Every Picture Tells A Story : Beauty, Buffalo, Burial & Branston

I carry my little camera everywhere.

It is a Canon SX720HS that lives in a padded case on my belt.

I got it for Father's Day shortly after I started on steemit.

While it is only a compact camera that will never match the quality of a full DSLR because it is always with me I can always get the shots...

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A Beautiful Morning

On Saturday we set off early to pick up 40 white buckets that were offered for free on the local Freecycle.

It was a bright beautiful morning with mist across the valley.

The serenity of the scene that greeted me as I walked out my front door reminded me again that I am so blessed to have found this place to spend my days.

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A Buffalo Farm

The place offering the buckets was a buffalo farm near Llanon.

They had been using the buckets for the buffalo milk so I knew they would be fine for use in the garden. I would have been concerned if they had been holding chemicals before.

In fact the buckets originally contained honey and came from a well know yoghurt maker in Aberystwyth.

I would love to know where the honey comes from. Then I could write the whole story. The Story of the Bucket - from bees to yoghurt to buffalo to bubblewrap.

I'll keep you guessing what the bubblewrap is for...

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A Burial on the Bay

Not far from the buffalo farm is Aberarth Church where my mother and her family are buried.

The cemetery is behind the church high on a hill overlooking Cardigan Bay.

It is truly a magnificent place to be buried. Isolated, windswept and majestic surveying the seascape below.

On a lucky day a school of dolphins might come by to serenade the sleeping souls of this resting place.

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Branston, My Branston

On the way home we stopped by a little tiny market in Aberaeron Memorial Hall.

Alas there was no hustle bustle. In fact like so many of these Saturday morning markets around Wales the stallholders outnumbered the shoppers.

But they try hard and they keep going. And when I can I will buy. Something. There is always something to buy in a supportive sort of way.

The old lady on the cake and pie stall was looking too sad for comfort. I bought a pile of pies and pasties to cheer her up and fill our tummies. Even better still when she told me that the man in the kitchen who made the pies raised the meat himself.

There's happy for you.

I knew what would go nice with the pastie. Some salad and potatoes from the garden and a good dollop of my favourite Branston Pickle.

And the pickle tasted better still on Saturday. As in the post that had arrived while we were out was £4 (US $5) in vouchers from Mizkan, the Japanese company that now owns the Branston brand.

Branston is dear to me. It was my Dad's favourite when I was a little boy fifty years ago. I have always liked it every since.

As I now generally have homemade pickles I hadn't had Branston for two or three years. When I tried it didn't taste like I remembered.

So I emailed Mizkan politely to enquire if they had changed the recipe. They didn't reply but just sent me £4 in vouchers.

I had bought the jar for less than half that only a few days before. That's an even better return than Bitcoin!

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You might also be interested in some of my other posts :

• The Steemit Guide to Homesteading : a Global Adventure in Collaborative Curation

• Five ways to make compost and build soil

• The Family : 25 December 2099 : A Bigger Place

• Two hundred cabbage plants and a couple of beautiful alpacas

• Living in my own little Steemtopia : why I don't Self UpVote

• Dahlias - did you know you can eat them?

• Homesteaders & Preppers on steemit - 230 members and rising - v9 [08 Oct '17]

• SteemTowns - connecting the virtual with the reality - would it be possible?

[all images by @pennsif]