What a spectacular day it was today.  It was crispy cold this morning without a cloud in the sky.  I warmed up around 9 and for the rest of the day it was sunny and warm without being too hot. 
I did a lot of maintenance in the garden today, our box gum tree is shedding leaves like there is no tomorrow and I wanted to rake them up so we could add them to the compost.  I'm not sure why a deciduous tree would decide to drop 3/4 of it's canopy during autumn, we usually have a couple of shedding episodes a year but this one was an extra. 

 you can see in the photo that the tree is far from bald and there are some little baby green gum leaves coming on so it wont be long before it is back to its gorgeous self. And this is the pile of leaves I spent 2 hours raking up this afternoon.  I'll get a pretty good start on the compost this year by the looks.




The tangelo is coming along nicely, my mouth waters every time I look at all that fruit. These unseasonally warm days are turning the fruit orange quicker and earlier than usual but I'm not complaining about that. I can just taste the fruit salad, tangelo butter and the salad dressings that I'll be making in the not too distant future.

These photos were taken 10 days apart, the bright orange tangelo is the first one to be close to picking but you can see how fast they are ripening.



I used the last of this season's shallots today when I made some curry chicken pies. I was given a pie maker recently and to be honest I was sceptical.  I also didn't want another bloody appliance that only did one thing. Well, I eat my words (nah, I'll be eating pies) the curry chicken pies are just lovely and the pie maker makes them so easily.  12 pies in under 1/2 an hour, that's what I call amazing.
On the weekend I'm going to turn my hand to blackberry and apple pies, hmmmmm I love winter.