October is a cummin in...

Really can't believe where this year has gone and it was the Autumnal equinox on Sunday! The mornings are getting darker and the evenings longer. The weather is still warm and dry though for the most part and the cooler days make working in the open more bearable. We'd actually like some more rain; had a couple of days this month which did wonders for the trees and the garden. If only the new young trees would thrive better. All in all though they are looking a bit sad this year. We have to get our mulching, feed and irrigation worked better for next year. Our grape crop was poor and we lost a lot to the heat and mildew. I did manage to get enough to make more spiced grape jelly though. The peach harvest was exceptional this year too and the figs are still coming in. Vegetable wise I have lots of pumpkin and squash this year compared to last and we had lots of tomatoes. The sweet potatoes seem to be spreading nicely so hopefully we will have a good crop closer to Christmas. Our local spiders have been busy.... webs abound and we are regularly finding big male house spiders wandering around in the house looking for action. The Heron has made an appearance and is obviously scoping out the pond so it looks like we will have to string the surface again since the big koi are pretty dumb and always come up to see what any disturbance is on the water.
Fraser has introduced a few sunfish from the river to help deal with any goldfish fry so we have managed to reduce the crowd this year. Took a few days off the work schedule to visit Steve and Jen in the Algarve and to introduce Scraps to Skaigh. Fraser also took a couple more canvases to the Corte Real Gallery and we discovered that a second painting has sold which is a result! Steve was off on a 6 day bike trip up to the North and West so we missed him unfortunately. However it was a great few days and the girls got on brilliantly. Scraps bugged Skaigh to play most of the day and they played until they were both exhausted. They got on so well we are going to leave her there in December while we head to the UK for Christmas. Thanks Jen and Steve!!!

Yesterday (30th September) was her day for being spayed. Very traumatic and I have to say it really did upset me to see her in the vets looking at us as if we had betrayed her. After a pretty sleepless night for all of us she is now recovering but looking very pathetic in her lick preventing collar!!! We have now painted the structure of the baracao and it has been rendered inside. We plan to tidy up the interior walls a bit and point in the stones. Finally we will lay a concrete floor and paint Still haven´t completely processed the wood for firewood but we have managed to get rid of the pile of old beams and roof tile battens. The new big wood store is beginning to look full already.

We had a lot of roof tiles left which we have donated to various friends for projects. So all in all we are getting ourselves more organised.

Fraser has fitted our new Algavean outdoor lights in the patio area

and I have put up a couple of tile designs also bought in the Algarve, on the baracao columns. We chose designs that would fit our location so we have an iris (which grow wild here) and of course, an olive tree.
Friends Chris and Rosemary are leaving Portugal for good next week and returning to the UK to look for a house in the west country. We had a wheels up type lunch for them on Tuesday to wish them bon voyage. Scraps will miss her walks with their dogs Gus and Dandy and we will miss their friendship.