186. Nuts . . .

It is still very early days for our orchard - this year our harvest will consist of 3 pears and a handful of hazelnuts.


But the hazelnuts are good ones - cobs and filberts, from a Webb's Prize Cob and a White Filbert respectively. And, what's more, we have beaten the squirrels to them.

The squirrels seem to have concentrated on the plum tree (original, not in our new orchard) and many of the surrounding sycamores have bits of plum sitting on their more horizontal branches. 

Of course, as John Seymour memorably wrote, it is OK to lose crops to marauders such as squirrels and pheasants . . . as long as you eat them. The freezer now has a fair bit of (plum-fattened) squirrel-meat in it. 

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