The Dogs.

We've been asked by our friends who visit now and again, for some recent shots of our lovely girls...

here they are enjoying the company and the garden.

Pretty but Bad Mushrooms...

We have tons of these toadstools sprouting up everywhere in the forest... and Im pretty sure they are Fly Agaric... very unpleasant... but so pretty... real fairy house type ones...

Mushrooms & Cabbage

We have happily been picking tons of cabbages, its a good job the lads like cabbage, rick is no problem, he'll eat it everyday..
Also luckily we've had a good crop of wild Parasol mushrooms  over the last couple of weeks.

My recipe for  Stirfry cabbage and mushrooms..

Add a good glub of olive oil to a large pan, add a large chopped onion, a few cloves of chopped garlic and fry till just starting to go golden...add as much chopped mushroom as you like... we love plenty!  add a whole sliced green cabbage, ours are the tight pointed top ones, and just stirfry it till its all cooked and the flavours have melded...
Mmmm yummy
I do the same thing with extra garlic and onions if we dont have mushrooms

Sunshine, Olives, cookouts, and hard work..

Its been what seems like ages again, but to be honest, as its winter and things get tricky for us in winter, we try to limit the trips into town to an absolute minimum to save on fuel. Also... we are so damn busy, its just that the days fly by and we dont realise it...

I'll try to get into this update all thats being happening but its tough, and then when Ive done, I'll remember everything Ive forgotten...

The lads are still with us, its been oh... around 7 weeks now I think, so long we've lost count... they have settled well and look and seem happy enough..
They are working hard and still accomplishing so much for us its excellent... although I seem to spend all my life cooking and preparing food that as soon as I turn my back has vanished... they sure can eat...

Gareth has finshed his project, and it looks wonderful, Im so pleased, its turned out just as I'd hoped if not even better. Its very pretty and come the spring will be even better with some nice pots of flowers. Its completely made from our scrap stone, and no cement, Rick showed him the old way of using clay instead , its the way our house was built 250 years ago...

Gareth is understandably very proud of it... and so he should be...

Osian has finally finished stone walling, he's built another one to finish off the terrace by the house, again it looks lovely and fits in completely. The whole area outside the back door has completely been transformed. It was a rubble and weed filled rubbish dump, now it looks like a real garden and will be a beautiful place to sit during the summer.

We have also added another almost full row to the log barn, no mean feat in itself... but we do have the range going all day now, the weather has been stunning, although for us a tad chilly morning and evening, the boys still cant believe it and are in tee shirts.. This last week it was so warm Osian worked in shorts...

its been around 20-22 degrees for best part of the week, on sunday we decided to have what will be the last cookout of the year...

We fired up the old bread oven and I made fresh pizza and then rick lit the BBQ , we have a good brick built one, and we cooked chops Id been marinating over night, some in yogurt with orange juice and basil, some in balsamico and oil and garlic... yummy... plenty of rice & salad and some good red wine of course... it was a great afternoon, Gareth played his Guitar and we sat in the sunshine and relaxed..

The broad beans we planted in the orchard have all popped up, looking good... this week the lads are strimming and clearing the two terraces above the orchard level, tidying and clearing old branches and trimming back old vines. We also have lots of clearing up to do nearer the house now the vines have all dropped their leaves..

We are making a huge bonfire, looking forward to our Winter Solstice Celebrations... it will be a first for the lads so we want to make it special, rick will be building a Solstice lodge for in the garden and we hope to hold the celebration outside if its not too wet...

We have also picked a few olives, we had an excellent crop, but sadly most are on the ground and not much good now, but we'll manage about 6-8 sacks in the end we hope, not a great year but its so delicious... I cant manage without it... I use a litre a week nowadays...

Well hopefully thats all...

More Jobs done...

Having helpers with us, is a two way thing, we must try to offer them something in return for their labours, both lads are learning new skills that while they are learning is helping us out, and hopefully will stand them in good stead in life when they leave us, if I ever let them go that is...

The latest of their new learning experiences was cement rendering... we have a brick built wall that although double skin and insulated, just let damp seep through. It needed rendering on the outside which during winter is the side of the house that bears the brunt of most of our bad weather and wind... as it faces right down the vally.

So we invested 10 euros in some cement and Rick and the lads rendered the wall. mixing and carrying buckets of cement from behind the house, down the yard , up the stairs onto the terrace, was a job for strong arms... they did an excellent job. Rick made a point of demonstrating the art of rendering and let both lads try it out. There is more to be done in the future so we hope that again by the time they leave us, a new skill will be added to their profile lists.

While the weather was good, we set to and got the orchard area strimmed , tidied and rick rototilled the whole area ready for winter.

Me and the lads then planted up the whole area with broad beans... thats a huge area ... we certainly wont be short of beans next spring... I had mistakenly asked Rick to pick me up some seed from the local man and he likes beans... so he bought two and a half kilos of seed....

well.. I couldnt waste it could I? The lads went down later and covered the whole area with the wood ash we've been saving from the kitchen range, beans seem to love it...

 

The newly renovated and landscaped garden around the house is starting to green up now, the walls the lads have built look very pretty...

General Update.

There is so much happening at our place I dont know where to begin this update. Of course its all down to having such excellent helpers, almost five weeks on and they are becoming family now..

Right, Osian finished his wall, and smashing it looked too, his latest project has been to build a small drainage gully out of stone to run completely down the side of the steps which lead up to the house, this we hope will stop the steps becoming the annual waterfall that happens normally. As we live on a hill, since we built the steps every winter when the rains come, the steps become a water feature of the garden, but it washes mud and debris down onto my gravel patio outside the cottage and gives us added work cleaning it up...

It rained heavily last night and the finished drain worked like a dream... As you can see by the pictures, the dogs, who seem to wangle their way into most shots, love having the lads around too...

Gareth has a new project too, a while ago, a friend gave us a lovely old pump, he is going to build a two tier stone plinth to mount the pump on, and stone paths radiating out which we will gravel (when we have some money) and plant up with herbs... its a large job, which he can work on at his own pace, as well as all his other things he's doing... Rick is helping him with advice on local traditional methods using clay as filling between the stones instead of cement..

The lads are of course helping out in a multitude of ways, we have to be doing things that cost us nothing but improve our place here, there is a lot more wood to be collected, especially now the weather has turned wet and windy, its still very mild but a tad damp...

We have been chestnut collecting, the lads then were set to boiling and peeling them for the freezer, a useful afternoons work by the fire on a wet day.

Frugal Recipe Spagetti Pumpkin

Wow... doesnt time fly when your having fun..
We seem to lose days and even weeks at the moment, having the welsh lads here means I am busier in the kitchen every day, its my job to provide them with decent wholesome food, but obviously for our budget... which is very little. We are scraping by moneywise on odd bookings at the moment. But luckily we have an excellent year in the garden so food stocks are high.
We have a large amount of spagetti Pumpkin, so we are eating it often...
At the moment Ive tried it just one way;
Bake it whole in a slow oven, when it is tender(I prod with a skewer) open, scoop out the seeds, (which my friend is roasting and eating but we've yet to try) scrape out the fleshy strands with a fork which divides them well, add a knob of garlic or herby butter and a light dusting of parmesan or any cheese you like... its yummy.

Tonight I plan to try ..
Cut in half , scop out the seeds, pack with a mix of cooked rice or cuscous, with chopped mushrooms(we have Parasol mushrooms  growing wild at the mo) onions, tomatos, and herbs, put back together, wrap firmly with foil and bake.
I will serve it with roasted herby veggies and maybe garlic bread if I have any stale..

Kristina Aubergines..

Kristina, Ive asked a friend here about Aubergines and your problem with them being bitter... Ive was told its the type you grow... maybe try a different one?
None of mine were, Ive often heard about them being bitter, but have never had that problem, Ive eaten mine raw chopped in a salad... they dont grow huge, I pck them early...
If you would like a packet of seed from here just let me know your address. Email me and I'll happily send you some..

Helper Update. Gareth.

While Osian has been busy wall building, Gareth hasnt been idle either, he's been busy doing tons of little jobs around the place, helping Rick with things that need an extra set of hands, he cleared the back garden area ready for rick to rototill, did a smashing job of weeding all the graveled beds in front of the cottage, and the carpark. The weeding of the gravel beds is such a pig of a job, its very tough on the back and leaves you with sore fingers for days... but hes done a great job. Hes also (as we all are) spending time in the wood barn, we are always collecting cutting splitting stacking...

A day or two a go we strained and finshed bottling the second batch of my fennel Liquer, yesterday the lads and Rick took a bottle down to a Portuguese friend in the village, and came back last night rather the worse  for wear having spent two hours or more drinking wine in his adega...

So today we are having an easy day, as they all need it... I am going to teach the lads to make my soda bread later..

Helper Update. Osian's Wall

Well Osian has finished his wall, Its lovely, we are all really pleased, apart from some advice from Rick and some hard work from Gareth collecting good stones for him, sian did the work himself, he designed the curved wall , dug out the ground, and built the wall, filling in the earth as he went, he's done an excellent job and has something permanent to be proud of, and hopefully a skill he can take forward with him too.