10th June CASTELO BRANCO

We really should have taken the day off! When we got to the farm neither of us could contemplate digging up a floor, we had no energy; so we decided to do some ‘light’ chores and definitely take tomorrow off.

First off we put down the rat bait; I feel really mean killing them but there’s no way we can live with them so close to our house – so they’ve got to go. I did look up (on my Kindle) humane methods of deterring rats but there isn’t really anything else; dogs and cats are no kinder, they still die (and we can’t have animals until we come back from the UK and we want rid of the rats now).

Next Brett took down the fence running along the drive to the ‘house’; it’s good getting rid of all the old fences as it means we’ll be starting with a blank canvas when we come to put up our own fencing and we won’t be influenced by what’s already here. Meantime I cleared up another of Mr Luis’s rubbish areas; it’s right at the entrance to the farm and rather an eyesore. There was a mass of plastic that disintegrated into little pieces whenever I tried to pick it up; who says that plastic takes years to decay? Obviously the sunlight has caused the plastic to break down (plastic bags used to do the same in the polytunnel). There was also baler twine, it’s all over the farm, kitchen foil, drink cans and piles of half burnt wood. It all looks much neater now.

On the field side of the fence, not the drive side, Mr Luis had cut down masses of broom, and of course he had just left it where it was – another blot on the landscape! It needs to be burnt, but our bonfire is quite a way from the broom and it would take forever dragging it/wheeling it in a wheelbarrow; then I had a brilliant idea – the Ute, after all it was bought as a farm vehicle. It only took two journeys and now I have a 6’ pile of broom ready for burning.

By 11.00 we were starving; so we had our lunch! That was it I didn’t want to do any more work! Brett decided he wanted to move some rocks, which make our track awkward to navigate, before we left for the day. They were HUGE rocks, but Brett was undeterred he went at them with a crow bar, pick axe, sledge hammer, chisel and mallet. One he actually managed to lever out and roll into a gap the other side of the track, one he is gradually reducing in size by repeatedly banging it, and the third one he will work at each time we go to the farm until it’s no longer in the way (he needs his tools from home). So, apart from this section, there is really only one part of the track that is extremely narrow and we can’t do anything about that as there’s a stone building one side and a stone wall the other (neither of which belong to us).

Before we left we picked loquats, courgette and lettuce (well we are watering them now!).

Harvest

Today we saw a very colourful bird; it was about the size of a woodpecker, dark underneath (brown or black) and a bright buttercup yellow back and I think it had some yellow on the wings. It’s not a bird I have ever seen before (i.e. not a British bird) and we didn’t see it for long enough to get an accurate description so it’s nigh on impossible to identify it. Let’s hope we see it again.

We’re having a lie in tomorrow – I bet I’m awake at 7.00 a.m.!