September Harvest

September already, this year has flown by. 

We have just celebrated our first year anniversary in this property and have to admit that we still have packing boxes gracing most of the rooms here. As there is still lots to do in the interior we saw no reason in unpacking everything only to have to pack them away again once we get around to starting all the building works. Not that our two cats mind, they love nothing better than finding a comfy box in a patch of sunshine and curling up for a snooze.

Our little tabby enjoying a cat nap

We spent a lovely couple of hours last Friday immersed in the simple pleasure of harvesting juicy ripe blackberries, the first windfall apples and greenhouse tomatoes ready for eating. All free produce from our friend's couple of acres exchanged for our time spent watering their plants whilst they are away. 

We have sufficient quantities to be able to make assorted fruit crumbles, muffins, chutneys and I think that a large pot of homemade tomato soup might be on tonight's supper menu.

Destined for the kitchen

This second photo made us smile. Gary photo bombed his own shot with his work boots!

Spot the photographer!

The garden is having to look after itself for a few days, all is looking verdant even though it's not getting our full attention. I'm happy to report the Japanese Anemone we lifted from my Mum's front garden earlier in the year is happy in it's new home. The pretty pink perennial was first discovered growing in a property we were renovating in 2006 and when we moved we divided it and took some to our next home. This was further divided and we took some over to my Mum's tiny cottage garden. So now it has found it's way back to us and we are happy to make it's acquaintance once again.

A 'dolly mixture' palette of colours

We spent the entire weekend hard at work here in the Studio. The amount of printing we have been doing of late is akin to a gym workout! Gary mixes the ink, rollers it onto the lino plate and then positions the plate onto the press. I then carefully place the paper onto the plate, Gary operates the hand press and once the image is pressed I peel off the print and carefully transport it to the drying rack which is housed in our dining room, (the amount of time it is used for dining as opposed to holding drying prints it really should be re-titled the drying room). We have set ourselves a target amount of prints to be completed and added to our Etsy shop before the end of Autumn. It should be achievable, with the wind behind us all the way!


One of my landscape prints had it's final colour added yesterday and is waiting to be photographed before listing for sale. Still working on the title for it, it is a view of the Yorkshire Dales in Winter. Hopefully once I've settled on a title it should be appearing in both our Etsy and Folksy shops sometime this week. But here's a little peek of what it looks like hanging up to dry.

Brrrr... there's a nip in the air

We are still getting to grips with Twitter, it's good to come across our online friends there. If you do find yourself tweeting do pop over to say hello, you can find us @littleramstudio, obviously!


Enjoy your week.


'You have to have an idea of what you are going to do, but it should be a vague idea'.
Pablo Picasso.