All Quiet on the Western Front

It's been a time of contemplation.

I have moved out of my lovely cob house and back up into the 'shack'. I guess I like change. Also, it's nice to have a break from that hill, and so lovely at the top! The views are captivating.

I intend to rent out the cob house but meanwhile I have two lovely German girls helping me finish the roof and weed the strawberry patch. The couch grass roots go on the roof. Permaulture in action. (Stacking functions)

R is in UK working and I feel tired of farming on my own, so I am letting ideas and opportunities rise up to the surface.

I bought myself a rigid heddle loom and am enjoying learning how to use it. I am making stuff using hand spun wool. It is very satisfying work.

The olive grove has been ploughed for pasture.

I love this curve of land.

All the fields have been ploughed and lots of cistus cut and burnt. The land looks very manicured for the moment, with the corduroy red-brown earth and the vivid green edges where the grass has grown after the baking heat of summer has dissipated. I sat on a fallen bough of a cork oak yesterday and listened in the stillness of the afternoon to acorns falling all around me.

A new year is just around the corner. Best wishes to all.

Rain, finally!

We got the tail end of a couple of hurricanes in the Atlantic. Nothing damaged, but quite a good bit of rain. We are all blinking and feeling strange. Shoes and socks, jeans and jerseys, etc.

My house is dry inside. Yeah! I still haven't finished the roof extensions but it works fine. I am hoping to get some volunteers to help me do the work next week.

Last week I took a short trip up north to a place near Tabua, Coimbra area. It was interesting to see how steep the hills are and how covered in (burnt) eucalyptus they are. It is so sad. It should be a criminal offence to plant those trees, plus the false mimosa which is spreading like a plague.

I stayed with a family who are starting up a permaculture forest. I loved their enthusiasm and energy. I feel a bit jaded, myself. Farming and 'the good life' is a lot of work, especially if you live on a steep hillside with no access to the lower slopes. Still, it is good exercise.

The chestnuts are ripe and big. Time to make that dangerous chestnut pudding. Chocolate, chestnuts and cream...

Also, it will soon be time for fires inside. I am without a stove at the moment but feel I will soon be on the case. I took out my clay fireplace as it was not working. I feel tempted to make a new one but I do have a very good Jotul to put in so I may skip the clay bit.

The figs always get ripe just when the weather goes wet. So there are a lot of soggy figs around, and dizzy, slow wasps feeding themselves up for the winter.

Sweat September

There is nothing sweet about the heat.
38 degrees C outside, I take shelter in my house, grateful for the thick mud walls that keep that intensity out.
The beginning of the month it felt good, the promise of autumn, but now the slanting sun reaches in and burns us all.
I think I'll just go to the beach and enjoy the cold sea.
I think about that a lot.
I have been trying to occupy my time inside, but it isn't always easy.
I have carved some crochet hooks.

I have read some fat books.
I have watched a lot of you tube videos.
I have finished the patch of new floor and waxed it.
The cats lay like flat bits of fur, trying to stay cool.
 

Endless blue sky and dry, brown grass and dust.
Each sentence is a paragraph.

Sweet September

The bliss of gentle heat and occasional clouds and morning mists. The fig trees are full of ripening fruit as their leaves begin to dry and fall. I love the rustling sound of them in a breeze.

I have pulled out most of the tomato plants, etc as it was too pathetic to bear looking at! I have made perhaps two litres of tomato pure from three months of irrigation. Shameful...

The cobbing I was doing has been stopped. In fact, now it must be said that I wasn't building anything. It took a couple of days and a few hardy females (and one good man) to demolish the building and make it disappear. We won't talk about that anymore, except to say that cob is tough. The children will have a lovely playground, that is enough.

Our area is changing, as I suppose many other parts of the world are. New people move here to have a better life, bringing with them their dreams and aspirations. I feel a bit of a reactionary, reluctant to embrace the changes that are bound to happen. I believe in permaculture and helping this beautiful part of the world to resist desertification, both in land and people. The original Alentejanos survived by hard work and a deep knowledge of their land. We can learn a lot from them, but the dependency on artificial fertilizers and weed killers as the modern way to farm must be stopped the world over. I hope that these young energetic people can show how it is possible.

The Shop Window Event, 'Montras', was a great success and today we will all go and picnic in the village square, bringing food from our homes, to celebrate and to finish the month long exhibition of local artists' work.

How dry the landscape is.

I have been working on my house, extending the roof overhang and making cob eaves under it. Very tricky up a ladder. I only do a bit at a time as it is very tiring. I have to remember that I can take my time. Patience.

August - The month of searing heat. It is 35 degrees outside. Too hot to do anything physical and practical. I stay indoors, reading, cooking, sleeping.

I went to Cercal to do the laundry because my washing machine is not working. There is a laundrette there! I sat in the covered deck of the Pastelaria Inacio, drinking freshly squeezed orange juice, feeling the sweat run down my spine. It's not pleasant. Bonnie lay on the wooden floor among the old flakes of previous pastel de natas, panting. I watched as people came and sat and looked at their phones, got out their computers. One rather truculent teenager sat next to her parents painting her nails. Is it the heat or is it the time of our life when everyone seems bored? Or is it a reflection of my own sentiment?

I love my house. I love my family. I love my life. But... I think of doing things and the heat melts my enthusiasm.

I have been helping a group of parents to build a round cob building in S Luis. It is to become a play group. I love the work and how it is progressing. I love the way cob allows people of all ages and dispositions to join in. I also enjoy watching men think they know better.

I am hoping to find some bales of straw to put on my roof, for insulation. The house has held up well to the heat, remaining 26 degrees when it is 35/40 outside. That is pretty good. It feels like a fridge when you come in. The cats and dog like to lie on the cool earthen floor.

The vegetable garden is a sorry sight. A few shrunken tomatoes struggle through their mulch. The strawberries keep on coming but now they are smaller. A few midget aubergines glint from the straw. Next year, I tell myself, I will make the vege garden in a shady place and use more compost and manure.

This time last year

Early morning

I haven't been taking many photos recently. In my next post I will put up some photos of the village decorated with meters of bunting that we all made. It looks so colourful and fluttery, with dancing shadows on the ground.

Meanwhile, I lurk in the shadows, waiting for the sun to loose it's teeth, and dream of building/digging a small pool. Oh, but the work....

Simply Hot

New House Mates

 

I never had cats before these two sisters came to live with me. They are fun. They love to crawl under carpets, climb into bags, climb up the cob walls and chase each other at great speed through the house.

Family Fun

I love that my stairs are good for sitting on.

Summer Landscape

 The land has got that dry brown summer look. We had a few days of scorching weather last week. Scary. My heart goes out to the people of Monchique who have suffered from the huge, fierce fires.

Polishing Earthen floor

I finally found the strength to do the earthen floor and am now in the process of polishing it. I painted it with the red earth from the top of the hill and now as the polish goes on it is beginning to look like terra cotta. Lovely, even though it is full of CAT foot prints....

Bonnie is not thrilled with the new arrivals but tolerates them.

Velvet June

Summer has been switched on. Suddenly. Finally. The temperature has been very pleasant. The warm wind a friend visiting described as being like velvet. Exactly.

I did some of the wood around the edge of the house. It looks so much better. I will need help to do the west side as it is quite high up and I don't have enough hands, to hold the ladder, hold the wood, hold the drill and the screws, etc.

I also made the south bit of roof over-hang more and built a balcony. Cute! I have two kittens and they love to run about on the balcony and the grass roof.

I have started on the kitchen floor. It is going on quite well. Just 2 cm of cob. In this weather it is drying just right. not too fast and not too slow.

I was doing a bit of burnishing with a beach pebble in the evening and found a snake hissing and threatening in a corner, so I decided to stop for the night and hope it would go away. It did. The kittens were fascinated by it.

Laura and Isabella and Sarah came to visit and we went to see the neighbour's horse and foal. Such a pretty one.

There are foot prints on the new floor, of course!