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Saturday 21 February 2015

We nearly had ducklings ......

2nd February
RAIN!!!!
As there was no way either of us could go ahead with what we had planned today ... me planting potatoes and sowing root vegetables, Brett banging in posts around the sheep field, we took the day off! Lit the fire early and watched a film, the Swedish version of ‘The Girl Who Played with Fire’.

3rd February
We went into Penamacor first thing, on our way back Mr Louis stopped us; last week I asked him where I could get cheap aguardente (Portuguese spirit) from, he had 5L for me for 20 Euros – I’m going to use it to make fruit liqueurs, starting with orange liqueur.
The ground was good and soft for Brett to bang in his posts; I helped him line them up, then he spent the day banging them in – he managed half the boundary of about a two acre paddock, it gives structure to our land.
Unfortunately it was too claggy for me to plant potatoes or sow anything outside; however, when we were in Penamacor, I did find a packet of metre long beans, some of which I planted in the polytunnel, plus some purple and gold mangetout – I’m very excited about that!
The polytunnel has an awful lot of things planted directly into the ground now; so we should get some very early harvests.
I made some flapjack, to take to Alex and Karina’s tomorrow, which I cooked in the stove and it burnt, so then I had to make chocolate fridge cake – so I was pissed off about that!
Originally we (and Marc & Mieke) were going to A&K’s because we were going to choose our lambs (from their neighbour’s farm) but they won’t be ready for a couple more weeks ... we decided to go to them for lunch regardless J!!!
We watched ‘The girl who kicked the hornet’s nest’ (Swedish version) tonight – the subtitles must have been courtesy of Google Translate, they really didn’t make any sense!

4th February
Happy Birthday Joyce !!!
Clear bright skies, but icy cold. Brett was happy working outside, but it hurts my ears!
We had rather a distressing time with Alex & Karina and Marc & Mieke this afternoon; after a lovely lunch we went for a walk around the estate that borders their land. We came across a dog that had been shut up in a yard with no food or water – the poor thing was skin and bones. Unfortunately the owner of the land and the dog’s owner arrived and a volatile argument ensued resulting in the dog being taken off in the back of its owner’s car. It was doubly distressing for A&K as it was their neighbours and they live there.

5th February
Had a very restless night; I just couldn’t stop thinking about the poor dog and trying to think how we could have handled the situation differently.
We bought 100 more posts today, Brett is really into fencing atm, to finish the first paddock and start another one.
Andrew came round to put some of his seeds in the polytunnel to germinate (Pam has some of her pots in there) and I have tomato seedlings through already!

6th February
Happy Birthday Alexandra!!!,
Brett finished banging in the posts of the sheep field and started on his corners.
I spent the day writing a letter to Alexandra; I took lots of photos of the animals for her.
I love this one of Looby, such a beautiful animal
I tried to do my Portuguese homework ....... I stink at Portuguese!!!!
Portuguese class wasn’t actually too bad; Pedro asked who had done their homework, only Pam said she had (because we have to go to the front of the class and write it on the blackboard and then read it out loud!), so it didn’t matter that mine was rubbish.

7th February
Flippin’ heck it’s cold overnight; on the bed we have a winter duvet, two patchwork quilts, a ‘fur’ throw and a blanket – it’s very heavy! But I still have to wear socks to bed.
Brett started banging in the posts for the next paddock (Lavender pasture); I helped line them up. Then I planted 25kgs of potatoes; it was jolly hard work, especially making the troughs with an enxada, Brett did some for me but I did a good half and all the planting and covering.

8th February
So cold .........
Brett was outside doing his fencing – he’s really enjoying being out in the open air.
I stayed inside and cooked, cleaned, washed up etc.
The guinea fowl think they are chickens ....
They're not intimidated by the size of the chickens, they just climb on top of them
They're growing rapidly
9th February
Happy Birthday Mark!!!
So many birthdays in February!
P & M had a barbeque to celebrate Mark’s birthday; the sun was shining we all sat outside on their decking eating and drinking – a lovely afternoon.

10th February
Rain is forecast; Chris & Di are panicking about their roof, so Brett went to help them put rubber matting on it this morning.
I stayed at home as we had Wendy and Kevin coming for lunch. W&K have just had an offer on a quinta close to Monsanto accepted; they’re very excited, they’re going to the Algarve to have a break before coming back to all the hard work.
This afternoon I made an orange liqueur, with our oranges, and a lemon liqueur, with scrumped lemons, and the aguardente that Mr Louis procured for me.
The aguardente smells really strong (Brett says like paint stripper); I don’t know how people can drink it neat, it really is ‘fire water’; I really hope my liqueurs work, I’m just a little bit worried!
We’re rapidly running out of stuff to watch, we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel now .... we watched the shittest film tonight – ‘Beastly’, it really was rubbish!

11th February
Today we bought more fence posts and 400 metres of wire – we have spent nearly 1500€ on fencing so far and we’re not even halfway there yet!
I made some lemon curd today; last time I made it I got a scrambled egg effect and had to strain the lumps out, so I looked for a different recipe. This method looks rather weird, but it says it’s infallible, and it worked perfectly for me today.

Classic Lemon Curd
·         3 oz. (6 Tbs.) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
·         1 cup sugar
·         2 large eggs
·         2 large egg yolks
·         2/3 cup fresh lemon juice
·         1 tsp. grated lemon zest
In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer, for about 2 min. Slowly add the eggs and yolks. Beat for 1 min. Mix in the lemon juice. The mixture will look curdled, but it will smooth out as it cooks.
In a medium, heavy-based saucepan, cook the mixture over low heat until it looks smooth. (The curdled appearance disappears as the butter in the mixture melts.) Increase the heat to medium and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens, about 15 minutes. It should leave a path on the back of a spoon and will read 170°F on a thermometer. Don't let the mixture boil.
Remove the curd from the heat; stir in the lemon zest. Bottle into hot sterilised jars; it will keep in the refrigerator for a week and in the freezer for 2 months.
Variations
For lime curd, substitute fresh lime juice and zest for lemon.
The polytunnel is getting very exciting now, there’s so much coming up
Seeds in coldframe
other side of cold frame
Peas
and I have lots of ideas for structures to support beans, squashes etc all I need is to be able to access pliable wooden poles (unfortunately we don’t have any on our land).

12th February
I planted four rows of onion sets and then started weeding the herb bed; I have lots of herbs coming through in the polytunnel – chives, thyme, basil, parsley, coriander, bronze fennel etc.
Pam wants to go into Fundao tomorrow; I said I would drive ... I want to visit the Nespoon building!

13th February

Wow, I’ve seen the Nespoon building ...... unfortunately I couldn’t get close enough to touch! It is beautiful, the original building is decaying and distressed and her decoration is already discolouring and flaking off – it looks fab!!!
I love the fact that the house occupants have a washing line up in front of the artwork!!!!
She even decorated the waste bin.
Me and Pam spent ages trying to work out how she actually did it – i.e. what order she did it in and how on earth would she make a stencil that big?
Brett spent the day tensioning the corners of the first sheep paddock; next the wire can be put on.
Language class tonight was small, only five students. Last week we had to do an exercise in class then hand in our sheets. Well .... first he asked Lou for her answer to the first question, then after she answered he said ‘no, that’s not the answer .... Sandra what did you write?’ ‘Yes Sandra that is correct’. Second question, Pam what’s your answer? He said ‘no, that’s not the answer .... Sandra what did you write?’ ‘Yes Sandra that is correct’. Etc etc – I was teacher’s pet!!!! Unfortunately after that exercise it got hard again!

14th February
My Valentine cards seem to have got lost in the post (again!).
I watched a couple of videos of Nespoon doing installations .... the lacy doily buildings are done freehand! Haha and there’s me trying to envision this giant stencil. I’m sure I can do one somewhere – maybe on the bread oven? .... Brett just gave me a 'look' when I suggested it! 
I think I’ve finished my chandelier! I bought some strings of ‘crystals’ from the China shop yesterday and some tiny fake roses – it looks very Miss Havershamish!
It's very hard to photograph

When we put the animals away today Brett saw broken egg shells in the Muscovy shed, so it looks like the ducklings are hatching.
She's very protective
15th February
Only three ducklings this morning,
but she stayed sitting on her eggs so perhaps some more will hatch.
Brett is working for Annika tomorrow so today we put some batten behind the stove so that I can start tiling the wall.
Brett has been claiming back lots of land around the boundaries; strimmering back all the brambles, broom and other foliage – our fields are going to be a good two metres wider!
This afternoon we went to a festa in a nearby village, Proenca a Velha; there was lots of food available, unfortunately we had had a large lunch! It was one of the good festas; lots of people, live music, interesting stalls and food & drink.

16th February
Still only three ducklings; so we disposed of the remaining eggs to encourage the mother duck to leave the nest.
Brett continued to push back our boundaries (he was going to work for Annika but the builder’s merchant hasn’t got the roof fixings yet).
I started tiling the stove alcove; it was very fiddly trying to get tiles behind the flue and the stove, in fact I panicked and got back to the house because it was ‘all going wrong’ however he said it was fine and I was over thinking it (phew). I got just over a square metre done (as Andrew came over for lunch), it’s going to look fantastic.
Andrew came to bring some seeds that he had ordered for me from the UK and to see his seeds progress – it’s great he’s as excited as me when he gets in the polytunnel.
We had to light the fire, and sit, in the sitting room tonight; it made a nice change.
Lili thought so too!!!!
17th February
Happy Pancake day!!!
When I let the muscovies out today there was a drowned duckling in the water bowl and three adult ducks, the other two ducklings had completely disappeared! We can only think that the big ducks ate them L !!!!
I carried on tiling, Brett continued to fence.

18th February
Still tiling and fencing.
Free range animals
19th February
Finished tiling!!!!! Lots of tile cutting going on today.
I sowed some of my organic seeds and did some potting on in the polytunnel.
Brett started attaching wire to his posts,

20th February
Happy birthday Lili – we’ve had her a year to date.
Today I grouted the tiles and, even though I say it myself, it looks bloody brilliant!!!
Look at those parallel lines!
Brett has put wire on half the posts of the first paddock.
A bloody mouse has eaten all my expensive yellow courgette seeds I sowed yesterday!
Only four of us at class tonight; we’re going to change it to a Saturday morning – it will be a lot easier for us with the animals, we had to put them away 40 mins early tonight – they didn’t like that.

21st February
On closer inspection the mouse (mice) have eaten aforementioned courgette seeds, all of, one type only, pumpkin seeds, nasturtium seeds and then they have dined on the fresh young shoots of peas, mangetoute, butternut squash, capsicum and my metre long beans!!!!! I am furious, what can I do? I have re-sown the seeds and they are now in isolated splendour perched on top of my tallest plant pots, in the hope that the mice can’t climb that high! AND there are mouse traps, baited with chocolate set up on the ground (I don’t like to kill them but if I used humane traps they would just return).




Monday 2 February 2015

And now ... GUINEA FOWL

8th January
Hoorah, I kept to my resolution, to update the blog more regularly; it’s actually much easier for me as it takes far less time (little and often), but it’s the getting round to it (along with having internet access!).
Another frosty start to the day; all the animal’s water had thick ice on it, the stile into the pig run was icy, and I could hear hunters shooting (it’s Thursday) in the distance. But it was clear and sunny, with a bright blue sky and all I had to do was decorate the airer ....... but no inspiration! So I went with the canal boat painting theme, after all it is only an airer!


9th January
Hoorah, Brett’s last day at work!!!
I finished decorating the airer. It actually looks OK now it’s assembled and it’s definitely unique.
Our Portuguese lessons started back this evening; each week one of us starts the class with a little talk, about something interesting we want to share, about Portugal – next week it’s my turn .

10th January
I picked my first bag of broccoli today; it was delicious.
Brett’s really into pruning the olive trees atm, but there’s an awful lot of twigs and leaves that need to be cleared up after each tree has had all the good wood taken away; we spent ages dragging branches (spindly ones no good for fire wood) to be burnt.
We did some washing today, it didn’t completely dry outside – the airer works!!!

11th January
So far this season we’ve been lucky with the hunters, but not today, we were woken up by very close gunfire; they weren’t actually on our land but very close to our boundary (they had to come onto our quinta to retrieve the birds they had shot L).
Brett spent the morning pruning the olive trees then we went to La Fontanha, for lunch, with Chris & Di. A local man got talking to us (in Portuguese and French) he bought us a drink – aguadente/whisky,lemon,passion fruit juice (I didn’t drink mine as I was driving, I drank fizzy water with my meal).

12th January
Brett continued to prune olive trees.
Can’t remember what I did, but I did pick oranges and lemons!

13th January
HAPPY BIRTHDAY WILIIAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Stupid bloody English mobile (Orange); the phone rings, I can see I have a call from William but I can’t answer it, so I get a ‘missed call’ notification and I can’t ring him back as it says ‘Emergency calls only’ – this IS an emergency!!!!! Fortunately my cheapy Portuguese mobile had a signal, so I was able to ring him on that.
Alex & Karina popped in (to see our pigs) and stayed for lunch; which made it a nice sociable day, and we’ve been invited to lunch with them on Saturday, to see their new lamb (born yesterday) – aahhh!

14th January
Mrs Muscovy has been sitting on her nest spasmodically, but today she started sitting in earnest; so in 35 days time (21st February) we could have some ducklings.
Brett is still pruning the ancient olive grove; he says he’s getting the hang of it now. And we’re getting a good store of firewood for next year.
I started playing with my chandelier again; it can be put up once the ceiling is plastered.


15th January
Today it rained for the first time in weeks; Brett had a well deserved day off and watched a film, ‘Apocalypse Now’ ...... bloody hell it’s soooooo long!
I worked on my chandelier – taking apart everything I did yesterday!!!!!! Then I added crystal cobwebs, it’s looking rather Gothic now.


16th January N/I
Brett went back to his pruning while I (1) prepared my talk for language class (without the help of the internet!) and (2) worked on my chandelier.
The talk went OK, fortunately there were only seven students, including us, so it wasn’t scary.

17th January
We went to lunch with Karina and Alex; always a joy as they are ‘foodies’ like us – Karina had done another of her carrot dishes, Korean carrot salad (delicious) and Alex had made a Chinese chicken dish ( equally delicious) with rice.
Their new born lamb is so sweet – we can’t wait to get our own sheep and goats now.

18th January
Another wet miserable day; but on the positive side it discouraged the hunters.
I made Karina’s carrot salad; the smell when you pour the hot oil on is amazing (even I can smell it!).

KOREAN CARROT SALAD from Karina
1kg carrots (grated/ribboned etc your choice)
3 tbsp sugar
1tsp salt
4-5 tbsp vinegar
1 tsp black pepper
½ tsp coriander powder
1 clove garlic (crushed)
½ cup (125g) oil, boiling – I just let it start to smoke!
Mix carrots, salt and sugar and squeeze together, with hands.
Mix in pepper, coriander, and vinegar.
Add crushed garlic to top, do not mix in.
Pour boiling oil over garlic, mix well.
Leave to cool for at least ½ hour, preferably overnight.

We lit the fire early and had a proper Sunday lunch. Then watched TV in front of the stove.

19th January
The pigs are testing the fence so today we went into CB to get the supplies to put an electric wire around their boundary.
On the way we called in at the Drogeria in Alcains, as we had been told we might be able to get wall tiles there. Their traditional tiles were the same as all the others we had seen, manly blues and yellows but they did have plain dark green tiles that have been distressed to look like reclaimed tiles. They are not what we went in for but they will work in our kitchen; so we have ordered six m2 at 15€ a square metre, they’ll go behind the stove, sink and cooker.
Geese can see colour!!! Brett changed the lead out cable to the electric fence; it was black it’s now red – the geese are petrified of it, they refuse to cross it; it has to be the colour as nothing else has changed, same size, same place.

20th January
Snow was forecast this morning (unheard of for this area), but we didn’t get any!!!! It was jolly cold though; I lit the fire before lunch.
This morning we prepared the polytunnel for seed sowing and Brett turned quite a big area over (with the rotorvator) so that I can grow some early tomatoes, cucumbers, aubergines, peppers, beans and courgettes etc in there.

22nd January
Brett carried on pruning the ancient olive grove.
We have rather a lot of social engagements coming up over the next few days, so I spent the day cooking (soup, bread, foccacia, chocolate mousse); I just used what we had in the cupboards and fridge rather than going shopping.

22nd January
Andy & Clare (and Tom and Oscar) came to lunch; Tom is fascinated by Lili as she is petrified of him and keeps peeing herself, strange animal. But despite that we had a lovely afternoon, And it was nice in the house this evening as it was all clean and tidy.

23rd January
Brett was still pruning, while I was preparing food.
Thomas and Diane came to dinner this evening; I made Buck’s Fizz with our own orange juice.

24th January
Brett was still pruning, while I was preparing food!
This evening Chris, Di and Andrew came to dinner. Andrew and I spent most of the time talking plants.

25th January
We were supposed to go to Serra d’Estrella mountains today with Marc & Mieke and Alex & Karina, to play in the snow; unfortunately my Bell’s Palsy is playing up atm (lots of pain behind ear and in jaw) and the things I have to avoid is cold and wind, so we backed out of the trip.
Before
After
Brett finished pruning the Ancient Olive Grove (38 trees) and we have lots of wood for next winter.
After talking to Andrew last night I was motivated and spent the day in the polytunnel;
I sowed directly into the soil – broad beans, French beans, climbing beans, peas, courgettes and patty pan. And planted some escarole plugs that I sowed last year. Then in trays and pots I sowed twelve varieties of tomatoes (72 plants), cucumber, aubergine, chillies, thyme, basil, oregano, globe artichoke, okra, rocket, chard and strawberries. So I’m feeling rather pleased with myself.

26th January
We went to CB, primarily to collect our wall tiles; we had a good morning managing to buy everything we had gone for including guinea fowl chicks.
Dropped off some guinea fowl for Alex and Karina and learnt that they had quite an adventure yesterday; firstly Alex partially dislocated his shoulder throwing himself into the snow which turned out to be rock hard! So he had to be taken to the hospital. Then the brakes failed on Marc’s car, smoke everywhere inside the car (Mieke said it was rather scary) because they had heated up being used to excess coming down the mountain – they had to park up and wait for them to cool down ... then they went to the hospital, where they met a man covered in blood who had been attacked by a wild boar he was shooting.
A&K’s neighbour has offered to take them truffle hunting and they’re going to ask if we can come too, we’d really enjoy that. And another neighbour is going to sell us some lambs; we’re going to view them next week.
We arrived at tile place at 1.45 ....... it shuts for lunch 1-3!!!!!!! So we came home without the tiles!

27th January
Brett did a day’s work at Annika’s.
I did piles of washing (by hand) – NOT my favourite job. Did some sowing in the polytunnel and kept myself generally busy.

28th – 29th January
Lots of working in the polytunnel ..... me.
Burning and clearing up all the useless wood from the olive pruning ..... Brett.

30th January
We collected the tiles; so lots of work for me to do.
And bought masses of fence posts (to fence paddocks for lambs), so lots of work for Brett to do.
It was really windy on our way home; we had to contact C&D as the tarp on their roof was billowing, nightmare for them as they had to remove it and then it rained in the night.

31st January
Lots of damage to other people’s quintas overnight – above ground swimming pool destroyed, awnings blown down and ripped to shreds, not to mention C&D’s roof ... we were very lucky.
We spoke to our neighbours (below the house) this morning; they are a lovely cheerful couple, they gave us some fencing (as Brett told him we are getting sheep next week) and they are going to give us some seeds for the ‘yard long beans’ (I can’t find them in the shops).
Brett rotovated an area to plant this year’s sack of potatoes and the old potato patch (we harvested ½ a wheelbarrow of potatoes); and already the vegetable garden is looking better.
Andrew came round for afternoon tea and brought his Organic Garden seed catalogue – I ordered a few seeds!

1st February
Happy Birthday Stephanie ....... no you don’t look a day over 60!!!
We had a very productive, physically tiring day today; I dug out, wheelbarrowed and dumped all of our homemade compost from our first two years here; that was TWENTY NINE FULL wheelbarrows! I even rotovated one patch (it was hard work). Brett rotovated the old tomato patch; so now at least ½ the vegetable garden is prepared.
The compost was heaped onto the patches that Brett rotovated yesterday, wood ash was applied and then the whole lot was rotovated again to mix it in

Some of the seeds in the polytunnel have already started germinating (rocket, basil, okra, chard) – I love this time of year!