When we moved into Casa Azul, one of the first things Luis our neighbour told us to do was chop all the olive trees down. They hadn’t been looked after and were quite frankly looking a bit sorry for themselves. We didn’t want to do them all in one go, so we have been slowly chopping down a few here and there. On the right of the photo below is the first one we chopped down and as can be seen, it has grown back pretty well.

However, we were more reluctant to chop one of the trees right in front of the house but this week was its time.

Over the last few weeks we have uploaded photos of the orchids as they have appeared near us. First was the Giant Orchid, then came the Early Purple. More recently a couple of Naked Man Orchids have appeared and a few Sawfly Orchids.

Jackie mentioned in the last post that we had bought some more roasties and ducklings, as they were quite a success last time, so here they are. Already fattening up nicely!

One of the joys of living here is observing the birdlife. Recent visitors were a pair of Cirl Buntings which are quite rare – at least in our garden. Although we hear the Barn Owls which live next door all year round, recently we have heard this year’s chicks and I spotted one at the window. I didn’t have the camera with me but here’s a photo I took last year.

In other bird news, a wren has decided to build its nest in a candle holder in our courtyard. Hopefully we’ll have a few tenants in the orange tree as well like last year. We haven’t picked all the oranges yet though.

Although we didn’t get a fantastic show for this month’s lunar eclipse, I did manage to get a decent photo thanks to the clouds.

And finally, here’s a different view of the disappearing tree.