Tuesday 5 October 2010

Berried Treasure

I am not doing well at catching up on my photos! My hayfever is still bad, whatever is triggering it.
So the Greek photos are still waiting to be sorted - especially as we were away last weekend.
We went down to Clare and had a lovely restful, lazy time. On Saturday we went out picking sloes, so now there are several jars of sloe gin on the go - it should be ready to start drinking at Christmas. By a coincidence (I suppose not, given the time of year) there was actually a recipe for it in the magazine section of the Irish Times over the weekend, which saved me looking it up yet again. Fill a jar 1/4 full with sugar, then fill to 3/4 full with pierced sloes and then fill with gin. Shake regularly for the first couple of weeks and then occasionally thereafter. Strain and bottle after three months. Some recipes I have read say it improves the longer you can keep it, but we've never had any last more than two or three years so I can't verify this.
Inspired by our weekend I chose the theme of Berried Treasure for the photo challenge on SCS this week. And even with that in mind, I didn't find any good blackberries, just a rather scrubby bush along the driveway. I can probably do better at the end of our own garden if it's sunny tomorrow.

Sloes on the Burren


Some sort of wild rose, I think - I know I've seen it in flower on the Burren


Hawthorn in the garden


Spindle berry in Dromore Wood


Sloes and unknown tree in Dromore Wood




Unknown Burren plant - possibly the little wild rose


As you can see from the blue skies we did well with the weather - apart from getting pretty soaked on our way back to the car after picking the sloes.

2 comments:

Lorraine said...

Sounds like you've been having a bad time with that hayfever. I can really sympathize with you. I do love how you have tied all these photos together with your theme. And you are a wealth of botanical knowledge also - identifying those plants. Feel better.

Susan said...

augh, Sabrina, I can just melt into your beautiful photography. So so lovely. Sitting here listening to a fav worship band my boys are wild for. Right now they are singing the Doxology. Can you close your eyes and imagine what the new Earth will be like? I will pray with you for that hayfever to depart!