In the garden

Like parsnips, the sloe berry improves after a good frost. See also beets, chard and kale. Last week, it frosted, and as we have only sloe in our estate, not beets, parsnips, chard or kale - none of which, anyway, I think, make a good gin - today we harvested the hedge which protects the boundary of our land. It was a lovely winter's day: bright, chill, and probably another suitable adjective.

In a demonstration that Milo in no way takes after his father, he sat quietly for twenty minutes picking each leaf off the step individually and putting it in the bucket. In an action perhaps more genetically linked, at the end of that period he took all the leaves out of the bucket and put them back on the step.