The covers I tied around the strawberries helped tremendously, and I could at last enjoy them, some for breakfast, and some nights I had strawberries and cream. But in my veggie garden only the tamatoes were thriving so well that I made chutneys and jams, and a lot of pastas. I don't know if tamato jam are eaten in many places, but my Danish daughter in law Nina, after tasting it once, could eat a whole bottle on fresh warm bread.
I also cooked tamato jam in Scotland once when for some reason the weekly lot went too soft for salad. Theresa, the housekeeper of the hotel tried to convince me that I was making chutney when I told her what I was doing, not believing that jam to eat on one's bread could actually be cooked using tamatoes. She wanted a taste later when it was finished, and was so impressed with the taste that she just had to have a piece (sandwich) with the jam every now and then.
The fruit trees were again laden with small fruit, and I was very impressed with my plum trees, as they were carrying a bumper crop. The only fly in the ointment was Sheila's bally goat called Randy! Now Randy was the biggest, and maybe the smelliest ram I ever saw as I could smell him from far away, specially when the wind blew in my way. Randy was actually a very peace loving goat, and it was rediculously cute when his tail started wagging like that of a puppy dog whenever he saw me, but he was also the naughtiest goat, as he could easily jump over the fence, and I don't believe that there is another animal on this earth that can reek more havock than a goat. Thus it was that my poor feet were all cut and full of thorns, as about ten times a day Randy would tresspass, and as I hardly ever wear shoes in the house, I would give an angry whoop and storm over the field barefoot, gathering stones as far as I went, shouting down the wrath of all the many gods on the bally goat! Usually he got the message when he saw me coming, and would effortlessly jump back over the fence, and I would tell him in a far from nice way to stay out or be killed!
Thus was my relationship with Randy until one beautiful, sunny morning. I was fixing a deadly mixture of garlic, marigolds and brandrissies (chillies)to spray the ripening fruit, when the sound of branches breaking came to my ears, and I just knew that Randy was tearing down the plum trees, so I dropped everything and ran! Usually the bally goat was scared off when he saw me coming, but I think that the lure of the half ripe plums made him reckless, and he just stood staring at me, then decided that he was not going to miss his lovely treat, and to my horror the bally thing came for me, horns pushed forward in a threatening way!
I am no coward, but that goat's horns were pretty sharp, so I took to my heels, ignoring my poor complaining feet, and made for the clump of Black Wattle trees on the opposite side, thinking that maybe I could climb one, and so escape being pierced by Randy's horns! I have forgotten one thing in my quest for survival, and that is that I was not the tomboy of many years ago, and that climbing a tree at the gallop was NOT for the aged!
So, with Randy at my heels I ran through the trees, grabbing the rough branches to swing myself out of the goat's way, and after a while my hands were bleeding, and I started having visions of a small notice in the local paper telling the district about the poor woman that was killed by a goat!
Then I saw a nice piece of plastic irrigation piping some way off, and with an inhuman effort I legged it over the sharp rocks, grabbed it up, and faced the goat! Bally coward that he was, he stopped in his tracks on seeing my weapon that I was swinging so fast it was making a whirring sound, and legged it back to the fence where he almost strangled himself in his haste to get back over!
I was very angry, and decided to talk to Sheila about the case, as the previous year her goats had also given me a lot of trouble when the fruit started ripening, and if you tend the trees so lovingly to carry good and healthy fruit, it is not nice if a lot of stinky goats gets the best of it!
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