Tuesday 26th October 10

A very full day.  I started by cycling down to Country Fresh with Gill's big pink rucksack to pick up 16 pumpkins, 15 for the St Nicks Pumpkin Carving Evening, and one for me to make a pumpkin loaf from, to take along for people to try.  However, the pumpkins this year are a bit smaller than last year, and I got 10 in my trailer and 3 in each pannier.  So I didn't need the rucksack.  I also picked up a box of compostables, and cycled along to St Nicks, put the pumpkins on the landing, and went to the Komp compost bin with the perspex front to put some of the compostables in.  There were a large number of pumpkin seeds and pulp in there, so I retrieved a few of the seeds as for me, these are a valuable resource, although time consuming to prepare. 

When I got back I did a bit of wooding, and then had lunch.  After lunch I went back down Heslington Road as I'd met Zaf earlier, and he'd massacred a Laurel bush which had a honeysuckle growing through it, and he'd asked if I wanted it.  I decided that although this material was only worth composting, having almost no woody bits, I'd tidy it up for him, and I took a big builders dumpy bag to put the stuff in.  I spent half an hour sorting that out and brought most of it back, although a sackful remains.  Then I spent a happy half-hour shredding, and now have a good few tens of kilos of slightly woody, fibrous stuff for layering on the current compost heap between the more putrescible fruit and veg 'resources'.  When I'd finished this, I cycled round to Keith in Burnholme and he gave me the wood which was not picked up yesterday.  This was another huge load.  Before it got dark I popped round to Janet's to pick up some more pears, and I gave her some dried pears and apples as a thank you for the last load of pears.  As it got dark, I went round to Mick and Judy's old house, where builders said I could pick up some logs from their devastated garden, and whilst I was there, Dylan T. arrived as he's living there at the moment, and we had a nice chat. I came back with another trailer load of stove-fodder.

I jarred up more dried apples during the evening and sliced a load more... it's a good production line!