the story of Casa Azul

Posts have been rather few and far between recently, not because we have been too busy sipping G and Ts on the manicured lawns of Casa Azul but simply because we have been too busy doing other things. One of them, for me was going back to the UK for a couple of weeks. This meant Jackie had to shoulder the burden at home on her own. And now I’m back, my list of things to do has grown exponentially.

So what’s been happening? Well after the wettest winter on record, we’ve had no rain at all in April. This has meant the watering system had to be dusted off, repaired and put back in action. We seem to have bought more trees and shrubs over winter so this means even more watering. The previous rain and the present sun has meant the grass has also taken off, which of course means strim, strim, strim.

Most of the fruit blossom has come and gone but I’m not sure how much fruit we will get. The plum blossom came in the middle of a lot of rain, so I’m not hopeful about that, however the last of the blossom, the apples and pears, was only in the last few weeks during a hot dry spell so hopefully the bees have done their job and fertilised all the flowers. Not our bees of course as they had disappeared (again). However, before they left, they had been very busy, even in winter, and had left loads of honey stores for us. I took the empty hives and left them in the barn over the winter with the honey still in the capped frames. I took the frames back out recently and the honey seemed to be fine so I made use of the hot weather to extract it. We haven’t got any more bees this year but we are hoping to try them again but in a very different place next year to see what happens.

Of course we are still gorging on our home grown pork. We’re going to have a rest from pig rearing this year but I’ve modified the pig house and field for more roasties. As you can see from the before and after pictures below, I needed to rescue the house from the elephant grass first.

We got 11 chicks from the market and they will be ready for the chop in a couple of months. Interestingly the brown ones are supposed to be tastier but the white ones grow huge and fat quicker.

And talking of chickens, what about the title of this blog post? Well last week I heard a load of squawking and clucking from the hen run with the three of them running hither and thither in a frenzy of feathers. One had got a mouse and they were tearing it to pieces!!! Not satisfied with the the occasional snail, they seem to have developed a taste for bigger prey. Jackie is already a bit nervous about entering the run because of the attentions of the well-named ‘Pecky’. What next?

 

No posts for three weeks but we’ve still been busy. Jackie on the veg patch (she will post when she’s finished bottling the tomatoes!) and me with more woodworking projects.

One of these projects was a garden chair. I picked up some tongue and groove floorboards from the local sawmills and this is the result:

I’ve also made a table for the courtyard (the purple colour is Jackie’s idea in order to match the colour scheme of the courtyard which is… purple and blue).

It’s not been all work and no play however. Our Spanish friends Scott and Delia visited and one of the things we did was go swimming in a local river. Of course the hairy ones loved this and Betty learned how to swim!

Well, that’s July come and gone – and what a strange month weather wise: cold sometimes, and grey and then some of those hot, hot days you think should be here all the time. We’ve done very little swimming (a trip to the beach the other day saw us don more clothes as we sat in the sea mist, the crashing waves only just visible) and we had more breakfasts outside in April and May.

And the veg patch? Plodding along slowly, we did manage to sun-dry some more toms in July, and our stanley plums from the tree we planted in 2009, but in fact there’s not a great deal to do now. No sowing, or potting on, or even weeding, just harvesting which is good. But there are fewer squash this year, I think because of the hot spring, and only 4 (but really delicious) melons. The second crop of french beans are doing well but, like last year, not as tasty as the first crop. At the end of the season I’m going to sit down and see what I have learnt from 2 summers here now, and plan for the year ahead.

Richard is doing wonderfully with the roasties, just two left from the original eight. Another roast chicken tonight (with all the trimmings again of course), and what a lot has been learnt from that. Not just raising them, but the killing, plucking, guttering, boning… and now we must find some more chicken recipes too.

Meanwhile, the photo looks a little dull, doesn’t it? Well, today is the 1 August – and it’s raining!

 

…is in the eating. That goes for the chickens too!

From this to this…

And we were particularly smug that everything from the oil, onion and garlic, through all the veg (carrots, parsnips, beetroot, potatoes and sprouts) and of course the chicken itself were all home produce. Just the salt, pepper and cornflour for the gravy were not our own.

We even celebrated with the posh crockery and cutlery

And how did it taste? Well, sitting outside in the sun and stuffing ourselves with this feast was just perfect, and that includes the taste. To be honest I wasn’t sure how I would react to actually eating the chicken having seen it killed, plucked and gutted, but in fact it wasn’t a problem. And as you can see Richard couldn’t wait to tuck in. Pudding also included our own greengages (although we bought the ice-cream!) Mmm

Things have been a bit quiet on the farm this week so I’ve had time to sort a few of the photos of our trials and tribulations over the past 6 months and have put them on a new page: Photoblog I hope you enjoy them.

However, no time for slacking. Our guest bedroom will be seeing its first guests very soon – we await the imminent arrival of our friends from Lisbon, Jo and Nigel. They will be followed in September by my sister Sue and brother-in-law Kevin, and hot on the heels of them will be Jackie’s parents.

Well, this will be our third night in the house and I must say the novelty still hasn’t worn off. It still feels fantastic to wake up in our new bed and gaze out over the garden. Jackie’s favourite activity is to have a shower – as she designed the bathroom and loves the fact that the water is solar heated and despite the cool nights is still hot first thing in the morning.

Many people have asked us,”Now the house is finished, what are you going to do?”. Well, as well as our two podcasting sites and looking after the veggie patch there is plenty still to do on the house.

The big things like the barn, patio and the area in front of the french windows can wait for now. Our immediate priorities are more basic – like cleaning the floors – I think this will be a continuous chore as dust accumulates daily and simply won’t go away. We also actually need to unpack. It has been great to discover things from almost a year ago like all our carpets and knick knacks. But we need to find and create space for them. i.e. build shelves and find places for all our stuff. As we asked the builders to paint everything white we have also selected a few walls for a splash of colour which we will do ourselves.  Anyway, there is plenty to do so no time for idle chit chat.

As you can see from the photos below, the place is transformed (again) but still needs lots of work..

And all seems to be well in the redstart nest in the old postbox. Unfortunately for the second brood only one chick hatched but here he/she is almost ready for take off.

PS For those interested in the garden goings on. The courgettes are still in full flow but now the squashes/pumpkins are coming on and we had our first tonight – delicious. And the cucumbers are starting to take over as well – not your boring green ones (although we do have those as well) our main crop are cricket ball sized and yellow and delicious. Oh and the tomatoes and onions are also with us – so we are pretty much self sufficient in veggies now.

First up another video. (also see links right – Pages on ‘Casa Azul’, then videos). It was taken over three weeks ago so I am a bit tardy putting it up but I thought ‘what the hell’. Also, I’ve noticed the place looks a lot different now, so I’m going to have to get back down there to make another one – which will feature fully tiled rooms and an almost complete bathroom! Can you contain your excitement? As a taster here is the freshly tiled living room and tiled bedroom.

I am now counting the days (weeks??) until I get sick of courgettes as our four plants are going crazy and threatening to take over the veg patch. I thought bamboo was the fastest growing plant – this has been superseded by our triffids. Every time I turn my back a new green cigar has appeared and is ready for plucking.

Have you also checked out the ‘Recipe’ page? Jackie has put up a recipe for elderflower cordial which is great. We are also waiting for a batch of elderflower champagne to mature – hopefully the bottles won’t explode which is apparently a common occurrence. The elderflowers are almost finished but I expect there are plenty of them in UK at the moment. Although our cherries have almost all been taken by the birds, curiously there are two trees on an empty patch of land next door which are laden with the things. We’ve already had a delicious cherry clafouti (note to Jackie: get the recipe up on the blog) and have also experimented in making a kirsch which should be ready in a month or two. Meanwhile, our entire redcurrant crop was eaten in five minutes.

As we have about a dozen raspberries, methinks they will go the same way. Just wait till next year!