The daily harvest

Thank you to all of you who read this last week and wondered why it stopped mid sentence.

Out internet and phones went silent for six days and I foolishly assumed I could finish my ‘homework’ when I half wrote the blog. Note to self: rural internet connections sometimes don’t.

So here we go. Back to the story.

Standing stock still, in the courtyard, dodging the wheelbarrow load of yet more rocks coming out of the building project, holding a wooden bracket for a curtain rod and a linen tablecloth which I am trying to turn into a curtain.

Suddenly, pausing was not a good sign in this relentless week of activity. Was I supposed to be making the phone calls to the errant missing plumber and the soon to be our best friend the chimney sweep? Or asking the builder to explain once again the difference between varnish, wood stain, paint and the mystery ‘impregnation’ product for our cladding.

Or none of the above. Maybe it was an urgent job in the almost clear basement.

Dithering days.

The window maker is late on is order, the plumber won’t reply to calls or emails, and we seem to have either a large bird or a pine marten stuck inside our chimney. Sleep for us has become a novelty. And if I do fall asleep between scrabbling and scatching, then sciatica reminds me we aren’t done yet.

But that’s okay. I’m picking a cucumber and half a dozen courgettes each day, so all is well.

We are now in peak vegetable harvest.

And I’m scrambling to get things picked and either eaten or turned into tasty things for the future. Like making and freezing pesto.

And turning the courgettes into this Italian dish. Zucchini alla scarpece. Well, it’s just grilled veg marinated overnight in vinegar and mint. And garlic. I omitted the garlic the second time round as I was rather dismayed to find a powerful mouth explosion of raw garlic when I went to snack on the leftovers at breakfast.

Yes, I do eat veg for breakfast. I’m a savoury gal and the Vegemite jar is getting dangerously low.

And if I don’t take to eating raw courgettes each day the glut will climb out of the fridge on its own.

What a brilliant thing to moan about.

Like sighing when you do a second peek through the thicket of cucumbers (prettily wrapping itself around a dahlia in the permaculture bed) and finding one almost the size of your arm hidden underneath.

Kale is a nightly side dish – stir fried with garlic and a squeeze of lemon and a pinch of chillis.

And I’m just getting into Warrigal greens glut. Pinching out the growing tips and stopping it from flowering? I think that’s right. They are divine.

Well, they are divine because they are spinach. And in a heatwave in July, it’s so thrilling to have a veg that doesn’t bolt.