We’ve baked blackberry cornmeal muffins and have bread doing its thing. The whole house is full of canning jars (some full, some empty) the basement needs sorting (again) because of the change of seasons (whether or not we want it to be, autumn seems to have arrived). I have tomatoes simmering down to be canned as a base for all sorts of things on the stove and through the windows, our newest mama hen teaches her chipmunk coloured chicks the mysteries of scratching in the compost. Through the other window, the shrouded garden hangs on to the last of the summer crop – tomatoes not yet ripe hang under the row agricultural fleece. And it’s cold. It’s so cold that baking and cooking and canning all day will be a treat.