Freezing Frost

It has been a very cold week as the Helm wind has been blowing and the temperature has dropped. The ground is too hard to dig up leeks and parsnips and the pumpkins are frozen.

The Pennines are swamped with snow and Hartside was cut off.

Frosty and cold

Cross Fell is smothered with snow.

Dramatic

The Helm always seems to find stray plant pots to scattered around the garden.

The helm forms a band between the clouds

Sheep waiting to be collected after the sales at Lazonby.

Waiting for their new owners

Many of the trees are barren with just the berries remaining.

Food for the birds

Fungus are still appearing.

Buried in the leaves

I really liked the detail of this paper sculpture.

Bird on a branch

Textile acorns.

Almost actual size

A beautiful 1920's applique.

I love the simplicity

These are some more products I have just made for my Etsy shop.

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/magscreatesandmakes?ref=hdr_shop_menu


Gift tags.

All tags have a green twine hanging loop

A selection of tags. The door knobs of the houses come in various colours

Etsy Excitement

As the gardening season is coming to an end I have decided to start a craft business on Etsy. I have been busy making different items for sale and I am still finding my feet around the site. My business is called 'magscreatesandmakes' I am hoping to make some pottery items to add to my site.
These are examples of my Christmas tree decorations.

A robin with a yellow wing

A robin with a light brown wing

Hand embroidered Dala horse

The same with a different saddle

I have been busy tidying my allotment, getting rid of the dead sweet peas and french beans and finding several very large orange rimmed slugs! Everything is dying back very quickly.

Canary Wharf at Shap.

Is Mark Carney working here today?

This is a quaint passageway is in Penrith.

What stories it could tell

Two lovely gatehouses leading to the Lowther Estate.

His

Hers

Cloudy and Cold

The weather has really changed these last two weeks as the temperature has dropped to single figures. I have not done much gardening this week as we have had a lot of rain. 
On Tuesday morning we woke up to snow on the Pennines and also on the Lakeland hills.

Snow on Cross Fell

This fairy circle of mushrooms was in the verge just outside Penrith.

Once upon a time there must have been a tree here

I have dismantled my Halloween display. I always wash the outfits and dry the hats and spiders before I store them to reuse next year. 

The choice is yours

I am drying my ghords in three places, in my allotment shed on racking, hanging in a potato sack in my home shed and on wire mesh in my front garden. It is an experiment to see which is the best method.

If I can get the ghords to dry I will decorate them

The beech hedge at home is developing lovely Autumn hues.

The beech hedge retains its leaves until the new leaves burst

I found a single rose still in bloom today in my home garden.

A delicate pink

I have started to make my Christmas cards. I make them as decorations to hang on the Christmas tree.

Pumpkin Parade

I put the final touches to my Halloween display in the Artful Garden on Sunday. It was great fun carving the pumpkin lanterns in different styles.

Homegrown pumpkins and ghords

I put battery operated tea lights inside

I still have pumpkins growing.

A pumpkin captured by a blackberry

This one I am going to make into soup.

Golden orb

Tuesday was a glorious warm day so I continued to dig the phase 2 of my allotment. I am making steady progress. I also got my 3 wheelbarrows planted up with bulbs.

The next morning we had a severe frost that killed all the bedding plants including the nasturtiums and sweet peas I'd picked the day before. When I arrived on the allotment all the flower heads were drooping.

A heavy hoar frost

On Wednesday it was so still on the allotment that you could here the leaves fall pitter patter like gentle rain. So many trees have now lost their Autumnal leaves due to this one frost.

I still have a lupin in flower.

I grew these from seed

The teasels are standing  to attention.

Very prickly to touch

I harvested my winter cauliflowers, more a question of quality not quantity.

I had quite a few blank cauliflowers

I have started to harvest the leeks.

I love the delicate onion smell

I have made some rosemary and mint jelly.

Luckily I picked the mint before the frost