Of course, that doesn't mean there's nothing to do. Saturday morning was taken up with wall insulation matters (technical survey), and the afternoon we spent in the main clearing on the hillside, getting out more gorse, brambles, and bracken from around the stand of silver birches. There's now quite a nice path becoming clear that leads you from the entering corner (from the future apple walk), along the front of the clearing, then round a arcing 'ramp' towards the stand of trees. We've got twenty 'Midwinter Fire' dogwoods on order, many of which are destined for this clearing, to start building a woodland garden which will probably look its best in spring.
This afternoon, our attention's been on the other side of the hillside, above the apples, where there's another clearing, which we've not done anything with previously. The two will wind up linked by a short passage, I expect, but entry into this, left-hand clearing will be from near the James Grieve apple tree, where we think we might create an entry arch with four fan-trained plums forming a pergola of some sort. Early days, for that, though. For now, we were working out what needs to come down in the clearing, where the treeline will remain, and what we need to add -- mainly, some purple beech and hazels along the left edge, near the boundary, where the planting is sparse. We cut down a number of blackthorns, and next weekend I'll take Sigrid up and start properly clearing the undergrowth.
Before we came in, I collected a big bowl full of elderberries, from the tree at the top of the colour-wheel garden, where they're still clinging to the tree, despite the leaves having all fallen. The berries, and 150% of their weight in roughly chopped apples, have been cooked with 600ml/kg of water, until pulpy. I'll set them straining through a jelly bag before bed, and tomorrow they can become jelly.
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