Hot and Sweaty

Friday evening at sunset. The neighbour walks his cows across the shorn fields their bells ringing to the rhythm of their footsteps. A hot tired sound.

It has been hot. Averaging 40 degrees up here on the top of the hill. Inside has been up to ten degrees cooler, thanks to the sheep's wool insulation and some green shade netting we have put up to try and keep the walls from getting so hot. That is where taipa walls are the tops. If this had been a house built in the traditional manner, with rammed earth walls 50 centimeters thick, it would be cool in here during the day, and only after sunset would the heat start to find its way into the rooms. Instead, it is crappy old hollow clay bricks. Still, one day they will be replace with straw bales or adobe.... Dream on.

The garden was looking so pathetic a few weeks back I was beginning to despair, but Laura suggested more water. The magic ingredient! Now I have a whole host of vegetables that will be ready, soon. In fact, we ate our first cucumber this evening, and what a taste! The tomatoes aren't huge, but they are also tasty. The aubergines that I grew from seed are really big and strong.  Now I am scraping off the cut grass from the hill and using it as mulch to try and stop all that precious water from evaporating too quickly.

I went to the Tamera open day a few weeks ago. Tamera is a large community, mostly German, that have a lot of land quite near us. They have done some amazing water retention schemes in the landscape. They had the famous Sep Holzer from Austria to help them design their lakes.They have so much water, all gathered from the rains from the winter. It is inspiring to see. I also was inspired by some of the alternative buildings they have, made from straw bales and other stuff. Of course, it is very well made, expensive stuff. Not so home made as my attempts. But then, they paid experts to do the work. It is still impressive when they tell us that they only had to light a fire twice the whole of last winter. Well worth a visit. The vegetarian lunch is always yummy!  I cycled there and was surprised at how close it is to us. Sometimes, in the evening, we can see a small mushroom cloud over the hill where Tamera is. R reckons it is coming off the lakes!

The tank we have been slowly constructing is almost ready. I have rendered the inside so it is all smooth. Next, we must make the walls level, using an angle grinder... that does not sound pleasant work. Also, in this heat it could be dangerous, due to sparks flying into the dry grass.

Nuno has built us a little splash pool so we can dive in and cool down. I will use it for watering the garden. Permaculture - stacked functions.

There are a lot of things happening around here now that it's holiday season. World music festival in Sines, FACECO, the agricultural show, in Sao Teotonio, and next week end, 'tasquinas' in Sao Luis, where all the local restaurateurs have stalls selling their best menus, and a bouncy castle for the kids and a baile later, so we can all dance off the excess!