I am still having problems with posting photos on this blog so sorry for that. I wanted to show you our fridge. We call it the African fridge. It is a large terracotta jar inside another large pot, the in between is filled with sand which we keep damp at all times. It does actually work! R keeps his beer cool, and we put in butter, vege, occasionally a bit of meat. It works due to the water sweating out the sides and keeping the inside cool.

The insulation is working a treat. The big room keeps cool during the heat of the day.

I have had Nuno working for a couple of days, digging a trench around the back of the house. It got so wet last winter that there were puddles inside the house. I really don't want to live with that this year. Of course, it may not rain this winter... Still, it's good to get it done.

We have been eating lots of peas and onions and carrots and cabbage, from the garden! The mange touts that I ordered off the Internet are very good. They have dark purple pods. Very sexy. And very tasty. When I cook them up I keep the water. It makes delicious stock or a hot drink. Yum! The spinach (Swiss chard) is coming on nicely and also the cabbages. I have to patrol them and rub out caterpillars...

I have planted two beds of the three sisters, corn, beans and pumpkin. One of the beds I am watering and the other i am not. Just to see what happens. We also have two cabbages that are planted with a lot of space around them, at least a meter, and they are not getting water, either. It is possible to grow stuff without lots of water, if you give them enough space and keep the weeds down.

The golden oriole has been singing away and I wonder if it has taken the black figs... there are none where there were some a few weeks ago... Hmmm.

The new water tank is rising out of the foundations. R is slowly building it up. It is an experiment, but it's beginning to take shape.

Around us the fields have been cut and baled into barley hay. In small bales. I like to see them dotted about the fields. The farmer hopes to sell them for 3.50 each.

And so we move into June. This has been a long slow spring, cool and windy at times. Let's see what summer brings.