In the valley, the seasons dictate our lives, they blend together at the edges. There are times for planting and times for reaping, there are times for watching and waiting, and times for plucking and tasting. Land is left fallow, then one day the time has come to cut grass, trees, bracken.
Rice:
The rice plants are in the ground now. I got twenty of the seeds to germinate, quite underwhelming but at least it won’t be such a big job to process the harvest this year. I’m hoping that in two years we’ll have enough to eat some of it.
Door:
For about a month now, I’ve been spending much of my free time working on a new door for the stone room, now it is essentially complete and installed into its frame. It took me all morning to get the rusty old metal one out of the wall, I resorted to using an angle grinder to cut the frame in one spot, but not before chiselling out the concrete that surrounded it.
Next it was a relatively simple process of fitting the new wooden frame into the space, using some improvised wedges to get it square, level and in the right position, then I mixed up a new batch of cement and filled in the gaps. I know that there are more modern ways of fitting in a door frame, and I did intend to put a few screws into the outside of the frame to act as anchors in the cement, but I forgot… Still, it’s a very snug and tight fit, I painted the outside of the frame with primer paint and a few layers of bitumen to prevent humidity entering the wood, and now it’s solid.
Upgraded off-grid water system:
Since we ran out of rainwater, we’ve been using a petrol pump to get water from the spring at the bottom of the valley to the garden and tanks at the top. It’s an annoying multi-stage process that involves carrying the pump up and down the hill, pumping the water first to a halfway tank and then pumping it the rest of the way to the top. The pump has a two-stroke engine that requires an oil heavy fuel mixture of 25:1, so it produces copious amounts of thick white stinky exhaust.
All of those problems are now solved, we ordered a new electric pump with a solar panel that can transfer the water through a half inch hosepipe all the way from the spring pond to the uppermost tank on our land. It pumps the water at a much slower rate, but it’s not an issue. It’s a simple process of waiting till the sun is shining on the panel, then going down and flicking a switch on the control box, there is a small lithium battery in there that ensures a consistent level of energy entering the pump.
Now I can watch the water trickle into the tank throughout the morning and replace all the water that we use in the garden at dawn. I’ll need to cover the hose pipe where it is exposed to the sun, I’ll probably use some old roof tiles for that job, when I find the time…
Sheep:
Last week’s edition focused almost exclusively on the sheep, and I promised an update. Since the first night of bloat scare, I’ve become even more observant of the animals, learning to recognise signs within the pasture that could cause bloat. I found that the sheep will leisurely browse on scrub for much of the day. Though they prefer grass, keeping them on the scrub in the mornings satiates their hunger and when I bring them to the grass for a few hours in the afternoon, they continue their grazing at a leisurely pace, whereas if I take them to the grass in the mornings, they’re more likely to over eat.
By limiting their access to the grass, the issue of bloat has effectively gone away. But at this time of year, with so much fresh protein rich grass, leaving them there for too long will result in a bloated rumen, so it’s important to have a plan for the day's grazing ready in the morning and to follow that plan consistently. We’ve been having some rain this week, I’ve read that wet grass increases the risk of bloat, and that anecdote seems to be holding true, so I’m sure to give them access to only the most mature variates of grass in wet conditions and this seems to mitigate the risk. Further observations are needed to validate my initial impressions. I will post more updates about this if needed.
A slight change to the newsletter:
Since I had my hiatus from writing, whilst I adjusted to the new dynamic of work and childcare, I’ve decided to finally take the newsletter to the next level. I’ve had a few pledges of support over the months, and now I’m ready to expand the scope of the newsletter. I’ll still be writing all the updates as I always have, and I believe that useful information is best when it’s free and openly available.
But for those who would like to support the work that we are doing here in Portugal and if you enjoy reading my writing, then I’m adding a section onto the end of each edition which will go into more detail about how we experience our lives here, and I’ll share my musings, sometimes in a more meandering, philosophical way.
For five euros per month, you’ll not only get my heartfelt gratitude, but also early access to every feature video that Jackie produces for YouTube, one week in advance (It could be once a month, or eventually once a week again). The first thing that I would like to do with this money is to spend it on childcare. Currently, our son spends three hours on Tuesdays at a playgroup that is organised by a lady who lives in another village.
During that time, I write, so if you have a mind to contribute to the project, then you can see it as an investment into the quality of this newsletter. Over time, perhaps enough people will become paying subscribers that I have enough surplus income to start spending it on the project at large.
Flavour of the mountains:
The local cherry trees are ripening, they are kind enough to do it one by one. So now there are always delicious cherries to eat, if you know which trees to pick them from. If you take the wrong cherry from the wrong tree, then it might have a bitter tang to it, or you may have picked it too late. Like all the bounties of nature, there is a use by date.
All the fruits of nature begin their existence by improving; from the time that they form their shape they get better, until they reach their moment of perfection. At that point, the fruit passes its inflection, continuing to age, but in a state of decline instead of improvement.
The loquat ripens just before the cherry. This fruit is both sweet and sour. In its moment of perfection - when the fruit reaches a certain shade of yellow - the balance between these two flavours is just right.
The strawberry plants are yielding their bounty, each week revealing new and juicy berries. The blueberry bushes are steadily ripening, the raspberry bushes have formed their fruit; little green bundles waiting for the sun to turn them red. And we have lots of preparation to do before we’re ready for the tidal wave of tomatoes that are forming in the garden and polytunnel.
Feeling of the mountains:
There is no better feeling than to walk through this slice of paradise, picking fruit and feeling a cool breeze flow through the dappled shade. To look at the ridge above and the valley below. To be cocooned by the slopes, insulated from the outside world, both partially liberated from the pressures of society and partially excluded from that same society’s comforts and indulgences.
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