Back in Bér

There seems to be a lot to do in the garden, which is not surprising, considering we have been away from here for nearly a month. Thankfully, Bandi has been to cut the grass about a week ago by the look of it. The garden looks so nice and tidy when the grass is short. The raspberries look at their last legs - obviously in their first season they do not take kindly to no watering. Shame, but that's life. On the other hand, some of the yellow plum trees have produced a nice lot of fruit, so this morning we have been picking plums. (see picture!) Roy's method of two years ago will be applied again:
1. half cook them with their stones in
2. squeeze the stones out so that you are left with just the partially cooked pulp
3. add sugar and pectin and finish cooking them
4. bottle, seal and wrap them in duvets to cool down slowly and thus create a bomb proof vacuum.

We still have a few bottles from two years ago and they still taste heavenly. We gave a partially full big jar of it to Sheila last month, which I hope she will enjoy. The only thing you have to be very careful about is never to stick a dirty implement into the jar as it will go off. Using 1 litre jars adds to the risk of it going off, because no matter how much you like it, it usually takes a few weeks to finish such a big jar.

Roy's minions are also working in the garden this morning finishing the cutting up of the logs for winter. I did take some pictures of them, but was asked not to publish them on the Internet, lest they lose their dole. One of them is also currently fighting the authorities in getting a disability pension, which I think he fully deserves. This is the guy that fell off the walnut tree by the stream and broke his ankle in so many places, they couldn't put him together again. He will never get a worthwhile job with that gammy leg, so he is entitled in my book. Roy is happy to give him the occasional bit of work, as even if and when he gets his disability pension he will only be able to starve on that.

Apart from the yellow plum trees, there is very little else in the way of fruit this year. The blue plums and the pears are resting, the apple has only a few on it and the remaining peach tree seems to have only about 15-20 peaches on it. Perhaps next year we might venture into palinka production if we can get a barrel to ferment all the fruit together for later distillation. Bér still has a government still, so provided all our fruit together fills a large barrel, Roy can have his own palinka.

The other pictures show the other trees, the grapes and the English rhubarb which feels very happy here. Lots of nice crumble and jars and jars of stewed rhubarb has been made with it already.

If all goes well, Andor is coming tomorrow by bike, depending on the weather.