September Already!

Well, here at the tail end of September it's finally cooling down a bit and I suppose it won't be long before we're moaning about the cold! Right now what we really need is rain. We're losing our new trees at a prodigious rate which is rather discouraging. The lake is down to winter levels and there's no rain in sight either. However the morning mists have returned making the valley really quite mystical again.Due to the lake being so low, I took the dogs for a walk along the shore, something which isn't usually possible. Along with the usual dead fish etc., we also found the bleached white skeletal remains of a dog. In life it would have been a little taller than Bugsy, I think. Bugsy I might add was all for chewing the bones. I managed to convince him that it would be a little off to chomp the remains of a relative however distant.

The builders have finally been and rebuilt our chimney, damaged in a brief chimney fire some months ago. I guess it's going to be down to me to get up there and paint it as they aren't, it seems. Joy.James was here for 10days and helped us out a great deal. We took a few trips out.. Costa Nova

Bouçaco Forest Walk

....and attended a couple of great parties, thanks to Seanna and Harry and Kate and Phil..... but mostly spent our time working. I have decided to swap the noise and ferocity of the strimmer for a scythe. It is altogether a much more pleasant way to keep down the weeds and grasses and strangely satisfying to be using a pre-techno technology!Before James left we got stuck in to building Sylvi's water feature in the back yard. It holds water - Crispin came over with some swimming pool sealant...He builds swimming pools. It now awaits Sylvi's input for how all the rocks and water pump are going to go in and fit together...I see an aching back coming up.

I've kept busy while on my own and painted the walls out the back under the shadery, which got put up before Sylvi and James left. Note the cool cane wall section. We had to process a lot of cane for that! But amazingly it only took a few hours to put the cane up with three of us working at it.

Sylvi has been in London helping out with the new baby and gets back on Tuesday so I'll let her fill you all in on baby related news...

Sylv here... I spent three busy and wonderful weeks in London, getting mega cuddles and time with Lexa, helping out Richard and Jo at home with all sorts, whatever was needed and even managed some time to see James, taking walks along the canal to Little Venice, Regents Park visiting the market in Portabello road, and spend a night with my sister (pie and mash rules)

Mum and Dad and Lexa 3 days old

Me with Lexa 12 days old

It was a real experience and privilege to watch Lexa grow and change over that time. It really is a miracle how babies develop so quickly. By the time I left she was beginning to want to hold up her head and focusing her eyes.

Lexa 4 weeks old

Amazing!!!! I miss her so much already but I have been promised lots of updates of photos and videos. Can't wait!!!

Amazing August

Look what we´ve got!
The most important news this month came in an unexpected announcement that our granddaughter Lexa Rose Keen was born by caesarian section just after 11 am on Friday 27th August.
We are both overwhelmed and delighted. Jo is doing well after the operation and Richard has been at the hospital all day every day since, with staff having to kick him out at midnight! Hopefully Jo and Lexa Rose will go home today, all being well.
Uncle James arrived yesterday so we had a family toast to celebrate our new addition to the family. He has already been to see Lexa and managed to hold her without fear of dropping her. (I am so envious!) He says he can't get over how tiny and perfect she is and, quote 'her tiny hands, I mean how does that work??'

I just can't wait to get to the UK and hold her myself. Hopefully in a couple of weeks time!Proud Granny and Granpa the day her birth was announced..

Meanwhile back on the ranch here is Fraser's report.
August has been a rather hot month...as was July . Lots of fires, so far none too close - touch wood, whistle etc. Bugsy has become semi aquatic - let him out and he goes and stands in the pond, trying to catch anything that moves,

so far without success, apart from a lizard or two and a slowworm. Scraps joins him when she’s all hot and bothered from her relentless pursuit of a tennis ball. I throw it with a sling I made, as otherwise it gets a bit hard on the shoulder!

Bugs is also an ace swimmer down at the lake - and he swims for the sheer fun of it. Scraps doesn’t. Throw a ball out of her depth and she waits for Bugsy to get it and drop it off to her in passing, which he often does, what a gent...occasionally.

My model building has has rather gone off the boil, as has my painting. I have, however been playing with a model dolphin that I sculpted out of ‘Sculpey’ a polymer clay. The mounting will end up as a glass fronted case. I don’t kid myself that this is the start of a commercial line of work. It took a few weeks of spare time just to get the dolphin right. If I were to get serious about small sculpture I’d need to find a good source of things like silicon for moulding and bronze powder for casting as real Bronze would require a second mortgage.

In an attempt to reduce fuel consumption, and because I hate the noise, smell, dust and getting coated in grass and weed clippings, I bought a Scythe. Found a German made steel tube snath (handle to you, the uninitiated) and an Austrian blade at a local market. I'm now waiting for a tiny anvil, sharpening stone and metal sheath (to be filled with water) from England. The anvil is for sharpening - google scythe sharpening if you're curious. There'll be more to report next month.

Taking a Break

The fire bombers are out and about as the heat came on with a vengeance this month and the work on the quinta has slowed down tremendously because of it. We are just focusing on watering and weeding and harvesting at the moment, getting up as early as possible, working for a few hours and then taking the rest of the day to work on our more creative side of life.Got lots of potatoes too. A basket full from the small mound and the others are being turned over when we need them. It's such a good feeling to take them out of the ground, wash them and be eating them that day.
I am making pickles early this year because we have so much coming in from the garden. We have courgettes and cucumbers coming out of our ears and so many tomatoes that the plants can't carry the weight. Hence the early start with the Mustard Pickle and Green Tomato Pickle. The chutneys can come later.
Fraser has cleared the final pile of wood that needed de-barking so now we have half a wood shed of good dry wood already for the winter. The hope is to clear off this last terrace and build a proper shadery and cover for wet wood to dry. I hope I can plant some climbers, gravel the terrace and complete the water feature below! In my dreams it will be done this summer! We discovered that we have some lovely Myrtle bushes in the forest by the lake and it would be great to be able to take a root section and grow some under the cover of the shade.

The hot weather seems to have brought out some new critters that we haven't seen before. We have seen 3 snakes in the past couple of weeks. The most exciting occasion being after hearing hissing coming from our climbers below the verandah Bugsy decided to investigate. Scraps went bananas and raised the alarm and we found a young Montpelier snake curled up suspended against the wall in the middle of the passion flower.They are venomous but their venom fangs are at the back of their mouths so you would have to shove your finger down their throats to get envenomed but of course for dogs and children with smaller bits to bite you have to be careful. However it was a beauty and we decided to leave it be and let it find its way home unmolested.
The previous week Fraser found a snake skin which had been recently shed, hanging from the rafters in the workshed. It was about 3 feet long and in good condition. Not sure if it is from the same snake though.

Again Scraps raised the alarm one afternoon when a largish centipede came trotting in through the door. It was big but not as big as the one that fell from the ceiling in the barn and nearly landed on Fraser's neck but it was the same type that can bite and ruin your day
This little fella is harmless though and as cute a stick insect as you can find on a wall!!

As for our the rest of the month, Fraser has been busy painting up some new work on board with palette knife, and I have been playing with fabrics and having lots of fun making small wall hangings in patchwork and applique.
We went to a local Arts Market day to show our work and it was a complete wash out with only 3 of us exhibiting, but it was a start I suppose.
Who knows, someday we may even get people coming to look...

Sun, Food and Messing about on the River

My trip to the UK was great and seemed to revolve entirely around eating far too much but then holidays are like that! I managed to spend time with my sister in Blackheath who carries on the family great tradition of making sure we are all fully fed and for a treat we had pie and mash and eels too from our long time favourite pie and mash shop in the east end of Londonthe green sauce is called liquer and is made from the eel juice with parsley and thickening added. Yummy!!!!!!

Met up with James and Adela on Sunday, train to Bath to stay with Malc on Monday, met Ejock and Chris (friends from college days) for lunch on Tuesday and then train down to Cornwall on Wednesday to meet Richard and Jo who were on holiday in Watergate Bay near Newquay and a chance to relax and see Jo's developing bump which is looking gloriously abundant and to talk baby. Making me a happy egg!!! Did typical Brit holiday stuff. The beach was the best, watching as everyone else with typical British resolve unpacked their regalia to enable them to spend the full day, come what may, cowering behind windbreaks and getting sand blasted on the beach... Classic!

Also went to Padstow (locally known as Padstein because of the chef Rick Stein who has made the place famous). Loads of people and dogs and sunshine and famous fish and chips, which I have to say were amazingly delicious.

Richard drove us back on Friday with only one emergency stop to cunningly dislodge a rapidly melting chocolate domino drop from between the front seats using only a tree twig and torn sliver from a rice crispy box! Jo's bad but only because it missed Richard's hand as he was driving!!

Had a lovely meal out on Friday with the boys and Jo for my birthday treat and then slept over at James's place. So Saturday was my birthday and I cooked a huge brunch for the boys and we celebrated the fact that this was the first birthday for nearly 20 years that I had spent with them. Got roller coaster eyeballs trying to play Sonic 3D on James's huge TV and then headed for Victoria in Richard's new VW Golf, dropping James off on the way to buy a new panama hat ready for the summer frenzy of the world cup and barbecues on the terrace. Looks good too! Took the Gatwick Express to the airport and finally reached Faro in time for an evening birthday BBQ with Steve and Jenny. Thanks to all of you for making my day a great one.

So now back in the saddle after a profuse welcome from Fraser and the dogs and a plan to make the diet begin!

Here the world has turned warm and everything in the garden is growing fast after so much rain and now the sunshine. We are harvesting lettuce, leeks, beans, courgette, broccoli, beetroot, mange- tout, cabbage and cucumbers and the tomatoes, aubergine, suedes, runner beans, cauliflowers, sweet potatoes, parsnips and peppers are coming on a treat in the main patch.My potatoes in the old grass piles are forming now and hopefully next month I can harvest them from the straw.For the first time this year I planted sweet corn and blue corn. The sweet corn are starting to flower now and the acorn squashes are doing their stuff crawling along in between the cornstalks down in the field patch. Fraser has set up the 1000 litre water tub to collect the run off water from the top pond that is seeping down through the terraces and we are using this to alternately water the field patch and top up the pond.Our yellow and red cherry tree produced a good crop for us this year and we were able to net most of the deliciously sweet fruit from the birds. The wild strawberries, raspberries and loganberries have been doing really well and I have enough gooseberries now to make a crumble this year! We have been into fruit smoothies big time so having our own red fruits has been a tremendous plus!

We were able to pick lots of small black cherries again at our friends' Josh and Veronika's quinta so the cherry jam is now made and awaiting labels...after 2 hours of de-stoning and purple stained hands for two days. The rest of the cherries are in the freezer as well as the glut from the veggie patch so far.

At the start of the month we decided to create a Bugsy -proof front fence and after demolishing the existing mud brick construction... which had suffered from the frosts and rainthe foundations and footing wall were redone in concrete and Fraser put up the new wire fencing and made a new gate. Great...except that we have discovered that Bugs can still scramble over the gate so adaptations are on the drawing board as I write.

After all that work we decided to celebrate both our birthdays and to take a break from the manual work so we planned a trip on the river with friend Matt who runs Rock and River www.rockandriver.com.pt
We packed a picnic, took the dogs and had a great day exploring our side of the river Mondego from the water.
Fraser was in hog heaven... I started out in the big open canoe and despite my balancing fears switched to a kayak and never looked back!
Steve and Vanessa joined us for the day. It was exhilarating and I can recommend the experience. Matt is a great coach and even managed the dogs.
So now we are getting back into adjusting our days to compensate for the heat. The dogs wake us early and we work till about 11 am and then take the rest of the day to do our own thing.
Fraser continues to take great photos of local insects and our abundant lizard population, and the rest of the time we relax and hammock...

That's if we can get the dogs out of them first!