,The Dome is built!

Yes! the good news is that we finished building the earth bag dome today.  Nuno came with Isabella and he filled buckets with earth and passed them up to me and we finished it by midday.  Yipee.  Now I just have to cover it in more earth.

Slow progress - Patience required

 Monica's gravel garden.

A nice cool dip in the water... In my dreams...

It's been too hot to work during the day.  It feels as though the sun is melting my bones.... But today we went up at six in the evening and did three hours of earth bagging and got a row done in the blissful coolness of evening.  The sunset on the horizon and just a hint of mosquito near the end.

I have been trying to learn more about permaculture via the internet.  Rather addictive.  Some good videos on Utube.  I realize that I must do more mulching and even make shade for the plants as it is very windy and sunny on the hill.  I do not want to be a slave to the hose pipe (nor have to pay big water bills) and after reading Soloman's book on low irrigation gardening, I know it is possible to grow stuff like he describes.  Just have to get out of the habit of planting eveything so close together  and give them some ground cover.  Also, a good drenching every few days or weeks is better than dribbles every day.

Meanwhile, back in the village, Laura and Nuno have got engaged and we are all thrilled.  Laura and Isabella are getting very excited,  planning the dress and the do.  They're going to get married next June, so there will be no excuse for anyone saying that they can't come over from UK, or any other part of the globe.

Last weekend we (Laura, Isabella and I) went to Monica and Carlos' Open day and had fun making stick dollies and I did a bit of spinning.  Monica has made the garden beautiful and Carlos has made the house beautiful.  Good job.

Flights of fancy and landing with a thump

 This is where we should hang out drinking cold shandy.... At Quebramar in Milfontes.
Instead we are slogging away at the earthbags...

And here is a picture of Isabella and her classmates with their teacher, Ana, at their end of year party.

I got so excited last week over building a bigger better bender... I could hardly sleep.  And as soon as I had time I started to dig a level site and then create the amazing cob bender.  First of all I had to downsize as the steel rebar was too bendy to make it the size I had imagined.  That was a bit of a blow...  Then I got excited by the new shape, like a spider, and covered the top in chicken wire and then cob.  All well.  The next day it had dried to a fine biscuit and looked amazing.  So I began to do more.   It began to sag, and then the wind began to blow it over to one side.  Darn!  The rebar is just not up for what I want it to do.   So I had to admit defeat and take off the still wet cob.  It bounced back into shape and I have left it there.  I will concentrate on the earthbag dome for the next few days.  It is nearly finished.  I will have somewhere to live on our land, one day.  I must be patient.  Meanwhile.... It is too hot to do anything.
R has made a very comfortable and good looking chair for sitting around outside.  He is making another one  so we can sit in the shade and pant.  Over 35 degrees in the shade.

There's more to life than earth bags...

We have been busy doing the earth bags for quite some time, and to tell the truth I got a little sick of it!  My right hand decided to get sore, so eventually we had to stop for a few days.  Yes!  It is so nice to do other things.  The dome is now over one and a half meters high and we are ready to put in the door.  We have covered the outside of the building with black shade netting as the sun will destroy the fabric of the sacks.

I've been dying to play with the mud and experiment with cob, so the other day I sieved some earth and then mixed it with straw and put it on some chicken wire to see if it sticks.  It did!  It feels lovely to work with.  I then made up some more and started to fill in the gaps between the earth bags.  It sticks there,  too.  So I got very excited and have decided to make a bigger bender out of ferro and chicken wire, and then cover it in cob.  I hope to enrole some girlfriends to help cover it.  Then we can camp on the land in style.  It's ok in my little bubble tent, but crawing out (over the dog) in the middle of the night... well, I'd rather not.

 I have been to the beach once of twice when I can drag myself away from our exciting project.

Well, there's more to life in Alentejo than earthbags and benders, and last Friday I went to see Isabella perform on her last day at nursery school before the summer holidays.  The school at Castelao has won prizes for it's various good things.  One of them being the vegetable garden they have made, which they actually made money from selling the produce, to buy toys and books.  Pretty cool I think.  And it involves the parents and grandparents.  It's a great community and the teacher, Anna, is full of good ideas and love for her work.  I hope she gets reposted to Castelao, but the system isn't like that.  They get sent to wherever, usually a different school every year.  Madness.  Anyway, the parents and guardians and fairy godmothers all prvided cakes and sandwiches and crisps and juice. The table was groaning, and later so was my stomach!

The weather has been kind.  A cool breeze keeps us fresh, even though it's hot and clear skies.  When I hear of the weather that is going on in Britain I feel a bit smug.  Sorry folks.  It must be grim to have it so wet.  But perhaps it's not as bad as we hear.

Getting too hot to work...

37 degrees today.
We are making progress on the dome, but it is slow, due to the heat and  having other things to do.

I did a whole row of earth bagging by my self one day.  It was slow, but not too hard.  I realised I can fill the bags much more quickly using the black rubbery builder's buckets.  That was very satisfying.  Bim and Billy helped me do a row the next day and between us we did a row in two hours (instead of five).  It's a great shame they are going back to Bristol!  The building is now over a meter high and as solid as a rock.

One of the guavas I grew from seed has lots of buds and flowers on it.  I wonder if they self pollinate.

We went to Pega das Pias on Friday.  It's so lovely to sit in the shade of the big poplar trees by the edge of the water and watch the blue damsel flies and dragon flies hovering over the surface.  When swimming up the cool sweet water we saw some large turtles sunbathing on the rocks, and small leaves floated on the water like boats. A group of women from Tamera sat in another shady bit and one had a two month old baby, still curled up and so fresh and wonderful!  It's such a precious time as a new mum, when you have good supportive friends around you
It's the season of the popular saints.  Every village and town has some kind of party and procession to celebrate their saint, and some villages are decorated with paper flowers.  Sao Teotonio is usually outstandingly lovely and well worth a visit.
The fields are being harvested at the moment.  Big rumbling machines are turning the hills to straw corduroy!  I would like to get some straw for mulch as it works very well.
I ate a strawberry from the garden that was so sweet and hot from the sun that it tasted just like jam!  The cherry tomatoes are beginning to show through the green foliage, little red beacons.
Having water on tap is wonderful.  All the plants are appreciating it.

Village life (and death) and other random acts

Recently, after the church bell rings out nine times, telling us it's nine o'clock, the bells continue.  Another funeral.  They seem to happen in batches.  Groups of people dressed in black walk up to the church, carrying flowers.

 R is very good at using the market.  He came back with a pineapple and some carapao, and spinach and coriander.  Shopping locally is good for everyone.  Less fuel wasted and local shops stay open, and people walk, and talk to each other.
We sit upstairs in our sunny room and look out over the goats on the hill, and the rooftops of our neighbours, and feel the heat of the day beginning.  Yes, summer is a coming in.  The hills are beginning to turn brown and dust rises up on the tracks. 
Today, up at the land, we noticed smoke in a valley south of us.  A helicopter vaiantly doused it over and over again.  A siren was heard in the distance.  The bombeiros on their way.  This is the season when we all have to be vigilant and careful.  A dropped cigarette could mean disaster.
I had a very satisfying day moving the compost heap.  First I had to decide where to move it to.  It was a bit too close to the bender and the earthbag building site.  Wafts of rotting fruit and vege were beginning to impinge.  So I carted it off to the bottom of the garden, where all good compost heaps should be.  I made the heap by piling old rafters up in logcabin pattern and then fill it with twigs then straw, then all the rest including more straw and horse shit.  It's looking really good.  I used a wheelbarrow load of the black gold for a patch of ground that I had just cleared of potatoes.
Later, after the intense heat of the day eased, we did a bit more of the earth bagging.  We are now on the fith row.  I will soon need a ladder to get up on the wall.
Finally, I am thinking about design.  Maybe I should/could actually design the garden in a permaculture way.
It is my habit to just do something and then do something else and stick a bit of this here and then a bit of that there.  Random acts. 

The Earth Bag Dome Begins To Take Shape

We have done two rows of earth bags.  They are filled with a mixture of lime and earth, mixed in a wheelbarrow and then shovelled into the bags.  It's a bit like knitting, in that when you've started it's hard to stop. 'Just one more row'.  The big wooden bit is a form for where the door will go.

We have also got water and electricity.  Bim and Billy have been helping by digging a trench.  Hot work. Yesterday we could water the garden without having to choose which ones were the lucky ones, every plant could have some :).  Even have a stand pipe.
And finally, a big yellow lily has opened up near the compost loo.  Happy days.