Autumn's goodies

I love all the seasons equally. For me it's a perfect cycle, as soon as one season ends I am ready for the next one. Each season brings with it new feelings of excitement, expectation and plenty of joy. My allotment has finally succumbed to autumn and the only veg left to pick are winter squashes and Brussels sprouts for Christmas (Christmas - eeeeppppp!).

I love autumn for its explosion of bright colours. It's a good time of the year for picking leaves, pine cones and conkers for crafting with. For me walking amongst rustling leaves is only second best to walking on crisp, crunchy snow on a bright winter's day. So, on Sunday we decided to go for a 10 mile walk to Trentham which left me with two rather painful blisters! My motivation was gathering nature's goodies and Daniel's was ice cream!

We walked along the Trent and Mersey Canal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_and_Mersey_Canal) which runs alongside lovely meadows. In one of the meadows we saw some wild horses.

A lovely tree with half its leaves missing at the Trentham Estate (http://www.trentham.co.uk/). I collected a whole bunch of them for crafting.






                                                                    




  The Trentham estate has something for everyone. There are pretty wooden huts selling lovely stuff, restaurants, a garden centre, a monkey forest (yes, with real monkeys!) and a two mile walk around the lake in the estate's lavish grounds. If you're lucky enough you might even spot a giant, red squirrel. They're so endangered that there's only one remaining. I managed to capture one on my camera. He is particularly happy because he's just had an ice cream.

              Lovely Michaelmas daisies below and
              Anemone Honorine to the left.

Mushrooms

                                                                                                              Lovely echinacea

 

Ruins of the old hall at Trentham estate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trentham_Gardens)

The leaves I collected were dipped in wax to preserve their colour. I used paraffin wax flakes but a small candle/tea light chopped into smallish pieces would do just as well. Start with 4-5 tea lights and see how you get on. You can always add more if needed. 

 I put the flakes in a metal container (that I don't use for food!) inside a pan of boiling water (thus creating a double boiler). It took about 5 minutes for the wax to melt.  I turned the hob off but kept re-heating the wax when it started to get too hard. The leaves were dipped into the hot wax one by one and held above the pot of wax until they stopped dripping (about 1 minute), then set aside. I made a mobile with my leaves but you can do a string of them. Here's a link www.apartmenttherapy.com