Winter Approaches

Winter is coming; the weather today is predicted to be twenty degrees and sunny, and I can still wake up by natural light before 6 am but there has been a definite turn in the seasons. Summer with the lazy feeling of one easy day following the next, has gone. In its place is Autumn with its underlying notes of panic. Summer may whisper 'Relax, lie back, enjoy yourself' but Autumn is saying 'Hurry, hurry, hurry, so little time, so much to do'.
Like the animals and birds, I feel the need to prepare for winter. I have been a disappointment to the garden this year, not enough has been sown or planted but the fruit has done well. There was enough rhubarb and red currants to mix with bought strawberries to make a summer fruit jam and there were five pounds of gooseberries to make into jam.

 Now the blackberry season has started,

I gathered three pounds on Friday

 with the promise of much more to come, they will go into the freezer for a few weeks until the apples ripen to make blackberry and apple jam and also pies and crumbles, the taste of autumn, warming food, served hot with custard. I currently have in the kitchen, one overgrown courgette, which with cauliflower, cabbage and onions I will cut up and leave in brine for a few days ready to make piccalilli. Most important, on the subject of food, I have reserved the loan of a small extractor from the LBKA to be picked up Wednesday so next week I will be attempting my first honey harvest.
However autumn is not just telling me to get my cupboards well stocked for winter, it is saying that I only have a month, maybe six weeks to get repairs and DIY done. I have a list as long as my arm of tasks that need to be done, before I can relax in security but there simply won't be enough time to do them all in six weeks, especially whilst preparing to sell soap as Christmas presents, so taking one task at a time I am preparing to renovate my garage doors.

I can't afford the hundreds of pounds to replace them and even if I could I don't think I will ever be sufficiently interested in garage doors to want to spend the money on them, but they are in a bad way. The last time I remember sanding and painting them, I developed mastitis and as my youngest daughter is now 19, that is quite some time ago.
The doors are made of marine plywood on a wooden frame and the wood has started rotting especially near the hinges which in turn are rusty and bent.

The plan is to take the doors off entirely (if I can get the rusty screws out), cover them with new sheets of plywood and put new tougher hinges. The drawback is that this will make the new doors very heavy so getting them back up will be a struggle. I will let you know how I get on.