And now ... GUINEA FOWL

8^th 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!

9^th 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 .

10^th 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!!!

11^th 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).

12^th January

Brett continued to prune olive trees.

Can’t remember what I did, but I did pick oranges and lemons!

13^th 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!

14^th January

Mrs Muscovy has been sitting on her nest spasmodically, but today she started sitting in earnest; so in 35 days time (21^st 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.

15^th 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.

16^th 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.

17^th 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.

18^th 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.

19^th 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.

20^th 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.

22^nd 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.

22^nd 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.

23^rd 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.

24^th 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.

25^th 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.

26^th 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!

27^th 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.

28^th – 29^th January

Lots of working in the polytunnel ..... me.

Burning and clearing up all the useless wood from the olive pruning ..... Brett.

30^th 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.

31^st 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!

1^st 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!