Boiled Brain Can Hardly Write

Sitting in the shelter from the worst of the heat of summer. It has been 38 degrees all day and Sweat trickles down the body like tickling flies. Just keep drinking water and going into the tank for a bit of total immersion. Ah, to sit still and feel the coolness begin to penetrate the skin. To watch the wasps drink thirstily at eye-level. Laundry takes about 15 minutes to dry!

Isabella came to stay.

Here are some pictures of the studio with shade netting and weed barrier in the outside eating area, to keep the dust down. Looks and feels great. And the inside is so cool. It's a huge relief to go inside. I've been letting other people have the pleasure of staying in it and it is POPULAR! Even the cold shower.

And Suddenly It's Summer

Yup, the heat is on - in the thirties up here on the hill. The landscape turns to tan and caramel as the hay gets taken off and the vegetation dies back. Already the cork is being taken off the trees and big round bales of straw dot the fields.

We took Isabella and Layla to the agricultural show in Santiago and saw lots of horses and donkeys.

They are so soft and cute.

My studio is nearly ready for the first guests who are arriving on Thursday. Exciting. The futon base and mattress are in place and the kitchen area outside is more or less sorted and I have built a shower under a young cork tree.

The garden is looking rather wild and woolly. I need to cut the grass and weed the beds. I am thinking that it all needs a complete overhaul and an irrigation system put in which uses less water and is more efficient. I also need to either put cardboard or weed suppressant down to stop the dang chickens from scruffing up all the seedlings... grrr

Olivia playing with water on a very hot day... inside.

Dawn

Have I Finished Building?

It feels like a major break-through to have finished this tiny little addition. Seemed to take forever, but I am pleased with the result. It is cool when it's hot out and I made the floor using a more liquid cob, rather than rammed earth. That is so much quicker to do, but you need patience to wait for it to dry out.

The clay I used is from the pond hole I'm digging, where there is a patch of grey shaley clay, so the building looks like it's been white washed where it hasn't. I have painted the inside walls and it looks really fresh.

Now I am digging out the passage to it from the front door and using the earth to build an outdoor kitchen, and a bit of landscaping. I love to put the plants in and the flat stones. Can't wait to make the pond!

The Iron Bed

I have the pleasure of Olivia's company once or twice a week. She loves to pick flowers in the garden, of which there are many at the moment. Lavender, sage, roses, daisies, and other things I don't even know the names of. I love my garden! There are also lots of peas, broad beans, lettuce, cabbage,  strawberries,etc. Some onions are ready, the broccoli, courgettes nearly.... The potatoes are big and bushy.

As for the chickens.... grrr . They still find a way in sometimes.
 

Bonnie Playing Pirates with Oli

 

Some of the flowers

Cork tree at sunset

The fields are full of flowers. No room for cereal here!

Life is good despite invading chickens.

Mud and Birdsong

The compost loo

cane ceiling

Funny shaped entrance

Tiles on the roof

Sophie and Erica

Tiff, Erica and Bhakti

Wild Iris

One of the views

It's been a funny month, with rain and cool days, but when the sun comes out it's hot instantly. The weeds and the vegetables and flowers loved the rain. Everything is getting huge. The fields are frothing with flowers and the air is bubbling with birdsong. The cuckoo, the nightingale, the golden oriel, they are all singing and swooping across the hill in front of us. And the swallows, or course.

The fig trees have come into leaf; fresh, green, fluttering on their thin branches, almost as though they are unattached. Some sweet peas that I sowed last year but didn't come to anything have come up under the fig tree and that makes me so happy. I love their sweet smell.

I had a mud workshop on Thursday and four friends came. It was so nice to share my enthusiasm for mud and to get some help with the work. It is very nearly finished. The roof is on and the walls are nearly all plastered. Hurray!

I am painting an old iron bedstead which I will put down in the studio for guests. Isabella and I slept down there last weekend. It was great, even though we were only on a thin mattress on the floor. We had Bonnie, of course. She was on guard a lot of the night, listening to different noises outside.

The potatoes are coming up and I have earthed up some and mulched some with old straw, to see how that works.

The chickens spent a few days getting into the vege garden and making a right old boorach of my compost heap and newly planted tomato plants.... grrr, but I have closed the holes and hope they forget all about that lovely place....

Easter Egg Painting

It has taken a few weeks for my wrist to recover, and also a nasty flu which laid me low for a few days... And now it is suddenly HOT!

The potatoes have finally emerged and I have earthed some of them up. All the vege are looking rather good. I am in the throws of trying to set up a 'drip tape' irrigation system, but I need to go down to the garden with the drill and make holes in black pipe... I will do it today!...

The studio is the perfect temperature always... When it's cool and windy, it feels warm, around 15 degrees, but when it is hot it has remained steady at 20, which is lovely. Isabella and I decorated some eggs in the studio yesterday, using crepe paper dye and wax.

Green Hands!

Cuckoo!

The Studio

Finally, the compost loo is beginning to take shape. Now I just have to put on a roof. I thought to use old clay roof tiles as we have a few left from what was a ruin (which is now our tin-roofed shack). They work really well and are easy to put up. No need for insulation or ventilation in this little room as it will be cool and airy anyway. Just have to fix a few rafters and ripas.

I am beginning to pave the front bit with flat stones that I find on my walks and when I am digging in the garden. There are quite a lot in one part of the garden which must have been the floor of a house a long time ago. I find it very humbling when I dig through old foundations, to find so little left of the previous dwellers. The odd bit of broken clay pot and little else. No old shoes, or plastic anything.

I have planted a couple of vines and a scented jasmine-type climber beside the poles in the hope they will grow and create beautiful shade in the summer, and where I have been digging the clay for the building there is a hole which I have decided will become a small pond. I hope the sun will reflect off the water and shine onto the walls of the studio.

Unfortunately, it started to rain yesterday, while I was still in bed, and the sound of it drove me down to the site to cover the new walls in some plastic. In my pijamas and rubber cloggy things. I slipped. Did something very painful to my left wrist. I managed to stagger back up to the house and be rather pathetic. So no work for a few days. It stopped raining soon after I got back up, and it always sounds worse than it is on the tin roof.... It's not easy being patient. I can't even crochet! Or drive!!

I am glad for a bit of rain as I have already begun watering the young plants and mulching with straw. There has been a very drying, cold wind for a long time, but now all the fruit trees are bursting into flower and the birds are getting busy. I have been giving the fruit trees a bucket of well rotted compost each to give them strength. The home made compost is beautiful stuff. I just love this happy season of chaotic abundance.

The Shack

A little bit of Spring in the air

The winter seemed to last forever, this year. Always putting on coat and scarf AND gloves! But now, at last the days are warming up. The trees are beginning to blossom and the birds are going crazy. Who doesn't love Spring?
I have been quite busy building the compost loo and getting the garden going, planting more potatoes, and other stuff, away from the farm.

 I have got up to head height now and built in two bottle niches. I am plastering as I go, at least on the inside. It dries with a few thin cracks which I rub out while it is still soft. Love working with mud. Makes me feel so good!

I have been dabbling in oils and this was hard, trying to get all the whites and greys. But great to do. To get lost in form and colour.

Of course, the real thing is beautiful. Calendula and lavender from the garden.

 Last weekend I went with Laura and Olivia to Evora countryside to babysit while Laura did her doula thing. Olivia started to say my name... Bangy! Love it!

It's good to go and see a slightly different landscape and meet new people. It's great to come home to a very happy little dog!