Advent
Ah, well, Martinmas is over and now we begin the time of waiting for Christmas. We aren't allowed to eat meat, cheese or fat for three days out of the week, but how often do we get it anyway once the winter gets underway! We have to make what we have last through to Lent so that means eating sparingly at best.
Gilbert will take Matilda out with the other children of the village, gathering holly and long cuttings of ivy, maybe even some bay leaves. William can spare him for a bit during the next few weeks since there is no heavy work to be done. We will hang the greenery about the cottage inside to make it pretty for Christmas.
I will have my work cut out preparing sweet-meats for the Christmas feast. Two cows and a horse have come into stay in the byre for the winter now, so Matilda will be busy too, learning to put feed in their troughs and give them fresh straw. She is little yet, but she will learn fast enough. We need all the hands we can get with such a small family.
The grain that had been harvested earlier in the autumn months was stored to dry in barns.
Now it would be threshed and winnowed, with the chaff being saved to mix in with feed for the animals in the byre.