rose hips

I am very blessed to have this amazing wild rose tree outside of my front door. Can you get rose 'trees' or just bushes? Prolly not a tree really but it looks like one; thick gnarled 'trunk' and thorny green/pink profusion at the top, draping softly, just like a tree. That there is 2lbs of rose hips and I still have 3/4 of the 'tree' yet to pick from. Only the rest are high and drop away sharply to the stream so I will try and convince dh that his time would be best spent this weekend picking them for me. On the top of his wobbly ladder.... set in the stream? He is gonna need some convincing for that. And for the manure I snagged from our landlord's gardener, that er, needs picking up via the wheelbarrow.... I forgot to let him know about that particular job I heartily agreed to on his behalf a couple of days ago....poor man. Will his time ever be his own? He laughs though. A lot. And he really likes being at home, and if he's here he'd rather be doing than not. So another blessing to be counted!

Happily for him he has rose hip and apple syrup to look forward to as a sweet prize for his efforts. It tastes divine, light and fresh and summery. I must have bodged the making of it somehow though as the recipe said I'd have fourteen and a half pint jars worth at the end and I had..... get ready for it.... a measly TWO. Very strange. Not sure what happened I'll try again after the weekend with my freshly picked hips. I was very jealous upon visiting a friend last weekend to see she had masses and masses of elderberries, just dripping from about 20 trees beside her house. Yum. My sticky jam making hands inched towards them. Felt rather foolish though - I had loving and proudly taken along one of our THREE remaining jars of bramble jelly, carefully hand labelled with a scrap of paper and tied rakisly with thick cords of red and blue - only to hear her telling my dh about how she made twenty two jars the other day and still had masses of blackberries to pick. I hastily and with pink cheeks tucked away my measly offering remembering instead Isaac chiding me that morning about how he loved his jam and could I please not give any more away? So it's his gain :)

Saw masses of rowan berries at the end of the driveway... are they edible I wonder? I should check.... I am so into this free food thing. It is so satisfying.