Open Contest Memories of Summer—2025

[Esc_Quaily]

My favourite memory of the summer was hatching eggs under a broody hen for the first time. Only one hatched and of course he's a cockerell. Now he has a brand new coop, a run that's in the making and 5 lovely new ladies!

Congratulations!

 

[Gill-b]

Living in the Southern hemisphere, we get to have (tongue-in-cheek) TWO summers each calendar year. Our summer months being December, January and February.

[For the South African public-school going children, their longest school holiday happens in this time, normally for about 35 days, starting around 10 December and ending around 15 January when the new school year starts. They have three more school holidays over the course of the year; of about 10 days in March to April; about 25 days in wintry June to July; and about another 10 days in October month.]

So, for my first summer of 2025... ...I will report that I made grape jam for the first time, and from grapes which I harvested from my own grapevine in my garden. I am very happy with the way the jam turned out, which is sweet yet tart in flavour, and I enjoy it spread on hot buttered toast with a bit of cinnamon sprinkled on top, Mmmm.

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Pic above taken in second summer of 2024.

My second summer time for 2025 is now two-and-a-half months away. Spring has definitely sprung, and my grapevine started to shoot new vines over this past weekend. It is amazing how quickly the new growth happens. On Saturday there was only one single new shoot on the entire vine, and then on Sunday leaves, new and green, appeared all over it.

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Photograph taken this morning of some of the new growth on the vine which happened over the weekend.