Well things here are pottering along, our lovely friends Jan & Alik have moved on for the rest of their holiday and are traveling around southwards...
After a few days of quite cool weather... well cool for us anyway, it dropped to 18/19 degrees... which after 30 or so, seemed chilly... its picked up nicely again and is around 25/27 degrees which for me is about perfect, it still cools nicely at night so we can all get a good nights sleep and get plenty of work done outside during the day.
We are having a bit of a car problem, after Rick being smart and fixing the farting and coughing problem, it still needed a new part for the starter motor, no problem, the engineer said, in and out, one day 45 euros.... lovely we said.... except when Rick went to collect it after work having dropped it off on his way and some friends picking him up and taking him to work and doing the reverse in the evening.... a problem... its a rare part, not sold here, has to be imported via UK and all in all wont be ready till fri at best, and will cost three times what we were told.... bugger, bugger bugger....
But.... it has to be done, we want to sell the car and get another van, a van is so much more 'us' ...
It also means that ricky cant work this week as we have no transport... bless him he's walked into town this morning while its cooler to get me a few odds and ends of groceries...
The garden is still coming on, it seems slower this year... maybe thats me I dont know... but the daily slog of watering has begun, the whole top terrace which is my squashes , peppers and chillis and the aubergines and soft fruit has to be done by hand with a watering can. We have moved the large tank over there and pump the water from the well every few days, we plant all the squashes in large deep sink like holes, so we can fill each sink with food and water and it doesnt run off but soaks in gently, works a treat for us, I have tons of baby squash poppin out... Ive picked the odd baby courgette too... all the aubergines have tons of flowers and the pepper plants are setting baby peppers too... as are the chillis. I dont think I'll have the hundreds of piri piri that I had last year but what I have coming are much bigger...
The tomatoes seem to have survived our infected potato problem, but some look very wek, so I may well put in a few more and so we get a more staggered crop than the huge glut we normally get, all the potatoes are dug and clean and stored in our storage chest upstairs, we ended with four sacks... which is a poor crop for what we planted, but hey... they are free , delicious and will last us till probably christmas or late late autumn at the least...
We've been busy clearing a space and digging trenches and putting up concrete posts and wires for our new Raspberry bed,(and one new Loganberry Rick bought me as a pressie) last year I was given six canes and they have transformed themselves into around 25 this summer, so we've moved them into orderly rows and given them some support ect in the hopes they will keep increasing and then we can make a nice cage to stop the birds or rabbits or whatever it is that keeps nicking them before me...
I dont think its rabbits, as we now have a lovely family of foxes, we are keeping it quiet from our village neighbours over the hill as they will come with either traps or poison and I dont want that... I dont have chickens and they are feeding on the local rabbit population which is helping my veggie garden no end...
The first few nights drove us nuts as they yip and yap as they play and our dogs barked half the night... but they seem to have got used to it now and things are quieter...
The lovely Jan brought me two baby rhubarb crowns too, so they are coming along nicely in pots till the autumn when I think they'll be strong enough to plant out.
The amount of fruit we've planted you would think we would be in clover wouldnt you.... but sadly pretty much none of it is old enough to be giving much more than a handful here and there.... in a few years though we'll have every kind of fruit imaginable .... I hope..
The guest cottage situation is not bad, not great but again we are stumbling along, we've had a few cottage guest and have some more booked in, the caravan has helped out a little, with the odd booking here and there, its not wonderful in terms of income to live on, but we are just about paying the bills and staying afloat, just a few more would make such a difference to our coming winter so I have to pin some hopes on our Spanish guests who generally come last moment July and August, I have two lots booked in now but more are needed...
The whole Cottage area is looking very pretty this year, Im so pleased, the tubs are all down to me , I grew the flowers from seed so they have cost us pennies this year compared to arounf 15- 20 euros other years.... you can guess what I'll do from now on...
The new hot water system is working reasonably well, it still needs tweeking, but we have free hot water most days and thats excellent for us...
Work on the wind turbine is at a standstill, Rick is blaming lack of money... but I think without Aliks motivational skills its stumbled to a halt...
Frugal living in the Portuguese countryside,Eco-tourism, Agri tourism, recipes,family life, self sufficency, eco living, vegetable growing, tips and self help ideas for country living.
