Portugal permaculture

One a penny, two a penny

2009-04-10T10:03:00.000-07:00

Hot cross buns

Easter bonnet

2009-04-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

All stirred up...

2009-04-08T13:17:00.000-07:00

I'd been meaning to do a bio-dynamic preparation for the soil for some time and today was a favourable day for it, so we both stirred for an hour and then I sprayed the whole farm. It's a wonderful thing to do at the end of the day, helps you to remember what it's all about and to give something back. I know some think us bonkers, but those of you that saw my allotment in UK will know that whatever it is that I do works.....
For more information about bio-dynamic preparations and the method of check out http://www.biodynamic.org.uk/

Buttons and beach

2009-04-08T13:09:00.000-07:00

Finally visited the beach with some family, too cold for sunbathing but was wonderful all the same.
Also chanced upon a great haberdashery, hence the photo of buttons.......

Wildlife

2009-04-04T01:31:00.000-07:00

Spring has well and truly sprung......butterflies are everywhere on the quinta, some very small and beautiful and others rather grand like this swallowtail. We have also uncovered various snakes, not so keen myself but Rick likes to take pictures and identify them.
ps. first cuckoos of spring are here

Chicken run

2009-03-27T15:05:00.001-07:00

We let the chickens out everyday now and they love it, by lunch time they have made their way down to the meadows, where if given half the chance would eat all the plants I've planted (am in the process of making a gate out of bamboo from the river, to keep them out).
They are happily eating the green stuff we planted for them and it doesn't take much banging of tupperware to get them to follow me back up the hill for a tasty snack a bedtime story and sleep.

Blokey stuff, part four

2009-03-27T14:55:00.000-07:00

Various motorised vehicles as requested by some blokey followers

Wind up toy

2009-03-27T14:52:00.000-07:00

45 meters high and rather huge to be travelling around the mountain roads , but they have to get them up the mountain somehow and this is how

Blossom's got a goose

2009-03-27T14:50:00.001-07:00

We all miss Stanley especially Blossom so we bought her a new toy and some pigs ears....won't really make up for anything but might help...

Stanley 31st March, 1998-17th March, 2009

2009-03-18T01:40:00.000-07:00

Some of you will know how much our first dog Stanley meant to us, some of you who had never liked dogs fell in love with him. Everyone understood that he had a big heart and a gentle spirit. He had sadly deteriorated since arriving in Portugal, the blindness he managed to cope with the,the terraces he did not, he tumbled several times and whether or not the falls bought on osteoarthritis or it would have happened anyway is neither here nor there...he was old, he'd had a good innings and yesterday (Blossom's birthday) we called the vet out and we said goodbye to our dear beloved friend in our forest on the top of a mountain. A huge gust of wind came as he left us and we all felt that his enormous spirit had been lifted off towards the mountains. God Bless you Stan

The dark side

2009-03-14T12:43:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of what we call "the dark side", it's a piece of chestnut woodland that we own and George (the butcher of Benfeita) our neighbour suggested that if we wanted to fell the pines that were periodically falling over we needed to do it now as he's about to plant corn and didn't want the trees falling on his land or being felled onto his land.

Our local shopkeeper

2009-03-14T12:39:00.000-07:00

There is a shop in Benfeita, sort of...it doesn't sell much and is never open and the owners dogs chase away anyone that approaches the shop, however if they see you they'll open. I went the other day as they have a big sign outside displaying all sorts of delicious looking ice creams, we were hot and needed cooling down. I went inside and went to the freezer only to discover it was full of fish!

Hiving off, again......

2009-03-14T12:35:00.000-07:00

We'd stopped to talk to these people as they had a "honey for sale" sign outside their house and as they were outside Rick decided to talk to them about bees and where to get some. The old chap told Rick that he no longer kept bees and that he had no honey for sale or hives or equipment. Later that day on our way home we passed them again, this time they were all geared up for beekeeping.....either they were lying or we didn't understand properly......

Blokey stuff part three, licence to fish

2009-03-10T13:37:00.000-07:00

Cost of fishing licence €3.50, trout seen this year so far zero, motorcycle pix will follow shortly.......

Blokey stuff part two...

2009-03-09T14:41:00.000-07:00

Knife number two. Old piece of tool steel and chestnut burr handle. Chestnut from our own woodland

2 months and finally.....

2009-03-09T13:26:00.001-07:00

After two months (first pic taken in January, after clearing 12ft high weeds) we have very nearly finished hand-digging meadow two. I have started planting stuff out and erected lots of canes and pea netting. The potatoes will go in next week and we are also planting a lot of maize in the animal meadow. Meadow one (pics another time) has been designated animal meadow, and will eventually house the chickens and goat and maybe even a pig or two, meanwhile we'll grow crops there for them all to eat.

Rick has been busy clearing the woodland on what we call the dark side...there were a lot of downed pines and as he was felling the other day a very old chestnut blew down right in front of him, at that point he left the woodland as the winds had really picked up. Now that we're ready for planting he can go back to the woods and mess about with his chainsaw and axes.

The day of the first egg

2009-03-09T12:25:00.000-07:00

Hurrah, we finally have our first egg, we knew it wouldn't be long as some friends of ours got their chickens a couple of weeks before us and their's started laying 2 weeks ago.

The chucks seem to be getting very fat (probably all that pasta and rice I keep giving them), and very tame too, the dogs are slowly learning to leave them alone, Stanley our blind dog still has a go but fortunately has not made contact. Must be hard for the dogs doing what was once applauded (flushing pheasants) to being scolded for flushing chickens...they'll learn.

Carnival

2009-02-24T13:11:00.000-08:00

Term used to describe public revelling that includes music, dance or performance. It is characterized mainly by the elaborate costumes that are created specifically for it. In countries where the Roman Catholic tradition is dominant, carnival denotes a period of variable duration that ends at midnight before Ash Wednesday, although in some localities the latter day can also be included. In these contexts, therefore, it is a specific calendrical event generally associated with forthcoming Lent. It is often referred to with the French Mardi Gras, which properly applies to only Shrove Tuesday. The term has, however, become used more generally; it may entail demonstrating, occasionally with explicit, if satirical, political overtones. It also denotes indoor partying and feasting of the kind arranged by community organizations or private individuals. The English equivalent of carnival as an annual event, Shrovetide, seems to be disappearing with the decline of the activities customarily connected with the period in the popular culture of the British Isles.

Something is happening

2009-02-22T11:02:00.000-08:00

Bought some rhubarb crowns with us from UK, was told that it wouldn't grow, looks like it's growing to me.....
Also got given some wild watercress which is also doing just fine and goes very nicely in our sandwiches.
We're about to move again and have been heaving stuff (with some help) over to the new rental. Rather wonderfully the new landlord and landlady and their nephew all came out to help carry everything up the 59 steps to the rental and helped move our enormous settee in to the living room, which now takes up all the space!!
Will try to update blog this week, but if I don't it's because we're too busy. All of you who are followers and haven't emailed us with your addresses (you know who you are), please do so as we would love to hear from you. Same goes to anyone else that's following but not a follower, drop us some news.........

Blokey stuff

2009-02-22T10:57:00.000-08:00

For those of you that remember, Rick was making a knife in the UK, he has finally finished it (and is starting another). He made the handle out of a piece of bog oak from Pinmill. It has a four inch flat ground, single bevel (sp.) blade and was made from an old file

Hiving off......

2009-02-22T10:53:00.000-08:00

Rick found these ancient bee hives on our next door neighbours land. They are made out of cork oak, fairly primitive but they must have done the job. We're not sure how old they are and after asking the neighbour to the neighbour he didn't know either. Rick would like to make some (obviously!)

Spring is in the air

2009-02-17T12:04:00.000-08:00

Some flowers and a chicken!

Roly poly tunnel

2009-02-17T11:53:00.000-08:00

We started putting up the polytunnel a couple of weeks ago (in the pouring rain), Daniela came to stay and helped (our first unofficial woofer)....I went away for a week and Rick made a brilliant bench for the tunnel out of a couple of old pallets and an oak beam and continued to construct the door frames from small pines that he felled at christmas, today the doors were hung and because it was a leaf day I planted two beds either side of the east entrance (herbs, rocket and spinach). We've finally burnt some stuff and let the chickens out, feel like we're really getting a lot done now the weather has turned and get a full days work in.

Happy Valentines...

2009-02-14T05:40:00.000-08:00

Had the first and probably last hack of the year today in glorious sunshine.
Having a ride today has reminded me of how much I love horse riding, especially in the english countryside, pockets of snow still lying around, signs of spring everywhere and beautiful sunshine. Had a couple of lengthy trots and a couple of slightly out of control canters and then a couple of controlled canters, hadn't ridden Pablo much so was great to practice some horsey skills on him (I'm in the middle), Julia on Billy on right and Sophie on her pony Lucky. Back to Portugal tomorrow and hopefully more farmy pictures on Monday....

Administrator away....

2009-02-10T10:08:00.000-08:00

Apologies for not updating, the administrator is away in depressing UK.
Can't wait to get back to my new reality and get planting..hopefully Rick will have dug a bit more and finished putting the polytunnel up, doors an' all.

Monday at the office

2009-02-02T12:47:00.000-08:00

The sun came out today and we finally had a bonfire, still need to get rid of a lot more stuff, but it's a start.
Rick started putting up the poly tunnel and wished that we had numbered the parts, it's not done but he thinks he's figured it out, maybe by the end of the week the plastic will be on.
We also let the chickens out for the first time, mostly as a test run, they were a bit tentative but finally left the coup, getting them back wasn't so easy, tried shaking food in can and making silly noises, resorted to picking them up in the end and throwing them back in their house.
We know you've all had snow in UK and that the country has shut down, what a surprise. We passed a landslide today and there were 2 men and a bulldozer, a couple of signs on the road, that was it, imagine the fuss if it had been anywhere in UK........those sorts of things make us laugh and thank god things aren't like that here, it would spoil everything.....

It's raining it's pouring.....

2009-01-29T02:16:00.000-08:00

No work, no news, no pictures......hasn't stopped raining for days and looks set to continue until 4/5 February. We're all fed up, can't get anything done. Rick has made some temporary screens for the chicken house to see if being warmer will make them lay, they definitely seem different and are bathing in their sawdust bed and seem more aggressive towards each other.....lets hope it means eggs on way.

Alternative modes of transport

2009-01-24T11:31:00.000-08:00

Sorry for absence but the truck has been off road for a minor repair and it rained a lot and I had a birthday!!
Had a wonderful day with our new friends, eating and drinking and then more of the same in the evening with extra friends and homemade pizza's, huge cake, champagne (thanx Daniela) and 78's.....
My friends gave me an electric blanket, probably to shut me up, great idea and was lovely first night, but we've had power cuts since then, looking forward to using it again, hopefully tonight if power stays on.
Started taking pictures of the kinds of transport people use here and our neigbours came up the valley today so snuck a picture in, delightful people, they are also some of the people we bought our land from, they have a new dog who seems very keen on blossom but wasn't allowed out to play.

4 seasons in one day, well alot of cold anyway.......

2009-01-21T10:41:00.000-08:00

Yesterday there was snow; hail; rain; thunder; lightning and sleet .
Even the Serra Lousa's were covered in snow (look it up if you don't know about them), which is quite unusual. we tried to work on the land but gave up in the end as too cold and wet.......and there was me thinking spring was round the corner......

a tree

2009-01-17T10:52:00.000-08:00

As this is the time of year for planting trees esp. fruit trees, we just can't resist planting more. They are so cheap and we have a lot of space, so eh.........
However, I know the soil is dry and not particularly fertile so I went off in search of poo.......came across a donkey sanctuary near to where we ware renting. I called them and asked and they said yes, we could have as much poo as we wanted..........so, the trees are in, and with more on the way....well it would seem rude not to use all the manure.

Well, well, well

2009-01-17T10:41:00.000-08:00

Although water is not an issue at the moment it will be later in the year and as i lie awake at night listening to the thoughts in my head ( and Rick snoring!), I get to thinking about all sorts. This week as the rain has been lashing down, I've been thinking about water, where is it all going and how can we have some.
We got talking about it and I decided to investigate the next day, I went off wondering up to the meadow above our first meadow and there it was, overflowing in an unused tank, I had a look and figured that there must have been a system, probably a long time ago, that allowed us to have this water as well as our neighbour. I went back to our land, following the overgrown gulley's and discovered our tank (empty) and ancient water mine.
Spent about two hours removing vegetation, quite rank and primordial, kept expecting to see toads leaping out from the wet walls. I asked Rick to come and help me, showed him what I had discovered and asked him to dig out old, overgrown trenches, with a bit of jiggery pokery and some moving of slates, we opened the flood gates and amazingly, it all worked. We had to shut it off before we left as we would have flooded our land overnight, but at least we know how it all works. Now we just need to discuss this with our neighbour, as we were sure we were breaking about 26 by-laws. But first we need to find out who our neighbour is........mmmmm

Saturday morning chores

2009-01-17T10:23:00.000-08:00

The thing we love the most about where we are living is the contrast between modern life and the "old ways", this photo sums it up completely. The bundle on this old lady's head is chicken bedding and weighs nothing. A car is useless for this job, she has come down from the mountain on a tiny track, wide enough for a donkey, that's it.
These scenes are around every corner and are the most humbling, if you were feeling even remotely sorry for yourself you'd soon stop. It's impossible to continue in our usual westernised states of mind and not start feeling faintly ridiculous for having our thoughts, it stops you dead in your tracks, stops you from wanting to rush through your life filling it up with meaningless crap. Taking the time to enjoy the small things and feel grateful for what we have is something I am finding easier to do here as there are less distractions and lots of reminders........

Mavis, one, two, three and four

2009-01-11T10:38:00.000-08:00

We are now the proud owners of our first chickens, we've called them all Mavis, or in Rick's case Old Mave!
They seem to be in good health and are quiet and friendly to each other.
Hopefully they will start producing eggs soon, better had or they'll be in the pot!

Still very cold here at nights, frost all over land by the time we arrive in the mornings, usually about 11ish, but once the sun hits us very warm, infact we get so warm we end up taking off most of our fleeces (i'm wearing three at the moment and three pairs of socks!). Managed to have several bonfires to get rid of vine prunings and Rick has finally finished brushcutting the meadows. Hoping to get a local to rotavate 2 of the meadows this coming weekend. We have decided to keep the top meadow for growing animal feeds and I have already planted out 40 brassica type plants for the chickens, bought them in a bundle at the local market for 4 euros, they are about a foot tall. Rick watched them coming back to life this morning as the sun heated them up.

Our neighbour came to the land today and has advised that I take more off the vines than I had, so having thought I'd finished, I now have to go back and do them again......live and learn.

Rick has been clearing out one of the outuildings for our goat.........we think we've ordered one from the local butcher and we think he understands that we want it to be alive.............should be interesting.

Language slowly coming along, the Portuguese speak so fast and rarely finish sentences and mumble alot so makes for interesting conversations.........I just stand and smile and say yes alot and then they go away and I feel like a complete idiot! oh well.

Cold and frosty

2009-01-09T10:26:00.000-08:00

You think it's cold where you are.......
Brrrrrrrrrr...........
Last time it was this cold in Portugal was 1932!! apparently people are dying and not coping at all.
Working hard on the land helps keeps us warm and when the sun is out which has been most of the week, it's quite warm, as soon as sun disappears over the mountain, then you feel it.
The rental still remains quite possibly the coldest house I have ever lived in, we're back to two hot water bottles a night again, thought we'd seen the back of that one, oh well, lets hope spring is round the corner.

Three Kings Day and potions

2009-01-06T14:39:00.000-08:00

Today was three kings day and the day for mixing my bio-dynamic potion (gold, frankincense and myrrh) for spraying the boundary of our farm, the whole thing took nearly 3 hours, will let you and the Bio-Dynamic Association (www.biodynamic.org.uk) know how it goes, supposed to keep all good stuff in and bad stuff out (hopefully will include local predators!), the eagle watched us from above as we did it, cool.........

Tuesday afternoon rush hour traffic jam

2009-01-06T14:35:00.000-08:00

Forget health and safety and closing roads down and putting traffic lights in and wearing safety equipment and fifteen men standing around talking about how to cut the tree down, this is how they do it here, chop it down, leave it lying across the road, chainsaw it up and push it out the way, took about 15 minutes and nobody got cross, all quite civilised really, and not a high-vis jacket in site.

hot springs

2009-01-06T14:34:00.001-08:00

We've had alot of rain, which is good, January is the month of rain, but today it was sunny and warm and finally got some washing done and dry. Also visited some hot springs, apparently very healing for shoulders, arthritis, rheumatism etc. we'll be visiting as soon as warmer outside

Grapes of wrath

2009-01-04T10:53:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to all who read my ramblings.........

The locals in Benfeita put on a yearly service and lunch for all new "estrangeiros", fairly unique initiative we are told. One that we were honoured to be invited to. Never sat through a catholic mass, apart from the church being absolutely freezing, it was very humbling, even with all the sitting and standing, standing sitting, copying the locals and not really knowing what the heck was going on. At the end I was dragged out from my pew by a very forceful old lady, to kiss the baby's head....(well plastic doll actually) and then we all went back to local village hall for enormous amounts of food and wine. The Portuguese like to play a game with their tables which Sandy calls hide the tablecloth. You will bever see so much food on a table anywhere in the world, incredible. Some of the older ladies from the community sang local folk songs and one chap sang some Fado. I finally met one of the old ladies who shouts "boa dia/tarde" at me from the road when I am working on the land, hopefully she'll become a good friend.

Whilst Rick has been clearing yet more land of weeds, mint, fennel etc. I have been tackling the grapes, which have to be pruned before end January. We're guessing the land hasn't been properly worked for some years. The grape vines had spread up to 4-5 metres. Totally overwhelming and quite dangerous. As I slowly work out what is coming from where, I cut and pull, often being whipped in the face by the vine or the thing the vine is attached to, often brambles. I'll be happy when I've finished. There are rows and rows of them, all scattered around the meadows, terraces and across the river (haven't worked out how to do them yet, need waders and harness!).

Liquid Gold

2008-12-27T13:08:00.000-08:00

After almost two whole weeks of continuous picking (only short days tho', maybe 4-5 hours a day) we took our olives to the local lagar. We used a lagar that Rick's new barber recommended and discovered that people from miles around use this lagar because the olive oil it produces is better than the lagars with newer machinery .............

we had our sacks weighed, 125 kilos in total, and although we didn't have enough for an individual pressing, we did come away with 15.5 litres of olive oil!

Several local Portuguese people came over to look at our olives and commented on how amazing they looked (even though they were covered in leaves and stuff - the olives that is not the locals!!).

We have bottled all and feel that despite there being a million other jobs to do, this job has been a job well done and worth doing..........

Christmas Day

2008-12-25T10:59:00.000-08:00

Happy Christmas

We visited Portugal's highest village today with our Neighbour Lia and her dog Jack, and then went on to beautiful lake in the Estrella mountain range, glorious sunny day.

Skipped the usual roast turkey madness and ate clementines and some chocolate money!!

Sarah

Clearing the land

2008-12-18T01:35:00.000-08:00

We are slowly making some progress on the land (compare with photo "some of what we bought", you'll have to look very closely to see difference!.

As Rick harvests olives, i'm pruning trees and generally tidying up. There are a lot of brambles everywhere and my gardening gloves are not man enough for the job. They don't sell gardening gloves for women here (obviously). My hands are full of thorns and are very sore, thank god I bought the Sudocrem with me.

I found our first creature yesterday, a great big toad living in one of the terrace walls, Rick tried to make me kiss it, I naturally didn't............

More of the same today and more fruit tree planting

Making our rental warmer

2008-12-16T11:22:00.000-08:00

We bought a fantastic wood burning stove with us from UK, but they don't work well without a register plate, so after several days of burning a lot of wood and not feeling very warm (it's bloody cold here, and wet), Rick decided to find piece of sheet steel to make a register plate, easy you might think.

Several kilometers and a few hours later, we did find a guy and he cut us a piece to size, Rick spent some time bashing the hell out of it (dressing it to shape!) and now we have a functioning stove and are a bit warmer. Rick is also not having to find and cut and chop quite so much wood.

Harvesting our olives

2008-12-16T10:58:00.000-08:00

We know we're a bit late, but they're just hanging there asking to be picked so we are. The Lagars are still open so we'll crack on.

Today was the first fruit day in the bio-dynamic calender, so after alot of digging, we have decided to convert one of the terraces near the house in to an orchard and top fruit garden. We planted nectarine, cherry and walnut, gooseberry, redcurrant, blackcurrant, raspberry and strawberry. We pruned all the olives on that terrace and had a great fire. Tomorrow it's back to olive picking and we'll pick until either there are no more olives or the lagar is closed, whichever comes first.

We´ve arrived

2008-12-09T11:37:00.000-08:00

Journey from Colchester to Plymouth was uneventful - great.
Passport control, uneventful and the dogs and cat didn´t get scanned, glad I didn´t go through the recommended rigmoral of getting a million rabies jabs and blood tests done, infact they haven´t been checked once ......

The boat trip was OK, "Seasick Rick" felt pretty sick and only wanted to eat oranges or Haribo Sour mix, got the latter as no oranges on board, I think he thought he might get scurvy!
I on the other hand had a wonderful french meal for one, no really, it was good and some wine. The boat was incredibly hot which didn´t help with the sea sickness.

The dogs kennels were barbaric and they didn´t go for a pee or poo for 24 hours, can´t say I blame them, the toilet facilities were very poor. Somehow they managed to survive, i have never seen Stanley piss for so long when we finally got them to beach in Santander.

Had yet another uneventful journey through Spain ( possibly the bleakest country I have ever been to, yes, even bleaker than Scotland!). Stayed in fantastic hotel by motorway just outside Valladolid called El Montico (if you´re ever passing, pop in!), you could smoke everywhere (hurrah!), they let us put the animals in the room and walk them through they´re very busy and posh lobby!. Live music in the bar in the evening and a slap up meal, probably last one for a while.

Anyway, back to now...

We have been harvesting our olives, with little information but a lot of energy, watching what the locals do. I´ve also been digging so I can get in some fruit bushes in.
We have made some new friends, been to a car boot sale; went to church for St Nicolas day; bought a phone; chopped a lot of wood; had a meeting with the architect.
Our first week has been hectic and willprobably remain that way. Still feels like we are on holiday, even though we are working hard. Not missing anything...........

A few days left

2008-11-23T13:34:00.000-08:00

A lot of boxes have been taped together and filled with our possessions,

a lot of people have been visited and a lot of cake eaten,

we've had a proper Christmas dinner and lots of curries and fish and chips......

it snowed

We're finally leaving

2008-09-29T14:37:00.000-07:00

After a lot of soul searching and house hunting, we've finally found our next place to be. We've sweated about the apparent lack of legal papers available for our land, found a very tenacious solicitor who made it possible for us to buy it and we've signed on quite a lot of dotted lines. In two months time we'll be leaving England with our dogs and cat and some accumultaed stuff (mostly useful) and a truck full of skills.

I'll keep updating as and when