Sunday, September 13, 2009

To Lothlòrien 4 - End of Summer Report


August has come and gone and here in the North Baltic we are well into the approaches to autumn. That means beautiful sunny days with crystalline blue skies, but days which grow inexorably shorter. At the start of August, the sun rose at 05:21 and set at 21:50 which meant we had 16 hours and 35 minutes of daylight. By the end of the month the sun was setting at 20:32 and the total hours of light had decreased to 14 hours and 05 minutes.

HOWEVER!! I did quite a bit of walking and cycling during the month.

So here are the STATS for August:
Miles traversed in August: 106
Total since starting for Lothlòrian: 273
Still to go: 189
Miles covered since start of the year: 731
Location in relation to Frodo the Fellowship: Having seen the crebain fly over, the group have started walking at night and resting during the day. They are climbing upwards on a stony mountain path and have almost reached the feet of Redhorn.

As well as my walking and cycling, this month I have been tending my garden and offer here a small photo essay on my adventures in tomato growing.


You remember what my 'babies' looked like in the beginning. This was taken on 4 April, 2009.






I had 11 little green globes and for the longest time this is how they looked.

Bit by bit, they slowly began to turn red.












And finally this is the fruit

(pun intended) of my efforts.
Of the 11 fruits 8 are now discernibly red - except for the 2 that I ate.







The days are drawing in, the nights are cooler and the sky tones warn us of what is coming. But as ever it's all beautiful. Talk to you soon!

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Beautiful photos as always, Martha. I hope one summer will see me visiting your island. :)

Rachel Green said...

Lovely shots, and go you!
Your tomatoes did better than mine.

spacedlaw said...

Wheeee! Tomatoes! We just ate our last one...

martha said...

Thanks Stephanie, You and your kids WILL be very welcome. I look forward to showing you around.

Thank you Rachel, Sorry your tomatoes didn't do so well. It hasn't been a very good year for them here either - a lot of work for eight mini-bites.

N. Yes, I managed to grow something. I may stick to herbs next year, however. Yours are finished - huh? Hope that's not true all over Italy.

sonia said...

Hoorah for your tomatoes- well done!! Your photos are gorgeous the water pulled me right in and lapped at my eyes. Our tomatoes did well this year - lots of sun down south. Last year they were very disappointing. I have some giant beefsteak tomatoes but they are still green and don't know if they'll grab enough of the fading sun.

martha said...

Thanks Sonja
Good luck with your beef-steaks.

The autumn light here just calls out to be photographed