September mists on the farm...

Sept 6 2013

Lovely and misty yesterday, the mist billowing in like sheets over the hills, coming in from the ocean. It made me realize how much I had missed the autumn…my favourite season…we had a brilliantly hot and sunny summer, so unusual for us, and great for getting the hay in. But brassy heat doesn’t suit Wales, I think. It’s such a tender, quiet, mysterious place…the delicate mist suits it best. The wooded valleys look ancient, as if the Horned Hunter might burst from the trees any minute, and Merlin come striding down the hill. It’s very untamed, this land, despite having been farmed for such a long time. The landscape out my window is domesticated, with its hedges and patchwork quilt of cultivated fields. But there is a wildness to it too, that is different from the trampled, desiccated land of England, where the life has been squashed out of the ground. Here, the ground still know things….

School has started again, and we’re stapled back to the wheel of the school runs. Joli needs to go to Cardigan by 7. 45, to catch the feeder bus to Preseli, and I love taking her, as it’s the only time we really get to talk. At age fourteen, these little opportunities for chats are valuable. So I get up at five, in order to have some breathing time. It’s the only time I can think and plan, and I love being the only one awake in our old stone farm house, with its foot-thick walls. When she was here, my mother commented how quiet it was at night, our house, it doesn’t creak or rattle like modern houses do. It’s true, what she says, but on certain nights the wind does howl in the chimneys like some lost beast…

So, up at five it is, a load of washing into the washer, kettle on, do some stretches, make tea and whatever beverages I make for the family health. The jar of kefir on the window sill is strained into the blender, mixed with bananas, vanilla and organic sugar for Rich and Benj. Joli has hers unflavoured, as I do – I’ve come to really like the tart taste, oddly!

Then I mix up a litre bottle of “healthy squash” for Rich – I loathe the commercial stuff, all refined sugar and citric acid, and he won’t drink plain water. I hate to think of what it’s doing to his insides. So I worked until I came up with an alternative – I mix 300 g of real juice (he likes the tropical blend, pineapple and orange and grapefruit) with 200 g of kombucha, 4 tabs of stevia, pour it into a litre bottle and fill it to the top with water. It takes like squash, he drinks it without complaint he’s getting the probiotic of the kombucha, the stevia won’t harm him and at least there are no nasty chemicals in it!

I leave it out on the counter for him, along with a jug of herbal tea  – yarrow, agrimony, licorice root and marshmallow root. To make this I put one heaping Tbsp of each into a sauce pan, pour a full kettle of boiling water over it, add a big spoon of manuka honey, and let the whole thing cool down for an hour. Then I strain the liquid off, discard the herbs and pour it into a jug, set that out on the counter as well. The herbal mixture is powerfully anti-inflammatory, and Rich says he notices the difference in his joints if he stops drinking it. I also put out a garlic tablet, a fish oil tablet and a glucosamine tablet for him. He’ll never take them if left to his own devices, and after his operation, I think he needs the ongoing boost. When he comes in from working on the tractor, or tinkering in the engine shed, he’ll drink these goodies happily enough if they’re sitting ready for him.

Then I squeeze fresh orange juice with my beautiful old-fashioned orange juice squeezer – tall and simple, it looks like a work of art. I brought it with me from California, and it’s one of my most cherished possessions – sits on the counter in the farmhouse kitchen next to a heaping bowl of oranges. We get the oranges in boxes from the farmers market, and I get through around seven a day for fresh orange juice!

This I mix half-and-half with kombucha for the kids, and take a glass for each upstairs to wake them up with. I knock on the door, say “Juice mommy!” and go in for cuddles while they drink their juice. They wake up smiling…the best part of my day…