Autumn Leaves and Falling....Trees!

NEVER let a friendly neighbour convince you to let them fell a tree for you regardless of their years of experience and insistence. Here in Portugal it is sometimes the case that well-meaning bravado ends in disaster. Most civil accidents happen in tree felling here.
The end result for us was pretty catastrophic but almost fatal for the 71 year old neighbour Amandeu, who insisted that our diseased tree had to come down and that he and his friends would do it for us. This tree is around 70 feet tall and twisted as hell and is next to our house.
I think the following photos tell the story...except that you can't really see that Amandeu ends up under the branches of the tree..

Amandeu our neighbour is here in the grey cap. Don´t ask me why they thought they were holding the tree up while the other guy makes the gob cut. Instead of bringing the tractor and steel cable they decided to use a rope and lashed it to an olive tree to the right of the pathway in order to pull it towards the field by hand. It was not a good idea. The tree fell heading for the house and the men and not to the field.

You can see George escaping up the pathway...he ducked under the trunk just before it bridged the gap, but Amandeu was still on the path with nowhere to run.I had been standing right here watching from what I thought was a safe distance. I don't know how but once the tree started toppling towards me I found myself under our veranda overhang by the kitchen door...looking for the dogs! They were terrified but unhurt.
In the picture above you can see where Amandeu was lying on the pathway, on his back with his head at the foot of the broken gate. Luckily the trunk didn't hit him, and we think he tripped and fell badly on the log step before the tree landed and the top branches of the tree were hung up inside the garden on our crushed gate and garden fence.
Lots of spectators arrived from the village to find out what had happened since they saw ambulance turn down our track. It took two ambulances and a doctor in his emergency car to see to Amandeu. He was extremely lucky and was taken to hospital 3 hours after the tree fell. We worried that he might have broken ribs but as it turns out he has suffered severe bruising around his back but no other damage.

So we started the cleanup the following morning...Steve and Vanessa helped to cut and clear the top section of the trunk and the brash from the garden and gate as well as cutting back the olive tree which was smashed. The wood is now stored on the back terrace and we burned the brash. Fraser has created a new fence by cannibalizing the fence around the field paddock and we have reinstated the old willow gate to keep the dogs in.
George organised a tractor with cable to come and cut and move the rest of the trunk and we let them keep the wood as payment. So farewell old tree...
Other news ..My water feature is finally finished and friends came for lunch to view it and celebrate the event....

The weather has now turned and producing autumn landscapes.
We have cleared the terraces and had new steps done so that I can get around them more easily.
Bugsy has made a den for himself and Scraps and still manages to find snakes for Fraser to rescue..The river is so low now that it is turning up some wonderful old tree stumps.....wish we could cart them up to the house for the garden!The water was at the top of this building in May.
So we now have the rain that we have waited for so long to see. Hopefully it will green up the garden and irrigate the new trees on the terraces.
We have started lighting our wood burners now and winter is on its way.

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.