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!
bringing home the bacon
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!
peaches and cherries
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.
rhubarb
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.
We’ve been a bit quiet on the posts for the last few weeks as we’ve had some guests. First Jackie’s sister Jemma and husband Simon were here and more recently we’ve just said goodbye to Matt, whom we hadn’t seen for ten years when we were teachers in Vietnam.
However, the garden doesn’t stop and in the last few weeks everything has burst into life. We’ve eaten all the oranges and now the trees are full of small white blossoms about to burst open – as is the lime. The plum and peach blossoms have come and gone, and actually we have quite a few peaches growing already – let’s hope the harvest is better than last year. It should be as we now have four trees, mainly older ones which we renovated last year. Also the quinces, apples and pears are in flower. So fingers crossed we get some rain and our fruit harvest will be a bumper one.
plum blossom
peach
We also planted some cacti and agaves in the winter – not surprisingly, they seem to be doing alright with the lack of rain and will go great guns this summer. And the fig tree has actually started sprouting figs!
figs
We’ve also got some more fauna to go with the flora – two bee hives (let’s hope they hang around for more than one season this time) and also seven more little roasties which will be ready for the oven in a couple of months.
Meanwhile our other recent addition, Betty, is doing rather well and continues to be a joy and terror in equal proportions – a terror while awake and a joy while asleep!
Many of you will know that we have been suffering a terrible drought this winter. Here at Casa Azul we have averaged one measly shower of rain in each of the winter months. Matters were brought to a head recently with a huge forest fire which was rather too close to comfort. The tinder dry forests nearby erupted into flames. There seemed to be fires starting all over the place and a huge black cloud covered the sky from East to West. Although the fires did get quite close to us, I don’t think we were in too much danger as we are surrounded by agricultural land which doesn’t burn too well.
It seems that the undergrowth was so dry and the winds so fierce that the flames swept through areas so quickly that in the aftermath many of the trees seemed to have survived and only the forest floor affected and despite taking place over a wide area it was all over relatively quickly. However, the following morning we could still see pockets of smoke on the hillsides. It’s at moments like these that you are thankful for the bombeiroes (firemen). We saw firetrucks from all over northern Portugal and apparently there were 450 present at the biggest fire in Portugal this year. Unfortunately it will certainly not be the last.
Portugal is justifiably famous for its ‘azulejos’. Originating in Arabic times these are (usually) blue and white polished and decorative tiles which cover everything from churches to train stations and on and in many large and small houses. To give our courtyard a bit of local colour, we had long planned to add some of our own. We had bought a few second hand ones at bric a brac markets but then we found a warehouse with hundreds of old ones and the lady there was giving them away for free. Never looking a gift horse we carted a load away and my next job was to incorporate them. And here they are.
Hairy one senior has obviously already schooled hairy one junior into the art of getting into the photo shot.
I had a quick look back at last year’s February posts and it was all storms and rain. How different this February. It’s been starry nights and blue skies every day, which has meant icy frosts followed by sunburny days. Frosts and no rain is the worst possible combination for the plants and many have struggled.
Spring is now definitely on the way with warmer nights and hopefully some rain in the near future. The trees are emerging from hibernation and the blossoms are already out on the apricot and the plums are not far behind.
apricot and plum blossoms
The daffodils have been up for a while as have these crocuses.
crocuses
The wild spring flowers are also on their way and we even saw some orchids on a recent walk. We planted quite a few bulbs this winter so hopefully a bit of rain will set them off.
The biggest news of the week, however, has been the new addition to the family. Betty was rescued as a tiny puppy by some friends of friends but she didn’t get on with their other dogs so we decided to take her on. Despite her naughty puppy habits – chewing, yapping and occasional loss of bladder control, she has been fantastic. The big hairy one has already taken to her and no doubt they will soon be inseparable. Here is the new addition modelling the bench, now sanded and painted.
As it happens we were sitting on the bench the other day and saw a hoopoe in the garden, which is quite a rarity especially as it is only ever a summer visitor, and blue tits checking out the birdbox. We’ve also seen a wren looking for nesting sites near the barn, so hopefully we’ll have some more wildlife in the garden.
As the bench has now moved out of the courtyard, there is more room for another product of my recently acquired woodworking skills – a small table. And Jackie has been honing her skills by painting it blue and another small table of ours purple. Time for yet another alfresco lunch?
Fences and gates done, I now moved onto a more demanding task – making a garden bench. I chose the simplest looking design off the web and so it proved not too demanding, although I must admit the measurements I followed made it rather chunky to say the least. It’s certainly not going to collapse but it may need an army of helpers to move it. It’s in the courtyard at the moment which suits us for now as it’s a real suntrap.
I don’t have a proper workbench so the back of the truck had to suffice.
workbench
…and here it is – ready to be sanded and painted.
bench
I did need to get a couple of extra toys to complete the job – a sander and also as the wood was so so chunky, an extra long drill bit (seen below).
We’ve had daffodils in the garden for a couple of weeks now and they are being joined by crocuses. Can’t wait for a bit of rain then the rest of the spring flowers.
I had time to renovate the chicken run gates as well!
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!
preparationsjob done!
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.
this is just the spot
bijou residence ready for tenants
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!
First post of the New Year and we have our first proper frost of the winter. The hens aren’t bothered. In fact after a number of weeks of only three eggs a day, number four hen is back in action and it’s four a day again.
The hairy one is also not bothered about the cold and here she is ears a flappin’!
hairy one at full speed
I’ve been less active however as I started the new year full of a cold. It didn’t stop me from knocking up a couple of birdboxes though.
birdboxes
And also I’m putting a plane tree in the courtyard – it will look good in about 20 years!
Big project for 2012? Operation Porco. Watch this space!
We finish 2011 with some sad news – our bees have buggered off. Or, to put it technically, absconded.
When winter started they were very quiet as expected but some of them were still out and about foraging as normal. We were very lucky as there was plenty of food available as our rosemary bushes were still in flower as was a large eucalyptus tree in the next field to us. Then yesterday they seemed to be very active, chewing up their wax and dropping a lot of it just outside the hive. This morning I checked again and all the bees had disappeared!
Every one had gone leaving behind a healthy-looking hive with plenty of honey and pollen stores. After a bit of web research it’s still not clear what has happened. The presence of wax outside the hive and some telltale signs inside the hive, indicate robber bees – i.e. bees from other hives stealing the honey. But I think they are just opportunistic, stealing the stores after my bees had already skipped off. So I think the bees I saw yesterday were not mine but these new scavengers. Mine had already gone, maybe some time before.
healthy looking comb - a ring of pollen stores and some honey in the corners
Apparently absconding is rare but it does happen – the strange thing is, it is usually a result of some kind of disturbance or when there is a lack of food – neither of which has happened here. I have to say I’m absolutely devastated.
I won’t be defeated though, it’s just back to the drawing board. In the new year I’ll ask around and see if I can find out what has happened and get some more bees. Every cloud has a silver lining however, as there is a fair amount of honey in the hive I can harvest and I can render down some wax to see if we can make a candle or two.
In better news, in the winter sunshine, which we’ve had plenty of, we managed to spend some quality time enjoying the garden and doing some bird watching. What started it off was a rare sighting of a great spotted woodpecker on the walnut tree. It stayed for ages which was great. Then we started to notice loads of other birds. In all in about an hour we saw 14 species: blue tit, great tit, meadow pipit, thrush, goldfinch, greenfinch, chaffinch, sparrow, robin, blackbird, black redstart, pied wagtail and serin. And that’s not including a buzzard which we saw the day before soaring high above the garden as well as long tail tits which often fly through the olive trees in small family groups. No pictures here but they are all on our bird page
I’ve also been busy in the kitchen. I used up some spare tiles to line the kitchen shelves. I have to say it makes cleaning them much easier and looks a lot better too.
tiling the shelves
Of course Jackie has been busy in the garden as ever and here she is doing some weeding ably assisted by the hairy one.
As you can see the veg patch continues to feed us over the colder months and although we’ve pulled the last of the (delicious) turnips up we still have swede, chard (partly grown for its amazing colour), beetroot, leeks and some sprouts on the go. Soon some calabrese will be ready and with luck, some peas. Jersey new potatoes were planted yesterday and Jackie’s also busy planning next year’s crop hoping for an even bigger harvest. The almost daily sunshine this month has meant lunch outdoors but with only a few days rain we’re hoping January will be wetter to water the newly planted trees (shade for the hens) and fill the well but the weather forecast is sun for the next 10 days (we’re only slightly complaining!).
We mustn’t forget the hens who laid a total of 1064 eggs this year and gave us wonderful eggs benedict on Christmas day.
Meanwhile the oranges are growing bigger than ever and we’re both looking forward to new projects we’re planning for 2012 – come and visit and see for yourselves!
So here’s to a Happy New Year to our friends and readers and hope it’s a good, productive and peaceful one!
