Stormy Weather, Scary Weather

Last Friday the wind began to blow and during the day it got stronger and then all night it blew furiously. It continued all Saturday too.  The tin roof flapped and banged and the gutters blew off. It rained as well, horizontally. It came in the bedroom window, flying through the sides of the glass and showered the carpet. It was a very wet and scary weekend. I didn't sleep at all. I lay in the warmth of the bed and listened to the noise, thinking it sounded like someone was up there, and half expecting the roof to fly off at any moment. (Well, it did fly off last summer, so I wasn't just being neurotic.)  The door to the workshop was blown in, and the door frame broken. It was a very stormy 24 hours. (140 kph aparently, in some parts of Portugal, with waves 17 meters high)

When it had calmed down a bit I went down to the garden to pick up all the bits of cardboard and black netting, and the sun shelter I built in the summer, which had blown off completely. The place looked like a war zone, but the plants looked healthy. As for the 'spider' dome, I don't even want to go and look.  I will wait until the weather settles before I start to work on it again. It's too diheartening to have all one's hard work washed away by these mighty storms.

So yesterday we went to do some essential shopping and when we came back we found half the herd of goats up by the windmill. We put them back in the neighbour's field and continued home. I went down to the garden and found hoof marks in the soil.  I looked around... ARGH, the goats had been there and eaten the tops of everything! I had left the gate open of our new fenced-in-against-the-goats-and-chickens fence... I could've cried. Instead I screamed.  All those onions pulled out, all the brocolli gone, and the spinach and the peas and the favas. And it was my own fault!

Meanwhile this nasty, disturbing weather continues.  We have got used to the gentle stuff we've been having for the last few years.  This strong wind and hail and heavy rain is what sometimes happens in winter in Portugal.  At least we are warm and dry in our house. So tonight, we sit near the stove and the wind howls around the house and the roof flaps, but it's not as bad as Friday/Saturday so I'm thankful for that. I think that the very strong winds are a part of climate change. That is quite scary.

Rain and Creativity between the Showers

I've been doing a bit of work on the 'mud bender' or 'spider bender' down below the vege garden. I went down there the other day and started to mix up some mud and sawdust and then pile it on in clumps... It builds up and becomes a wall... So exciting to actually build my own place completely by myself. OK, I have a long way to go, but it's fun. I hope this west coast weather isn't washing away all my endeavours!

This morning we went to a yoga class with Charlie, who is an Englishman who has decided to move over here and teach yoga from his house.  He has been teaching for twenty years or so and is very good and we both really enjoyed the class. Yoga is good for the body and the mind, and we are so physically active it's good to do something that keeps us strong and conscious of our movements.

And the rain batters down on the tin roof.

More Digging and Being at Home

 A beginning picture. R doing the work of a digger. When you start something big like this it feels almost overwhelming... but slowly, steadily, the space is being created.

Nearly there.  All the subsoil has gone on a pile for more earthworks at a later date.

This morning as I was contemplating the view' I thought I want to Paint!' So I did some sketches of these pots and the big view of the hills... Last night as I was surfing the'net I found an artist called Barbara Rae and was blown away by her work. Also Elizabeth Blackadder, another lovely painter.  Funny they are both from Scotland.  I want to paint but by the time I finally got the paint out it was getting dark.... I made a cake with chocolate icing instead. The corridor of creativity as Monica says.

My favourite olive tree being pruned.

And here's a little thing I made. Felt with wool embroidery.

Here is the no-dig raised bed with onions planted. It rained heavily today so that will help them settle in.

A glimpse of our rural bliss/mess

All in all, a good, creative time for us up on the hill. The sheep have lambs and I'm hoping to get more fleeces this year to finish insulating the roof of the big room (above)

Digging...

We have started to clear a bit of land to put in a water tank... Phew, hard work lugging barrow loads of earth to the garden and subsoil to the path...

So this eveing we spent a quite time sitting by the wood burner.  I did a bit of spinning. Cooked tomorrows meal on the burner. ('Chispe' with beans and root vegetables. Very tasty if left to cook slowly.)

The other day I planted the two macadamia trees I grew from nuts from a garden near my old farm...

Rob has been pruning the olive trees and peeling the bark off the long bits to make furniture with later.  He has made me a plate rack/draining rack using thin twigs.  Works a treat.

And so life goes on and every day feels like a blessing :)

Capoeiro in Alentejo!

We moved out to our 'monte' four weeks ago, when R came back from his apple picking in Gloucestershire and we are so happy to be living on the land. The weather has been beautiful (between storms) and we can sit out on the patio and let our eyes wander to the far away horizon. I love to be able to spit apple pips. Or cut my nails, and just let things fly out into the long grass and Bermuda buttercup which is growing everywhere at the moment.

Here is a huge caterpillar I found the other day.

We bought five young hens and a galo from the market last weekend. I had spent the previous day building a cosy capoeira (hen house) out of scrap wood. It looks hideous but it will keep them safe from foxes and dry and warm. I'm quite proud of it. I was shocked to discover that all the bought food for chickens is GM!!! Which makes me realize that probably all the meat we eat is grown with GM feedstuffs... Oh dear. I intend to wean them off it as soon as possible. Rob has been grinding wheat for them. Much nicer.

On Christmas day I got in the mood to build the patio a bit. I went up to the old windmill, which is being done up to be a holiday house. They don't need the old mill stones, which they had to break in order to get them out of the mill room upstairs, so I took some in the wheelbarrow and they are now on the ground outside the front door. So I spent Christmas morning doing that and then Rob cooked up the food and put on music and we had a lovely simple, peaceful day.

Every morning when I wake up I look out the windows to see what it's like. Sometimes the whole world is a sea of mist and we are the only visible things. Sometimes all the surrounding hills are only visible from near the top upwards. I rush out and take a photo.

We don't have broadband internet up at the land, yet. No 'facebook', no emails to check, no radio 4, just the sound of the fire in the stove and the wind roaring around the house. We come into 'town' (Sao Luis) to wash our clothes and our bodies occasionally, as I haven't got the washing machine up here, nor the hot water for the shower, but everything else works beautifully. In the evenings I have been knitting fingerless gloves, using homespun wool and handmade knitting needles. As I finished a pair this evening I thought : These could have been made five hundred years ago. I'm not sure why that idea pleases me but it does.

Update

A rather blurry picture of the new tin roof, shining like an alien has landed!

I haven't been doing very much on the land this month, except getting the ruin habitable.  It is no longer a ruin.  We can now call it a shack!  But really, Nuno has done a great job of putting on the roof and rebuilding the walls and redering it all.  We managed to do it  before the rain got too heavy, and now it is cosy inside with a woodburner and blankets for internal doors.

Today I decided to plant beans and peas, since it is the season and also the right phase in the moon's cycle to do that.  I still have this difficulty with the no dig method... mostly because I'm not prepared, I guess.  Digging has been so much a part of gardening for me.  So, I dug a couple of beds... but only very shallowly, after having taken out the weeds, and made lines to put the peas in.  For the beans, I just weeded the bed and then with a dibber, I put the seed in individual holes.  We shall see what happens.  I need more horse manure.

The dome, now that it is rendered with cal hidraulica, sand and earth, is dry inside, but there is aproblem with ventilation.  It's strange, because there is a window and an air hole in the top, so why is it still stuffy?  Hmmm, will need to do a bit more research.

I stuck some cuttings of  roemary in a row as it will make a good hedge, and I intend to do more along the paths.  It's a sturdy plant that requires very little attention.

I have been helping Laura to get her collection ready for the Christmas markets which are coming up soon.  Sewing used to be my profession and I can still make the machine hum, but these days I prefer to work outdoors or at least be more physical. But it is nice to be able tokeep my hand in, as they say.

R will be back tomorrow, finally, after three months of fruit picking and processing.  He will see some progress, and we can continue with our permaculture project. Yes, more swale digging and tree planting and water colecting tanks. Yippee!

There and Back Again

I went away. I went off in a coach to Lisbon, and then an aeroplane to Bristol.  It's not my favourite form of transport, the aeroplane.... I am an Earth person, but I survived. I had a brilliant time in Great Britain. I drove up with my sister, Baba, to the Isle of Mull and for the whole six days the sun shone and the sea was a brilliant blue and the autumn tints were gorgeous.  I saw my mum and hung out with my sis so that was lovely.

In England I hung out with my boys for a few days. I also went to Gloucestershire to see R and helped him make perry, which is a kind of pear cider.

So I came home feeling refreshed.  It was a different Alentejo to come home to.  When I left it hadn't rained for months but while I was away it poured! Hooray! So now it is all green and wet and MUDDY. The only spoiler was that a herd of goats had wandered through my vegetable garden and eaten every single edible leaf :(

So, it's back to work on the house. Nuno has managed to put a chimney into the tin roof and Tiago is doing wonders with some plumbing tools over the kitchen sink. I have swept the floors and stared out the window, thanking my lucky stars to be here, now.

 this is a tree on the Isle of Mull, bent with the prevailing wind.



It is time to start thinking about fruit trees...