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Stormy weather

Stormy weather

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We’ve had the most incredible stormy weather: gale force winds, hailstones and lashings of rain. It was with some trepidation that I set out this morning to walk the dog; what would the storm damage be? Well, actually very little. All the trees were still standing, as was the polytunnel (hurrah) and the chickens still had 4 eggs waiting for me. Only huge puddles gave a clue to the downpour. Or so I thought…

Emptying the rubbish into the compost bins I saw that their corrugated roofing had blown off despite being held down with heavy rocks, and then something caught my eye. What was that hanging in the corner olive tree? A large, black plastic bag? Approaching I saw it was part of the roofing from the potting shed. It been ripped off and blown into the tree, and another large patch was hanging off. So the next 10 minutes or so saw me clambering over the shed and trying to put it all back. Luckily I had just bought a new box of roof tacks, and luckily too the rain had briefly stopped but it was a battle against the wind and dark clouds were approaching. My first attempt saw the whole thing blow off again before I could tack it down but eventually I managed to bang it back on as large drops began to fall.

Now I have lived in a number of developing countries and got used to power cuts but no where, really, has been as bad as here. I knew that the electricity would go off last night when I heard the thunder rumbling overhead. Sure enough the first candle had just been lit when it went off. Back on and then off… and then this morning there was no water – again! I can’t believe that so much was falling from the sky and none was coming from the tap! I can (sort of) understand why the power goes but why the water goes too is a mystery. Ho hum!

Mellow yellow

Mellow yellow

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I can’t believe that spring is almost here but there are signs everywhere. Many of our fruit trees have buds that are about to burst and already there are wild flowers in the fields. It all looks so green, and yellow…

Our daffodils are refusing to look down and acknowledge the flowering weeds.

The lichen looks like an underwater coral scene, including a Gregorian fan of sorts. Just missing the clown fish…

Our willow is a most wonderful gold colour. I’ve made my first basket (although I did have some déjà vu about primary school…), here with today’s eggs; they’re laying four a day now.  And we have bought some dogwood, red and yellow.

Finally, if yellow is the theme then we must also include the princess, here with her car face on.

Polytunnel

Polytunnel

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Now the new year has begun, our thoughts turn to preparing for this year’s main harvest. Having said that we still have plenty of winter veg in the garden to eat now. We have only just finished the swedes and cauliflowers, there are quite a few leeks left and the brussel sprouts keep coming and coming. Anyway, with thoughts for the future, I recently constructed the polytunnel (ably assisted by the hairy one) which we shall mainly use for starting seedlings off until they are big enough for the main veg patch. We’ll also grow some tomatoes in there full time and some strawberries have already been installed for safe keeping. If the last few days are anything to go by we may also use it as a sauna when the warmer weather comes.

It was actually very easy to build (just as well as I’m not exactly a master craftsman and more commonly referred to ironically as ‘Handy Andy’ by my mum). Let’s hope it stays up through to the end of winter!

Actually, further to my initial remarks in the first paragraph, there is quite a bit more going on as you can see from the picture below. As well as the brussel sprouts , there are cabbages (left), the purple sprouting broccoli (centre) will soon (insha’allah) be ready and on the right, Jackie is tending the celery (which is doing fantastically well), carrots and spring onions.

4 Calling birds, 3 French hens…

4 Calling birds, 3 French hens…

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We wrote some time ago about the numerous birds that come down to the pond in the summer and promised photos. We haven’t managed that yet but here are a few spotted outside the living room window this afternoon. We hadn’t taken many of the olives off the nearest tree to the house and as a result many of the ripe fruits have fallen to the ground, much to the delight of the birds. There are often tens of birds and many different varieties. The ones I didn’t photograph today include blackcaps, long tailed tits, a sardinian warbler and black redstarts.

goldfinch and greenfinch:

chaffinch and blue tit:

serin and robin:

wagtail and siskin:

We’ve had a great Christmas here at Casa Azul. Christmas Day lunch was shared with old friends (Jo and Nigel up from Lisbon) and new ones (Helen and Peter down from Pera), and it was particularly great (well, for me!) that three of the four veg on our plates (namely the sprouts, carrots and swede) were from the veg patch. And I’m not sure if anything was bought ready made – the mince pies including the pastry (thanks Jo) and mincemeat, the stuffing (thanks H and P for the chestnuts), the cakes (thanks Jo again), the pudding (thanks sis), the custard, the decorations (thanks Peter) were all home made! Even the Buck’s Fizz Richard made came from our oranges! Perhaps next year he’ll be ringing the neck of our own goose… Feliz Natal!

Cobblers

Cobblers

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Finally we have started work on the area of the garden right next to the house. It was always going to be a problem area as huge rocks break the surface here and it is full of builders’ rubble. Anyway, we decided to grass most of the area (with seed from Jersey provided by Jackie’s dad) and cobble the area in front of the kitchen door. Cobbles seemed like an obvious choice as they are everywhere hereabouts including the pavements of most towns and even the roads through a lot of the small villages. They are also cheap. We’d been watching them laying new cobbles in a local town so knew exactly what to do. Almost. Anyway, we gave it a shot and here are the results. I also made a small gravel path to the pergola as well.

We used the old lintels and posts from the house as a frame and filled it with sand
starting work on the path

Brushing in the cement grout

Done! Just need to let it settle and add the bench back
Now waiting for the grass to grow!

…oranges are coming along as well!

Back to the veggies

Back to the veggies

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Although we’ve been focussing lately on chickens and relatives, the veggies have kept on coming. Only now are things coming to an end – we’ve had our last cucumber, the final tomatoes are hanging on and turning red (or yellow) and the courgette production has eventually slowed down to a trickle. However, we have made the best use of our bounty and Jackie has been busy roasting and freezing, pickling and drying a lot of the veggies ready for winter. Even the very few raspberries that we have carefully nurtured have now been picked and frozen one by one and we shall have enough for one final end of summer treat.

It is interesting that the cycle of fruit and veg has come round again from when we first arrived just over a year ago. I remember then, the first fruits we sampled were the pears and this year they have come and gone in a period of weeks and in a flurry of delicious pear crumbles. Also the quinces. Unfortunately our quince tree has had a torrid time but there have been plenty by the sides of various lanes that we have been able to purloin and process into quince jelly and quince cheese. Now the walnuts are coming into season. Despite eating my own weight in walnut cakes over the year we still haven’t finished last year’s crop. Likewise the olives which will be ready in a few short weeks.

It never stops down on the farm…

last of the melons and pears, first of the walnuts
dried chillies
what to do with sunflower seeds?
the oranges are on their way
Yellow lily, red dragonfly

Yellow lily, red dragonfly

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The pond has been abandoned a little but despite a somewhat murky appearance seems to be doing well. We had made it to attract the frogs and this has yet to happen but as there seems to be so few slugs that’s no big deal. What has happened though is that it has become a magnet for the birds who like nothing more than a big splashy bath to start the day. There can be up to five different kinds battling for a place on ‘the beach’ including tits, (blue and great), goldfinches, robins, serins, blackbirds, greenfinches, sparrows and black redstarts plus their scruffy young. Pictures to follow. My favourite at the moment is the linnet although not a common sight. A hoopoe flew by the other day, and there are jays too.

There are quite a few plants growing well and the lily has produced its second yellow flower – very pretty:

But nowhere near as pretty as the red dragonflies:

They look bizarre close up with a giant bobbing head and filigree wings, kind of fascinating but creepy at the same time!

NB Have a butchers on the video page as there’s a new one with the (pretty much) finished house.

Reasons to be cheerful

Reasons to be cheerful

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One: at last at last we have the Internet at our temporary home and what joy! Up until now we’ve been using a dongle on the laptop – the connection was slow (sometimes non existent), we were having to share (no comment) and to do any work on our website or skyping meant driving up the road to get a better connection. Great news.

Two: the builders have been plodding on. We now have new roof beams over the kitchen and some of the tiles have been replaced so that won’t fall down in a few years’ time. We were also really pleased to see that a huge pile of metal junk that we had inherited from the previous owners had been taken away.

Three: we have our shed! We were going to get someone to make a ‘proper’ one from bricks but for various reasons that fell through and I was getting fed up staring at the concrete platform we’d  had put in months ago. So when a leaflet came through the letter box from Bricomarché with flat pack sheds we were there in a flash. It took us two full days to do it but we were really chuffed in the end!

The concrete pad... and some careful thinking

We seemed to have nails we didn’t need and not enough screws of a certain size but that didn’t deter us.

We only needed to dismantle it once when we got the boards mixed up...

I thought the whole thing was going to get blown over at this stage.

Neighbour Luis reckons it'll all rot in a few years...

And luckily we managed to get two licks of paint on as it’s pishing down today!