General Update.

Well the weather has been so glorious this past week that we've spent most of the days working outside, I havent even lit the kitchen range untill it was time to cook the evening meal. Its still been frosty in the mornings but soon cleared up when the sun came up to be warm and sunny all day. We've had temps of 17 -19º lovely!
We are both feeling the work we've done now though, both Rick and I are both stiff and aching from hard work... so today is a bit overcast and we are due a few showers and the rest is welcome...
We've been working on the terrace we call the back garden, its about 100 metres long by around 30 or so in places, rather irregualer in shape , it runs behind the house between us and the cottage, and its where we grow our tomatoes and corn, we have a few olive trees and a Pomegranete tree there too. Its very overgrown in places and the wall has collapsed as well, which is difficult, it will have to stay as it is for the forseeable future as we have so many other things to do. But we've strimmed the whole area, Ive been and dug a lot of it with the portuguese fork to unearth large rocks and a whole bin full of broken bottles pots and pans and tins.. Just to make the area safer to work on and easier for Rick to rototill with Herman, as we have to go through that area to get Herman up to the herb garden area which I want to organise as soon as possible.
The whole area is loking much cleaner and tidier now, obviously still lots to do, but there always is... but at least we can till the ground and prepare it for growing in now.
We are also busy working on the rental cottage area, the wooden pergola over the seating area fell down the other day, it had been up about three years but covered by such heavy vines the wood just couldnt take it, some were rotten too, so Rick has renewed all that and put it back up, Ive weeded the area and tidied up , I still have a couple of flower beds to weed and the carpark to do... It makes a lot more work but we dont spray to kill that kind of stuff so someone has to do it...

I'm having another go at the curing my own bacon thing... this time Ive cut the level of salt and upped the sugar a bit... It will take longer but should be a bit more to our taste... the first batch is almost gone, we did enjoy it, but it was just a touch too salty... Thinking of trying a ham soon...
Ive also had a go at making my own soft cheese, again, not a complete success but it was edible and we had it with homemeade bread and it made a decent meal.
Im having another go soon and when Ive perfected it ... or as much as I can, I'll post how I did it, and some pictures...
We find cheese is a huge expense here, and not particuarly good at that.. I do miss good cheese... trouble is, I like goats cheese, which here is excellent... but his lordship wont eat it and its too expensive to buy just for me...
But any kind of strong hard cheese is hard to get here... which means cooking with it is hard... and we like cheesy sauces etc...

I'd love to get to the stage where we are eating our own veggies, fruit, cheese, yogurt (Rick loves it) bread, ham and bacon... even though I dont breed the meat myself I count it as mine if I cure it... Olive oil and olives, wine... Ooooh sounds delish...

I plan so many more preserves this year... much more drying... sundried toms, and figs and maybe some grapes too...
The tomato puree and tomato sauce and Pasta sauce has been such a success Im going to do tons more... Plus lots of our own dried beans, and hopefully some peas if we get a good crop...
I also have a greenhouse plan in my mind... Poor Rick... A three sided one making use of the outside wall of the house where the stone wall will hold the heat it gets during the day to release it at night and stop the frost at night, just to bring on my seeds during spring, as we have such late frosts up here, it would really save me time... we have some glass panels, its just a matter of building it... plus I could overwinter some things that would help like herbs etc...