Fine Harvest, Foul Winter.

What a year it's been for fruit, nuts, berries, and general harvest all provided from mother nature.

Hazel nuts, these were gathered in the space of 5 minutes from a single branch of a Hazel bush, the best nut harvest I can remember.

Damsons, this bucket weighed 13lbs and we ended up gathering 3 buckets, from just two trees and that was only the ones we could reach!

Wild apples, looking at them in a bag doesn't do the size of the harvest justice so here's a pic of a single tree were the branches were so laden they were nearly breaking..

we know a place where the Damsons and Wild Apples grow side by side, so an hours picking resulted in a fruit harvest greater than any I can remember.

And the reason for such a substantial bounty? Well the old saying is fine harvest foul winter, the idea being that nature provides such a bounteous harvest to enable all the animals to get through an upcoming deep, dark and cold winter.. 

Is this year to be a real bad one, low temperatures, heavy snow and hardship for all the animals? Time will tell I guess, but if nature is providing for a really hard winter remember the animals, put food out for the birds, the voles and hedgehogs and all our little friends, they will find it tough enough and I'm sure would be glad of any help we deign to provide them.