said that if he were a contestant, all he'd have to do to score top marks would be to prance around doing a random made-up folk-dance and tell the judges that all four of his grandparents had been refugees from countries that changed hands so many times that (according to the New York censuses) the same people had been born in Russia, Latvia, Lithuania or Poland ... perm any 3 of 4, per grandparent ... depending on the date of the census. And that therefore His Life Had Been So Tragic.

We've been preparing for the coming storm by picking as many apples as possible before the wind donates them all to the neighbours. Four large bread crates full, which have been sorted into 1 crate of tiddlers that will go to the cofarm for juicing on Tuesday, and 3 crates to turn into jam, butter, cake, crumble, pie, turnovers, and lots of dried apple to go on muesli and porridge.

Oh yum! We used to have an apple tree in our old garden and I remember that frantic time of trying to preserve stuff!

No home-grown fruit here but if I need to make jam and the farmers' market or the supermarket doesn't have anything nice, you can make decent jam from big bags of frozen fruit. I saw a mango-berry mix in the store today and mentally earmarked it for my next session. I'm off to the UK for a couple of weeks on Wednesday though, so nothing culinary will happen till I get back, when we will be heading towards Thanksgiving, which with any luck I will manage to avoid as DH isn't bothered if we're not with family.

NoBinturongsHereMate · Yesterday 21:43

We've been preparing for the coming storm by picking as many apples as possible before the wind donates them all to the neighbours.

Don't you keep any for eating? We had over 30 this year, from our little tree, but the pear didn't produce anything, not even blossom. My daughter decided to make focaccia today, my wife is / was apparently asleep (11 am).

I told her it looks like alien fungus and she said, "Great, it's supposed to look like you!"

Has the focaccia been made yet @SinnerBoy ? Turn out okay? The dough looks amazing.

It's not a keeping variety. They'll last 3 weeks as fresh apples if we're lucky, often less, so all have to be preserved.

Peak colour here at the moment so DH wanted to go on a leaf-peeping drive and take pictures. Link here for interested parties - scroll down if interested.

imgur.com/gallery/x9oIsNb

Gorgeous colours, Brit.

Just curious, what variety are they?

Sunset, according to the expert at the apple day. It's a very old tree with a rot problem, which doesn't help.

Great pix, Brit!

Stunning autumnal colours @Britinme!

We're back from a weekend away (consecutive family weddings in different parts of the country - a lot of driving!). It was lovely to catch up with family, but I'm all peopled-out now.

We got caught by the storm on our drive home - practically got blown back up the M1, but the worst was the absolutely Biblical rain.

Fortunately it was only a bit blowy when I was driving yesterday, which was bad enough, but the torrential rain when driving is horrible and scary. Glad you survived the M1 ok, kuc.

Sunset

Not familiar with that one and will look it up. Apple varieties can be really interesting to look into. I wonder, could you graft some healthy stems onto new root stock?

It's a nice enough apple but nowhere near worth that sort of effort. And we keep it mainly for the lovely old gnarled tree covered in moss and lichen. The fruit is a byproduct.

Not sure where we'd put another tree, either.

Fair enough, grafting is a bit of a faff. It sounds like a lovely old tree.

I've just scuffled about the rabbit hole of the impact rootstocks can have on the flavour of the fruit. I may be some time.

https://elizapples.com/2016/12/04/rootstocks-do-they-impact-flavor/

The moss grows tiny mushrooms. It really is a beautiful thing.

Agreed! Heavy rain is just horrible to drive through with the dreadful visibility and the rivers of water on the road. We always just stick to the inside lane and go as slow as we need to. I'm astounded by the number of mad people who're still speeding along in the outside lane, often with no lights. It's like they think the laws of physics don't apply to them.

Re: apple trees, we've had another bad year with ours - second year in a row that it has produced no apples (having had a perfectly normal amount of blossom in the spring). This summer we also noticed its leaves looked a bit sparse and some were spotty or yellowing. I don't know what is ailing it, but I am worried.

If, while you're down the apple rabbit hole, you happen to find a source where I can obtain a Borlase pippin please let me know. That's one I would definitely find room for.

Glad you managed the drive OK, Kucinghitam. I wouldn't have wanted to be out in that.

Borlase pippin seems to have disappeared. There are many pippins so I'm wondering if there's a similar variety.

Lovely little mushroom. Similar to some I saw on larch cones.

@Kucinghitam that journey sounds horrible. Glad you got home okay.

Beautiful photos @Britinme

@NoBinturongsHereMate I wondered if that was a liberty cap for a moment

I met up with a friend for lunch at the harbour yesterday. It was supposed to be really stormy but the rain was actually quite light and the gusts weren't too bad, we even had a little stroll afterwards. I'd hate to be stuck on the M1 in torrential rain, it's bad enough on a dry day.

Thanks all! We did feel rather foolish - normally we'd check weather conditions, or at least catch the weather report on the breakfast radio news. We're blaming the two consecutive days of weddings, we were completely out of the loop news-wise for those couple of days. Didn't even look at a weather app until we were on the road and DH said "It's a bit blowy, isn't it?"

Loving the tiny mushroom photos!