February: Failing Equipment and Weird Dry, Frosty, Sunny Days

We're late with this entry, a thousand pardons. The hard-drive in our computer died suddenly just before the end of the month with loss of data and the large hassle of reinstalling everything, looking frantically for serial numbers, etc. So we're more or less back together but this will be a sorry entry as most of the photos from this month went off into the land of lost electrons.

Had overnight frosts and 25 degree temperature shifts during the day so we started off wrapped up and ended up in T shirts most days with glorious sunshine. But no rain which we desperately needed.

 
The drought continued until yesterday. The place was tinder dry for the whole of February, but that didn't stop people from burning the undergrowth. One of our neighbours did a controlled flame off opposite us. Was a bit scarey to say the least. He notified the local bombeiros (fire brigade) who sent a chopper just to check it out.
To add to the adventures this month our solar panel tube sprang a leak when the end cap cracked and fell off after the frosts. Much concern, but once the end cap was replaced, the panels drained and re-filled with water and antifreeze all is good once more...we hope.

The veg patch is now edged with black plastic, a new venture this year to stop weeds encroaching on the borders. Irrigation in place and about to plant out the first veg now that the rains have come. Irrigation is causing a bit more of a problem on the garden. Sylvi needs to strip it all out and re-do it to get maximum watering pressure. Ongoing right now.

We managed to get the Suzuki down to the lower section of the woodland terrace to pick up our logs which were at the end of a very soft and narrow path. First two trips..no problem. On the third the Suzi slid off the path and got a bit stuck. We managed to haul the logs back so Fraser had just enough room to manoevre. Could have been embarassing and dangerous as the offside wheels were on the slope down to the next terrace!

However we managed to get the logs back to the yard for splitting and stacking.

De-barking revealed lots of grubs in the wood from the dead pine.

Had great fun (NOT) squashing them.

 Fraser did a brilliant job, fitting a closet with REAL SLIDING DOORS in our bedroom after living for 6 years with a curtain covering alcove shelves that really didn't work well. Having the chimney breast in the middle and not square to anything was a challenge. But what a brill job!!

Sylvia managed to make two ugly but servicable baskets out of our huge pile of Willow withies.

Poor old Scraps had a bad day after too much running around and a tussle with Bugsy. She could hardly walk and couldn't climb up stairs. We had to carry her in from the field and we allowed her to have her dinner on the couch where we put her to rest up for the evening. She was much better next day, but we feel that her early abuse as a pup is really coming home to roost now.
So she as well as Sylvi are going on a DIET!!! Less weight less stress on the hips (that goes for Sylvi too!!)
And finally...we seem to have lost all the fish from our pond. They have either been eaten by the local pair of herons, stolen or died. Well since our neighbour recently had his dismantled beehive stolen from the terrace next to our pond Sylvi's theory is that the fish have been netted and nicked. We probably will never know.