A Good Pudding

It's a dwarf cox's orange tree. Last year the apples got too heavy and a
branch broke off. This year, a few more fruits and the wood a little stronger. The apples tend to have little cracks around the stem which is enough of an imperfection that the boys don't want to take them to school. They have grown up in an age of visual perfection. Real perfection is these apples, tree ripened and absolutely delicious straight off the tree.

I pulled all the beetroot, no photo. Lacklustre as they were, they bottled up well. Beetroot are a good indicator of soil health and sure enough, they reflected it. At one end of the row they were huge but by the other end they had dwindled away to ping pong balls. The tops of a good beet are even nicer than silverbeet.

The plums are in and the crutches down. This is my best pear: I think it's a Bon Chretian. The other tree I suspect was planted as a pollinator. It delivers more fruit at the moment but they aren't as well suited to this climate. They don't mature enough before the really cold weather and seem to be the worse for it.

Just a reminder of whose house you are looking in. Managed to get some of the dishes stack into this shot. That's more like it. Corn chowder for tea, and yes, the wheel has turned full circle, there's the first leek of the year. I seem to remember that that's where I started.
When I announced the other week that we were having leftovers for tea, Johnny asked would there be pudding, 'because when we have a poor tea then we usually have a good pudding.'
Soup also ranks as a poor tea. Pudding is pending for the minute while I do this.

Won't be long everybody, just post a poem.

IN THE TEST OF TIME

Here lies the start and the finish. Wedderburn.
To bear witness will be the old tavern
of schist, mudbrick and rough thrown mortar.
Stalwart and steadfast.
Unhurried in nature, in the test ot time.

From far afield, from all walks, they are drawn,
to compare their skills and stategies and fortitude.
To benchmark their youthfulness, perhaps.
Those aging cyclists.
Hurried in nature, in the test of time.

The poet is Eion Mills who the newspaper tells us is a forest manager based in Milton.