A couple of weeks ago, three babies were born to members of the church I attend. Considering we are a very small congregation, that's a lot of babies!! They were born within three days of each other and two of them are twins. So I knitted some little hats:
At the weekend, we had some visitors, bearing gifts in the form of boxes of apples from their tree. We spent Saturday sitting at the kitchen table peeling, coring and chopping apples to put in the freezer. But the freezer doesn't have a lot of space, so we still have a large number to eat as they are.
When we had finished the apples, we gathered some elderberries from the garden. They grow well away from the road, so there is no contamination from road pollution.
The trees are laden this year. I am told it is a sign we are going to have a hard winter, especially as there are plenty of hips and haws as well. I have to admit, I enjoy snow - just as long as it doesn't prevent the family coming home for the holidays.
So for the first time ever, I am making some elderberry wine.
The elderberries were picked - 4lbs (2kgs) of them - then the berries were stripped from the stalks using a fork.
To release the juice, there are several methods apparently, but I am using the boil-for-30-minutes method, which is the recipe I was given by an online friend.
Once they have been boiled for the appropriate time, they are poured through a very fine net strainer into a fermenting bucket.
They are then left to drain and cool, before additional water is added - we made the juice up to 2 gallons - 2lbs berries per gallon. The strained berries are removed and discarded, and the net washed carefully by hand to remove all trace of elder.
After that, the sugar is added - 1lb for each 1lb of berries, so 2x1kg bags were used. The sugar must be thoroughly dissolved and then the yeast and yeast nutrient is added.
The bucket is then left for five days to ferment. As it is only Tuesday, they have been fermenting for three days so far. The next stage will be to put the liquid into two demi-johns, but that will have to wait for another post.
While I am waiting for the elderberries to do their thing, I have been on another walk, this time around Harkerside and Apedale. If you want to read about the walk, you can find it here: http://pathofthestorm.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/harkerside-and-apedale.html
But as a taster, here are a couple of photos:
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