October

by Ken Clark - 08:29 on 19 October 2009

We are now into the glorious season of autumn; the competition amongst the trees for autumn colour is intense. My two favourites are the Canadian Maples and the Cherry Trees. In a way it is sad that the wonderful shows we have had, seeing the trees with their fresh new growth, has now come to an end. But we are now rewarded with the kaleidoscope of colours of decay. It is the renewal and resting period for the trees, a time to take stock. I wish I could write pages about this transformation to truly describe the pleasure I get as I stroll around our Village taking in these magical colours. However you would probably get bored with me rabbiting on about this subject. So all I can recommend is to get out there and soak it all in before the colours of the leaves have all gone for another season. 

I noticed through all this autumn activity, a horse chestnut that had shed most of its leaves, was now showing its new “sticky bud” ready for the spring growth. Nature never really stops; it evolves from one state to another. Each stage is as magical as the next.

I was chatting to a colleague at work today about the autumn colours and he was telling me about his walk and the irresistible urge to collect the Horse Chestnuts, (Conkers) whilst he was out and about. I can understand the feeling of the wonderful seeds with their “tactile” feel , smooth mahogany colour lovely to touch, you don’t really need an excuse to collect them they just feel right.

I myself could not resist collecting Hazel nuts from a tree that had been battered by the recent strong winds, these however have now been planted to hopefully produce new trees next spring.

I mentioned last month, that I had picked some apples, well they are still awaiting processing into juice, it seems that there is never enough hours in the day to get through everything that you would like to do.

Well it is the month to celebrate the Apple, October 21^st is the date for the apple day, and many hundreds of groups, all over the country are celebrating the apple in all its glory. Hundreds of varieties have been brought back into production to show the diversity of this fruit. My favourite is the Apple Crumble followed closely by the Apple pie and Custard. More information can be found on the Common Ground website, which started off the celebrations in 1990.

It is amazing where the year has gone, thoughts of Christmas meals and wreaths are now on our minds. Last year the Conservation Group had a good response to our fund raising project of making Christmas Wreaths, we will be repeating this again this year, so if you would like to order one or two let me know. That is the end of the advert.

Over fifty swans were reported as having been seen near Houghton Gate, in the flooded field, which does attract various water fowl, but I have never seen as many swans as this, I am looking forward to seeing the photographs.

We are now trying to wean the birds off the seed feeders in our garden and onto the peanuts, at the moment they seem to be reluctant to change, obviously it is a bit more work for them to peck out the nuts, but as you look around the hedgerows there are abundance of food for the coming winter months, which is good news, but it is still important if you can help to feed them through the winter period.

So keep warm, dig out the winter duvet and get that central heating on, cheers for now.

Ken.     

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