Quinta das Abelhas

sheesh! thought i would be enjoying a nice, peaceful, relaxing time whilst andy’s in the uk and the wwoofers have gone away for a long (long) weekend. no such luck. i’ve been so busy with work since pure portugal has joined up with central portugal. it’s just piling up and piling up and i fear everyone may return to find me buried under a mountain of it.

i’ve added quite a few new properties to the website in the last few days, and been to see some of them for myself - they really are great, and very good prices too! so if you fancy the move to sunny portugal, especially if you’re dreaming of a more eco-friendly life … check out www.pureportugal.co.uk

it’s so great working for a co-op rather than a boss, we can choose to work when & how we want and not put profit before anything else - means we can turn down properties that we think are crap and/or overpriced.

well, there’s a loud cat-fight going on outside, so praps i should go intervene …

boa noite xx

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handprints, originally uploaded by pureportugal.

Spent today making a concrete foundation for a new chicken shed. The wwoofers worked really hard mixing concrete and wheel-barrowing it down to the terrace we’ve given over to the chickens (we’re going to fence in a whole terrace for them so they can’t eat everything from our gardens) where Andy & I layed & tamped it. Doesn’t it look good? We’re all very proud of our first ever attempt at laying concrete, and to celebrate the wwoofers put their handprints in the new floor.

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Today was yet another pleasantly and surprisingly warm day. Knowing there are multiple feet of snow on the ground where we came from, the balmy afternoons are cherished. The nights, as well, seem to be warming up. We planted several fruit trees today, only after clearing a large bed of weedy grass, affectionately know as ‘bastard grass’. Some time was also spent weaving young mimosa stalks around a frame, slowly building a shield around the outdoor bathtub. We are very excited about the final product of this project.
The other projects on the farm are slowly coming together. Trellis mending will never cease, so it feels, but hopefully by the time we leave we can proudly say they will be ready for the growing season. The chicken shed is nothing but a hole in the ground but tomorrow, apparently, we will begin laying a foundation. We–and Sophie agrees–think we might miss the company of the chickens and geese that constantly peck and waddle about the “yard” near the house.
As you can see, life crawls on here at Quinta Das Ablehas.

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life at quinta das abelhas–

we’ve been here for a week and a half and i feel as if it’s been months—

aaahhhh! cheesy intro lines! i’ll just outline the (so far) most memorable aspects of life on the farm:

my companions and i on our first few nights, attemping to light the woodstove in the yurt for heat- we managed to do nothing but waste wood and literally smoke ourselves out. we stood outside, admiring the stars, dizzy from smoke inhalation and laughing at our city-kid inadequacies.

taking sunset-lit baths in the outdoor tub– first a fire must be built, and then tended periodically until the water heats up. you have to wait until the fire goes out, because the smoke can be brutal. i was impatient once, and sat in the hot bath, engulfed by smoke, and washing my hair in a futile attempt to enjoy myself. my first bath, though, which i took on a saturday, and therefore had hours to let the fire burn, was absolutely fantastic.

the moment we finished the grape-vine trellises on the eastern side of the quinta– it feels wonderful to complete something of that nature, espeically when you’ve started from the ground up. of course, we basked only for a moment: there are millions more trellises to be built and/or fixed on the other side.

hmm.. accomodations are simple yet splendid (andy’s cooking really is great), the animals are wonderful company (speaking of which, sophie and andy are also wonderful company), the work is satisfying but manageable…

this was less of a blog entry than an overall summary…it’ll do.

i feel like i’ve got my intro-crap out of the way; i’d like to write a real journal-type entry sometime. have to ask sophie again. i think she wants this to be a wwoofer job, anyhow. boa noite.

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icegarden, originally uploaded by pureportugal.

One of the wwoofers had a shower yesterday and left it running a bit. This morning we have a weird and wonderful ice garden! This morning is the coldest it’s been yet this winter, but the sun is out and we’re gradually warming up. Off to market this morning and then to our friends’ house-warming this afternoon.

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