The deed has finally been done. They had escaped just once too often – instead of jumping over the fence they had now started burrowing under. At 115kgs and 8 months old, they were also ready. Yes, the pigs are now pork. As I now look at the empty pig field, I feel a twinge of sadness. It was quite funny to see them scurrying around their paddock but we got them to eat and they weren’t pets. It was just as well we didn’t even get to like them that much, what with their escaping and grunting and ear-splitting squealing. That made the end much easier.

In short, they were killed one day, hung up overnight and then butchered the next. The butchering was the most traumatic as the butcher was producing cuts of meat at a hectic pace and me and Jackie were feverishly trying to label and bag various bits and put them in the freezer. We very quickly realised that Portuguese butchery is very different to British. If we hadn’t stepped in to change things, the two pigs would have been completely converted into costelletas (chops), febras (steaks), entremeadas (bellies) and entrecostos (ribs) as that is the way it’s done here. As it was, we managed to save various larger pieces which we deemed ‘roasts’, some of which will also become sausages and a leg which is now resting in brine and shall become ham. We also have a few other bits and pieces such as liver, kidneys, trotters etc.

I have to say the butcher was very surprised but happy to receive the heads and a few more unsavoury bits and pieces. Making brawn was just one step too far at this juncture.

All in all we now have two freezers, packed with 135 kgs of prime pork. Financially, it is difficult to put a price on it as we would certainly say our pork is far more valuable than the stuff we would ordinarily buy in the supermarket. But even based on supermarket prices we could say that we have broken even (not taking the pigpen construction costs into account), but this was not the point.

Looking at the sheer volume of meat from these two beast was almost enough to turn Jackie back into a vegetarian. Not quite though, as could be gauged from the satisfied smile on her face as she wiped the plate from the first of many roast dinners. Delish!

I remember (almost fondly!) of the time we first arrived at Casa Azul and the weeks of bramble bashing I had to do to clear the land. Well, three years down the track I’m at it again. This time, it’s clearing the roastie run for a new intake. It’s amazing how quickly brambles can take over. I’ve not even gone right up to the wall as I want to provide a bit of shade for the little darlings.

We do have some more beneficial prickly customers though. Our neighbours gave us some prickly pears last November. We reckoned they would be good for us as they need little water. We were right as they have thrived in our arid conditions and we have been rewarded with quite a bit of fruit. Here’s a photo of one. Unfortunately the prickly pear with the most fruit was stripped clean before I got the camera out!
It’s not the end of the fruit though, or fruit processing. Most of our neighbours are busy taking in the grape harvest. We only have a few vines, so Jackie’s dad, who thought he was here on holiday rather than being employed as a ‘woofer’, has been taking in our meagre harvest and we have been making some grape juice. We decided that as the local wine is so good and cheap we wouldn’t bother trying to make any grape wine.

However, it’s not the last fruit to ripen. That falls to the quinces which are also now ready. And that means Jackie springs back into action to make Quince jelly. No rest for the wicked!

Can’t sign off without a mention of the pigs. They escaped again! This time one managed to lift the gate off its hinges and then headed off towards the veggie patch. Fortunately not much damage was done and after their little adventure we managed to get them back in their paddock. It was just after this that Jackie happened upon an article in the Guardian where a pig farmer was eaten by his little babies. and apparently it has happened before! At 105kgs each, I think it’s time for the chop. Watch this space.

…but it’s the perennial complaint – not enough! Our UK readers will decry me for this comment but we had been looking forward to thunderstorms and heavy rain which had been forecast for last night. This morning however we were greeted by nothing more than a damp squib. We are now well and truly scraping the bottom of the barrel or rather in our case, the well, which will be bone dry very soon.

The pigs were happy though, as their dustbowl of a field is at least damp. They also continue to grow. they are now 90kgs each and getting ever closer to the chop!

The bees have also done well. Or at least one hive has. I took a further 4 frames last week which means we’ve had a total of 14kgs of honey from this one hive and absolutely nothing from the other hive. At least the bees from the second hive have produced some honey which should see them through the winter. As I have no honey extractor, I cut the honeycomb off the frames and then strain the honey out. With the remainder, I can then extract the wax by heating it and then straining it through a pair of tights.

So we’ve now got almost a kilogramme of wax so once we get some wicks we’ll be able to make some candles.

I’ve also been busy doing more woodworking and made another chair:

Although there is plenty to eat from the garden, we’ve also been doing a lot of foraging hereabouts. There are a number of ruined houses in our village and a lot of them have mature fruit trees. Therefore we’ve been enjoying fresh peaches, apples and especially damsons. Jackie has made damson jam and a most delicious damson ice cream. We’ve also collected some sloes, so the sloe gin should be ready by Christmas.

It’s a little strange when you see the same thing every day, you just don’t notice it changing. This is especially true of nature which is constantly changing but usually too slowly to notice. This seemed to be the case for the pigs.

Actually, the changes should have been obvious, as they have been going through over 2kgs of pig food in addition to food scraps every day. Anyway, I measured them recently. I’m sure it would be nigh on impossible to put them on scales but you can get a rough approximation by measuring their length and girth. My rough calculations came out at over 60kgs each. Boy have they grown!

So now the 60kg beasts have decided they are big enough to flex a bit of muscle, especially if their carers are a bit late with dinner. And that is what happened the other day. Dinner was late and so they decided to go after it themselves. The fence stood no chance and Jackie was soon screaming, “The pigs are out! the pigs are out!” Fortunately I had the food bucket to hand and they were soon chasing me back into their field. While they chowed down I made the necessary repairs (fingers crossed).

We won’t be late with dinner time again I can assure you.

Meanwhile, they still enjoy a bathe and as temperatures have risen into the thirties recently, here they are enjoying life.

Not just the pigs, but other things have been sprouting and after a few years of famine, last year’s pruning seems to have done the job with the apples and very soon, the peaches. So we are presently enjoying quite a few apple crumbles and apple and sultana cakes (recipe to follow as it is seriously delicious).

Following on from the last post, I got 7kgs of honey (that’s 14 jars) from just 4 frames in one hive. I can take another 4 full frames out of the same hive but I think I’ll leave that for a few weeks to enable them to recover a bit. I think I’ll leave hive number 2 this time around – they should make enough honey to last themselves over the winter but I won’t take any.

As I don’t have an extractor, as I described in the last post, I had to cut up the comb to let the honey drip out (a proper extractor just takes the honey and leaves the comb intact). But this had the advantage that I could use all the wax myself and after a bit of  reheating and filtering (through a pair of tights), I managed to get over 500g of pure beeswax. We just need to decide what to do with it now. We’re going to try and make candles but need to do a bit of research first.

Walking into the courtyard the heat hits you and there’s no relief to be found under our shelter – it’s reading 35C in the shade. The hens have disappeared deep into the brambles (you can just hear the occasional moaning cluck), the roasties are inside their hut with their beaks permanently resting in their drinking water (which has been put inside for the mo) and the dogs are not even bothering me for a run; they have collapsed on the tiled floor, legs akimbo and slightly snoring. Our bees like drinking from the pond’s edge (careful where you stand while looking for the frog!) and there are now bricks in the dogs’ outside bowl as mice and shrew keep drowning in it overnight. The wild birds are also grateful for the pond and start their morning with a splash.

And the pigs? Well, they love their mid-afternoon bathing session:

Meanwhile the raspberries are giving us a bumper harvest, a perfect afternoon for making ice cream!

End of May, beginning of June is the most colourful time of year at Casa Azul. The flowers are having a last hurrah before the heat of the summer kills everything. Strangely enough roses are really popular round these parts and everyone seems to have at least one in their garden. We are no different and they look great at the moment.

We have also been cultivating some wonderful bright yellow flowers – I believe they are called dandelions. Here they are in all their glory before they were strimmed to death.

The long hot summer is great for lavender though and we have plenty of it. We had a bit of a worry with piggy number one recently – she had a nasty abscess on her neck. When it burst it was even worse. I’ll spare you the details. I had to rub in some cream and attempt to keep it relatively clean which wasn’t the easiest of things to do but it seems to have healed remarkably quickly. Apparently they are quite common but I don’t fancy nursing the pigs through any more.

On the roastie front, the last lot have met their maker and we’ve already had the first for supper. Needless to say it was really delicious. I look forward to the rest of them. We don’t hang about though. No sooner had one lot been dispatched than we got another lot. They’ll be ready in a couple of months.

…since my last confession post. Plenty has happened in that time. We’ve had lots of rain followed by a bit of sun and then more recently, even more rain. This has been excellent for the garden. Fortunately the rain stopped long enough for me to attack the undergrowth. Two days of strimming later the grass was back to a more manageable level and we could actually see some of the new plants and trees we had put in. Plenty of flowers are now in bloom including the roses and the poppies which are appearing out of the cracks in the threshing square.

Of course the pigs love the wet weather and are thriving.

Only downside is that they are much keener on the expensive pig food rather than the cheaper vegetable peelings. Those pork chops may turn out quite expensive in the end. Meanwhile the roasties are doing very well. So well in fact that they are already living on borrowed time.

The veggie patch is also doing well. The asparagus has been and gone, we’ve dug up the onions and the garlic, and had some cauliflowers in addition to some rhubarb. The potatoes will be ready soon.

After an intensive course in animal husbandry for Jackie’s dad (practice in feeding and watering the hens and pigs), we (me, Jackie and the hairy ones) managed to leave the house for a few days and headed off to the Algarve where the hairy ones learned to swim in the sea.

Of course by the time we got back, more sun and rain had done its work leaving us with even more things to do in the garden…

 

 

Two big events recently. We’ve finally got the pigs and it’s started raining (and still not stopped!). Pigs first. The bloke from the pig farm came round in his truck and said take your pick:

Between him, Luis our next door neighbour, and us, we decided on two little red heads. Or to be more technical, two Durocs. The pig farmer reckoned they would be the best as they are good for keeping outdoors and are delicious! Wikipedia wrongly stated that they are originally from USA – they are actually from Spain/Portugal and we hope that wikipedia also got it wrong when it said they tend to be one of the most aggressive of all the swine breeds!

Here they are settled into their new home. Received wisdom says it is better to restrict their movement to their hut first and then let them out into the bigger field in a few days.

 

And the rain has finally come. After almost two weeks of continuous drizzle, it is starting to get a bit tiresome (that’s why we don’t live in the British Isles) however we are fortified by the knowledge that we really need it (and a lot more) for our plants now and into the summer.  And we can see the benefits already. The fruit is plumping up nicely. Last year we hardly had any peaches but this year promises to be a bumper crop judging by the progress of these little beauties. Maybe even the apples will be big enough to eat!

Here are some birds who love the rain and are still pumping out a regular four-a-day!

The dogs, however, have decided they prefer it indoors and now there isn’t even room for me on the sofa. Just as well Jackie is in Madrid for the weekend.

Finally a bit of rain has made an appearance. Not much I’m afraid but I suppose you can only expect showers in April. At least it has put a temporary halt to the fires. We went for a drive last week and saw the full extent. Vast swathes of forest turned black. Here’s a photo taken from our house. Originally the hills in the distance were all green, covered in pine and eucalyptus trees. They had started cutting down some (after all much of it was managed plantations) but now all that remains is a small green patch visible on the far right, next to the village (a small white splodge on the photo) which was fortunately untouched.

However, the welcome rain has had an effect on our veggies and even the rhubarb has come through.

And we’ve been eating plenty of onions and purple sprouting broccoli.

The courtyard is also doing pretty well. Here is a bit of the herb garden and our lime tree which is about to burst into flower, as are the orange and lemon trees.

Even the plane tree which was nothing more than a stick a few weeks ago has plenty of leaves.

The animals are also doing well  - the roasties are putting on weight and enjoying the grass which has started sprouting everywhere.

And of course the two hairy ones enjoy it whatever the weather.

Some readers may remember that we had a marauding pack of wild pigs in the garden recently.

Admittedly that sounds a bit worse than it actually was as the only damage caused was a few nibbles out of the cacti and some bulbs were dug up. However, I’d been meaning to do something about the wall, or lack of it, which leads from the end of our garden to the fields beyond and this spurred me into action. One gate and one fence later and we are fully protected!

Emboldened by this success (i.e. surprising myself by being able to make a gate and fence), I started work on operation porco. We are planning on getting a couple of pigs in Feb/March in order to fatten them up for slaughtering in Nov/Dec. So I set to work on building a pigpen and a fenced off area of the garden for them to roam.

It still needs a bit of work but Rome wasn’t built in a day.

But it’s not all work and no play, we’ve also managed to make the best use of what has been a very sunny January by having a few barbies and also visiting the beach. I wonder when we will be able to brave the waves!