The taste of summer.

In December it’s “I wish these cherries would ripen up” and “I hope all these birds are going to leave us some cherries.”

In January its:  Pick cherries, eat cherries and make cherry jam.

In February its “Let the chooks into the garden to clean up the bloody cherries”

The chooks look like they have been in a massacre, their head and beaks are stained a deep purple from the cherry juice.  Not satisfied with cherries they started pinching strawberries so out they went again. They now hang around the gate in the morning, just waiting to be let in.

 The apple trees in the garden are loaded with ripening fruit, but there are also plenty of wild apple trees around. This morning we raided one of the wild trees and collected fifty or sixty apples for the pigs. The tree was so loaded with fruit you couldn’t see where we had been.

 The blackberries have just started to ripen. I have never tasted fresh blackberries before so I never knew what I was missing, they are delicious. 

 Wild plum trees abound beside the roads and down the river. They are just about finished for this year, just a few trees left to raid. The fruit is small, dripping with juice and flavour. We stopped at a tree beside the road and picked six or seven kilograms of brilliant red and orange plums. The best plums I have ever tasted. Some we ate, the bulk became plum jam.

The nectarine tree is loaded with fruit; some branches have been dragged down to the ground level with the weight. They are large and plump but not yet ripe however their smell is divine.