Quinces

It's several years since we had enough quinces for a batch of jelly, so it's good to see a larger than usual crop maturing nicely. The quince tree is one of the earliest to flower, with big, soft blossom, and one of our largest and healthiest orchard trees, but some years it does not form fruit at all, often there are just a handful of fruits, and just once we had a bumper crop which filled the cupboards with jelly for years to come. We are not sure what combination of weather and pollinators brings success, but it's good when it happens. 

The extra shows Casper trying to extract the last creamy goodness from an empty yoghurt pot. We sometimes amuse the cats, and J, with empty tubs of creamy dairy products. Millie is very adept at using her paw daintily to wipe and lick every last smear, while Casper's technique is less sophisticated: often, as here, he pushes his face so far into the tub that he can only withdraw it through energetic and comical antics. Of course we would not allow him to get into real difficulty or become distressed, but his ingenuity is interesting: on this occasion he found success when he "walked" on his hind legs while using his front paws to manipulate the pot from his head.