Trees again

Actually it is quite exciting thinking of what we might do with all of the trees, a small scale fort has some votes a wooden version of Minas Tirinth or the home of the Rohrim or at the least a Swiss family Robinson house soaring up into the treetops is in the boys minds whereas I see a more modest affair more like a large log cabin kind of hut really or a Robinson Crusoe job. I have been looking around at open sided field buildings, there are a few hybrid poly-tunnel sort of constructions, using eucalyptus and plastic instead of steel and plastic, that look quite useful and doable, and I keep thinking of mazes and climbing frames, the veranda idea is now back on the cards - when we first moved here we thought we might build one along the side of the house that looks down towards the lake, we could even have paths and a woodchip drive if we bought a shredder and spent a few weeks feeding it branches. We now have more than enough wood but less than sufficient time to do the work,and eucalyptus does not last long outside in the weather so I need to tread carefully as to how and what I build, at least we won't be cold or relying on the central heating this Winter, I guess a larger stove will be needed.

trees

I have had some requests to keep this one going so I will try and keep the local stuff going on here and post more general info on the valdovino blog.

A law was made a couple of years ago regulating eucalyptus and conifer trees, it has new been modified and the result is that none of either are allowed within 50 meters of the perimeter of land with a house on it. Jolly good we can ask the Junta to ask the owners of adjacent land to chop down the huge trees that pose a hazard should they fall in another great wind or should we get a forest fire sweeping through here. The law is not implemented very well it seems and there are still a lot of properties still surrounded by trees, I guess partly because of the low price of timber just now and partly because people make their living from these crops and want to hang on to it as long as they can. We have a strip of fairly young Eucalyptus on our land that we were planning to use as a sustainable source of biomass. If we ask for adjacent trees to be cut we will also have to cut our own trees. A time limit for complience of around 2 months will be imposed and I will have to spend a lot of time playing with my new chainsaw or the Junta will send men to cut the trees for us and we will be charged and fined for non compliance. If we don't cut our trees our home insurance would not pay up in the event of a fire damaging the property. There are many hundreds of trees of varying sizes - I think there is enough wood to heat our house for about 14 year however cut timber does not store for that long and it would be a rather large pile and many months of wielding an axe to chop it to manageable burning  bits. Neighbors whose trees are far enough away for us to feel they are not a hazard will also have to cut theirs, some of these are not really mature enough to be worth selling and wood is just not selling just now either so there might be some bad feeling created hmm but then it is a criminal offence for them to grow their trees that close - what do we do ? Well we know what we must do its just a case of how soon do we do it really.

things happening in the garden

A year on the garden is a little different, The cabin de bosque is progressing, there is a deck, a bit of a wall or two, a log walkway across to a tight group of three trees and a bit of climb inside them, we have a cargo net hammock and Sam is up a tree here starting to make a rope swing, the lense refracted a handy little arrowhead pointing at him.
Oh look there he is again he has two bits of thick string, a sawn in half log and some good knots as climbing aids to get up a tree that has no branches, drat I put the safety net on the wrong side of the tree ah well never mind Sam is very competent at not falling.

And in the veg garden.....
The pumpkin patch is doing well we have about 18 pumpkins so far and more on the way, the leaves are starting to die back and the first pumpkins are nearly ripe, we also have loads of butternuts and turban looking ones and found our first cucumber today - thanks to Shirley for the plant.


Cabbage patch coming along nicely and hundreds of leeks are about to go in to the fresh dug land at the far end.
Sweet peas growing really well, its a shame we have not got smellovision yet- they smell wonderful as do the Nicotina below.
This is where they mostly start out - in the entrance to the below the butchers shop bit that gets sun most of the day but also is sheltered. Although we inherited some plant pots with the house Jenny uses loads of milk cartons, yoghurt pots and all sorts of other recycled stuff instead of plant pots. Then she puts them in a big pile and uses them again and again.
Barbecue corner is slowly turning into a Zen garden according to some locals, you prob need to be there to see/feel what they mean.
There is always wood needing cut and Senor Madera de Mar is still protecting the hens although he does not do much wood chopping.
We had just started cooking the corn on the cob and the beans had just gone into the freezer when I thought about taking a snap of today's haul. We have been getting a bowl full of strawberries like that every day since late May, its a deep bowl, around a kilo a day I think- not bad for a 6 euro outlay on some scabby dried up little plants. Lemons are not so good this year we prob have around 30, the great wind did a lot of damage we are lucky to have any really as many people lost their lemon trees. The peppers are mixed black ones from jungleseeds, they vary from all black to red and partly green and its a bit of a lottery as to whether they are picante or dulce, that adds an interesting edge to cooking.

Kite

Outside a Red Kite just circled our garden, I could see its gaze scanning the field lingering on the hen coral, the hens all ran for cover when it was still far off but it is not interested in them it is the two big black rooks that have build a nest in the top of a 35 meter eucalyptus tree bordering our field that are its focus. I think it was circling finding a good updraft it went over one spot a couple of times low down then third time it powered down into the spot then soared almost vertical with massive acceleration, twice the height of the tree and straight down again wings folded talons out. In a couple of long stretched out seconds loads of stuff happened ;one rook rose up from underneath, the other had a messy launch from a branch a few meters from there nest lots of flapping and feathers flying as branches whipped around it in summer squalls. Both went for the same side of the Kite trying to twist and turn it off trajectory, the three fellflew down through 10 meters of branches, separated, recovered flight and with one crow ending up in front the kite gave chase and they were swooping across the maize fields just above ground level then soaring up into open air twice as high as the trees all in a few short seconds. It looked like the kite was drawing the crows away offering some aggression and just avoiding the harrying until they were circling a kilometer or so away one crow went in with big hits to the Kite’s wing while the other went off in a broad swoop towards the nest site. The Kite sends the harrying crow spinning down and uses the few seconds advantage to gain some height and make a straight vector for the nest the crow that had arced off was also heading in to the nest at a tangent and again the Kite was deflected, the second crow arrived and they all headed off to do the thing across the fields. The Kite gives up and heads off to hassle at another tree top venue, the crows return to their nest to make a fuss and tell the world how brave and clever they are. The kite got their first hatchlings about 10 days after they hatched, this is their second clutch. I wonder if they have learned how to defend the site well or if this was a temporary victory. It was a close run skirmish; it seems to me that a mere flapping of a butterfly’s wing could tip the balance against them. Ah well time will tell - that was a almost live glimpse through my window at work… best get on and do some.

Another bit of the Fragas and our garden

My daughter Kate arived a few days ago weather has been waarm and changable ah well. We headed out to the lake above As Pontes for a change yesterday and after trip traping our way over the Dam we found a lovely walk along the lake edge, First we looked at this little valley... then we looked at the next one.
Then Rowan got obsessed about picking bilberries.

And we headed out to Club nautico in the evening to see the sun set on our lake.Now that chicken pox has started to fade we were planning to go to the beach for the first time in what seems like ages but today is raining ...at least the park the van in the potato patch with the radio on strategy seems to have helped fend off the wild boar - they popped in the night before last and borrowed some of our potatoes, we did not notice untill all of the shops had closed so we managed not to buy an electric fence again.

I have managed to move my office outside most days
Sunflowers are doing fine with a few gazenias at their toes

We have a fair bit of this on the garden not sure what it is but it is welcome to stay

This is just what you don't want to see on potatoes and all that activity leads to this...

they are pretty endemic here and a lot of spraying goes on - we have managed not to spray the potatoes so far but have picked a few hundred of them off and are cropping potatoes as fast as we can

Maize is coming along well
And the strawberries are doing fine too

rainbow morning

Two lovely rainbows within about 20 mins this morning ...

This one seemed to be ending in our garden when we first saw it but by the time I had grabbed the camera I was too slow with my shovel to get that pot of gold.

The Third Man

Our third scarecrow took shape today, we had a van and some driftwood
and I had 20 mins free at lunch time.....

Not sure if he will scare many Jabali away though.

lizards

we found a pair of lizards in our garden yesterday, the male has a blue head and they both have a green body and brown tail and were about 30 cms long, no idea what they are at the moment possibly ocellated lizards but I have not seen any photos of those ones with blue heads. In the pic above you can just see the male's head to the left of the female in a red circle. Below they are side by side and his head is clearer I think we might have disturbed them at a rather intimate moment. We should really buy a better camera.

Changable weather

Saturday was mostly being; rain, sun, rainbows, rain, sun, hail....

A second visit to Cedeira was needed

We now have two holes where the boys dug for gold


We still need to chop a few trees to let more evening sun in
One minute of hail...

Gardening

Yesterday we had a lot of fun in the garden playing with water and building a barbecue area.
Jenny is getting to grips with weeding - weeds grow at an incredible rate here. Callum managed to fit himself into a bucket of water and Rowan made muddy puddles.


We found half of a lareira (fireplace) in the front garden and the other half in the depths of downstairs, they are made of a serpentine kind of stone and weigh a lot.

A lot of hacking and some van power and they are now reunitied and our barbecue area is starting to take shape.

There is still some digging and seating to sort but we are getting there.


We had a trip into the hills the day before, I think this is looking down on Covas.