Fall, Squampkins, Bikers and Broken Bridges

October.

Things are winding down toward winter. Time to do some garden tidying and the like. Trees to fell, firewood to get in, Turkeys to slaughter…no hang about, scratch that last. No Turkeys. Not this year anyway. 
It was decided that the first tree to get a chop would be the big Leylandi out front, so it got lowered by about a third. Ness had the ‘fun’ task of scaling it and hacking away.  

                                
This all went well and we then cut down two more of our diseased pines. Fraser cut and loaded the last of the brash.  

       

Down at the new pond the blue flowering wossnames had rather taken over, so they got replaced with Irises for next year.

We also had a shot at sealing up a leak or two in the reservoir up on the top terrace....still leaks. on to plan 'B'...whatever that is.









Friend Steve from the Algarve biked his way up to stay for a few days and make the most of the last good biking weather. Great to see him and he was on good form

Portugal has a financial crisis (like everyone else) but we also have a bridge crisis. Hundreds of bridges across the country that were built (badly) over the past 30 years or so have been condemned. The upshot for us is that, as we are between two rivers we meet bridgeworks across both of them no matter our direction of travel......BORRRRINGGG!

Crossing can take as much as 20 minutes if you time it wrongly.




















But we discovered that the little dog shaped water-filled barriers that they use these days to set out detours are brilliantly named.
Look closely...

CLASSIC!

Back in the garden Sylvi managed to grow a kind of hybrid butternut/pumpkin that grew out of the compost. We have called it a Squampkin...tastes great!


















New bugs appeared everywhere this month, hundreds of them which apparently are a pest which eat the pine nuts. We find them all over the place and when you squash them they smell strongly of peardrops....weird!

Our resident praying mantis has created her perfect nest on a sheet of insulation in our utility room/toolshed.. When they tiny mantis babies come out in the spring they are about 5mm long and perfect. Looking forward to seeing them next year.
This is the door of the utility room. This photo is specially for all Sylvi's  friends and students who know where this sign came from. Lest we forget...........

One problem darkening our doorsteps literally is the ruin next to our garden which, after 15 years of neglect is now so overgrown with brambles that it is a real fire hazard. The person who owns it is a nightmare...that is another story. Currently trying to get her to clear the lot. She has offered to sell us the ruin underneath for 1000 euros. That made us laugh out loud! Now waiting to see if she is going to do anything about it. If not ? Well we have another cunning plan 'B'!!!!!!!!!!!!

So the clocks went back but the Scraps and Bugsy don't care! Early morning wake ups in the pitch black .......We think the idea of quitting with summertime daylight saving is a bloody good idea. At least psychologically for us if not for our beloved canines.

Sunspot activity sadly didn't give us the spectacular auroras that have been seen around the globe but it did do us some great sunset skies.

Slipping out of Summer

Much cooler days and cold nights are upon us….hardly got a chance to moan about the heat and hey, it’s Autumn.
The month started off with me (Fraser) going back to England for a Memorial Service. I also got to meet the latest addition to the family and got to play Granpa for a while.

While I was gone, some of our new lilies put their heads above water and Sylvi took a shot for posterity.   Plus the pumpkins got ready for harvesting.

      


Sylvi got on with organizing the bathroom makeover. This turned into something of an odyssey due to previous structure needing removing and the general unsquareness of anything in this house.
Cris and Scott demolished the old shower stall

Poor old Cris had a real job on his hands, what with the difficulties of the room and the wild excesses of our ideas.  I did a lot of tile cutting to instructions from Cris who was doing the building work and coping with Sylvi’s hopes for the design!

In the middle of all this the tap in the laundry sink sort of collapsed through the board it had been mounted on…So, I’ll replace the tap, no problem, right? Wrong. Ended up redoing the whole area which also gave a lot more free space to the laundry which had always been a bit claustrophobic… shame I haven’t got a ‘before’ shot.

The demolition in the bathroom produced a surprising amount of debris…

But the final result made all the chaos worth it…

The bathroom is still pretty tiny, but it’s cool. The floor of the shower is now grey nonslip tiles…still have grout stains to clean off. A surprising side effect is that the shower is now quiet…nothing for the water to drum on – unless you count my empty head…

James came for a week long break from London

and helped out with some of the work, cutting and stacking firewood, clearing the bathroom debris and field debris, sorting out the open store at the back that he had already sorted out last year…just different shite to move around this time and even did some grouting which he hates doing. So thanks James for the helping hand…and the barbie. We did, however manage to catch a few World Rugby Championship matches….
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Adela came for the weekend, met the dogs… 
 

                              
   

Went wine tasting at the Cabriz Adega in Carregal de Sal, buying shedloads of great wine for them to take home and some for us..(thanks James) and celebrated Adela’s forthcoming birthday in a great restaurant.
Was far too short a visit all round but a great way to end a hard few weeks of graft.

Glut and Groundwork

 

 One morning's picking.

We are both pretty knackered this month since we seem to have been non-stop busy every day doing something or other that just HAS to be done TODAY or else.

First everything edible in the garden and on the land has been crying out to be picked, eaten, processed or put somewhere to store. It has been a great year for fruit and we have apples, peaches and figs coming out of our ears. Neighbours have provided raspberries (as mine just fried in the heat) and plums. So we have peach jam, yellow plum marmalade, raspberry jam, peach icecream, peaches in Limoncello, chutneys of various kinds and even sauces this year.

Likewise the usual green veg and tomato abundance has meant all in all a month of freezing, bottling and making stuff! Here is just a small selection of the preserves. Hoping to sell some closer to Christmas.

Just today I made two savoury jellies, chilli and a tomato, garlic and basil concoction. It takes so much time but I just can't bear to waste. The pumpkins are a huge success by the pond but they can wait another month before harvesting.

That's a first for us.

Fieldwise, Fraser has been busy cutting and clearing overgrown areas of the land and our ditches

Our stream before and after

while I have been clearing steps and the veg patches.

 

I had my first go with the smaller scythe to help Fraser with cutting the cow parsley and we have collected split and stacked what wood we have for the winter. We collected a trailer full of dried horse manure from friends Shelley and Paul which is now sitting rotting down nicely and we have a load of cut cane that is needing mulching or cutting and tying into faggots for burning ..not to mention all cut undergrowth to sort for burning in the winter.

Amidst all this I decided that we really had to do the tiling on the colonnade pathway and our kitchen outdoor eating area as well as properly creating slate pathways to the back of the house to the patio there.  So supervised by our in-house site manager, Lady Scrappington---

and despite back ache, knee ache, swollen finger joints and general body strain, we finally got it all done. It was a lot of hard work and Fraser did most of the crouching and sorting.
The back steps and slate path in progress

 and completed

 

 The kitchen gallery finally tiled and tidy...

The major excitement last week was a fire across the river which started in the late afternoon and we went down to the beach (along with some of our neighbours) to watch the firefighters in action. They very efficiently dealt with it in less than half an hour. Very impressive. There have been on average 200 fires a day in Portugal over the last few weeks. Luckily this was a small one.

 Found this bug on the cobbles...

 and this one in the pond. Poor Bugsy continues to have a skin infection so is now on a 16 day anti-biotic regime, regular baths and lots of TLC

And Finally but most importantly......Our Lexa Rose was 1 year old on Saturday. 

Happy Birthday Sweetheart