Rolling with the Seasons

sheep shearing, meadowsweet vinegar, and a ram called Dave

Three weeks past solstice and already the light has shifted a little lower and into golden, dare I say it, slightly autumnal hues. The sun rises a little further south, mellowed through a hazy, morning mist. The midday heat not reaching quite the same blazing intensity. Late summer is a distinct season. The season of blooming and ripening.

The bell heather is just starting into flower. Sparks of hot pink lighting up across the heaths and ridges. Big, clumsy bumblebees bumble about, drunkenly defying gravity on frantically buzzing wings. A bumblebee flaps its wings at over two hundred beats per second and can speed across the heath at over ten kilometres per hour. The heaths hum with the busyness of them. The hedgerows are a-tumble with brambles, scrambling roses and honeysuckle. Marsh thistles decked with spiny, purple candelabras, towers of nettles wearing dangling green rosaries and thick, honey-scented cymes of meadowsweet stand in the verges amidst a shoulder height forest of arching rachides of soft brome and cocksfoot.

Our wild summer sodas are rolling with the seasons into honeysuckle and meadowsweet, the sweetness of summer soaked in sunbeams to drench our thirsty cells. I also make a vinegar with meadowsweet. It’s super simple, just loosely fill a jar with chopped, fresh meadowsweet tops, cover with apple cider vinegar, lid it, give a shake and leave it somewhere where you’ll think of it to shake it every other day or so for a few weeks to let the vinegar imbue with those sweet, honey-meadow flavours. It makes a delicious addition to salad dressings,