Quinta das Abelhas

Well, that’s it then, my 3 weeks here is drawing to a close, and it’s my turn for a ‘blog entry’. What can i say . . I’ve felt so at home here recently, fitting in and knowing how and where to get on with the many jobs that need doing. every job leads to another and you usually have to something else before you start and always doing something random in between. Everything has been great, i was lucky enough to share both Sophie and Andy’s birthday and get out and about to visit alternative sites if they sell up here (which i think would be such a shame),
I was involved in the construction of the small yurt, clearing brambles from around my caravan and putting up a gate, and for the last week all hands to the olive harvest, I’ve enjoyed it all, even the tonnes of horse poo that i’ve shifted. Oh, and i got to ride one of the horses, Ayla, which was so lovely in the sunshine, picking and eating Madronha berries on route.
A fun night at the bar ended up with an interesting short cut, reversing down the the track with only the front wheels on the same terrace as us !
So many funny tales and situations.
Met some lovely and interesting people, had loads of gorgeous food, most of which coming straight from the land and cooked by andy, (really going to miss my dinners), homemade bread by sophie, entertainment from the cats and dogs,. . . .So much that i’ll miss, but will have to look forward to, being part of Quinta Das Abelhas when i return in the Spring next year.
It’s all been very Parsnip-monius,…. just like mint sauce !
‘Ate lago’ Sopie and Andy, and ‘Obrigada’ !
Beth. xxx

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Bosco and Hanisa have posted a report of their visit to us, on their project’s website You Can Cook, with some very nice photographs.

The aim of the project is to educate and create awareness within the community regarding the basics of cooking with a major emphasis on healthy eating.

The project will run cookery classes, demonstrations and workshops in world cuisine.

We will also provide valuable information about nutrition, benefits of organic and non-organic foods, buying local produce, fair trade issues with the ultimate objective being to provide a service that will help anyone and everyone in the community to make an informed choice.

We will also provide budgeting skills and knowledge about additives, flavourings, pesticides, fertilisers, E numbers,etc…..

Here’s the link to the report, with some very nice things said about us, and some excellent photos of their stay.

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We were talking the other evening, about the notion of finding a plough that our horses could pull. Perhaps we could train them to plough their own fields, to grow grain for them to eat, or even just to plant some decent grass for grazing?

So, yesterday Joao and I went to buy seed, some for planting and some for chicken food, and we saw a horse drawn plough in the shop.

But whether we get around to buying it, and using it - perhaps this was just a dream? But who knows.

I was going to buy a chicken food mix, but reading through the ingredients realised that the commercial mix labelled as ‘natural’ is in fact 42% genetically modified corn. This corn is very cheap to buy, but the mix isn’t so cheap, plus we’d prefer not to be feeding the chickens GM food.

So, I ended up spending a lot more euros than I had planned to, and came home with 5 sacks of grain of different types, to mix and make my own chicken mix. In the long run this works out cheaper, and we shouldn’t need to buy chicken food again this winter. And hopefully they will be healthier and lay us more eggs on a grain diet without the GM corn and soya.

It seems that almost all animal food now contains the transgenic corn and soya - there is no way to avoid it, unless you grow your own chicken food (and then corn will cross with transgenic corn up to 15 miles away!), or buy the basic ingreients and mix our own. Governments may have allowed transgenic crops into animal food - but we’re not convinced that it is safe or reliable in the future, being so energy intensive in its farming.

And we plan to put a terrace under a winter crop of grain, either for the horses to be allowed to graze, or to harvest our own grain. But we have to think seriously about where, what patch of land we can bar the horses from for a few months, and about water and how to get it there if the rains don’t keep the ground moist.

Joao seems to be encouraging us to take some steps to being more self sufficient and farming proper. It’s quite exciting!

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Geoff and Helen, wwoofers who leave today after a month of working hard for us, spent the last week or so tiling the end walls of our kitchen. What started as a mosaic job, with Bosco and Hanisa, has turned into a serious ‘lets make the kichen nice’ job.

The tiles are finished now, but when I took these it was still being done. I really wasn’t sure about the blue tiles that Sophie chose, but it looks fantastic. And we were allowed to rummage through the bins at the tile shop to get lots of broken tiles to add to our mosaic-ing collection.

Dinner last night was more madness than usual, amidst the rubble of the kitchen! It was Geoff and Helen’s last meal with us, crowded around a small table, with Sophie, Joao, Beth (newly arrived wwoofer), and Geoff’s brother Colin and partner Jan. And me, behind the camera.

Thanks Geoff and Helen for all the help over the last weeks.

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We finally got round to putting the renovated baby yurt together. We bought this yurt from a guy in Wales 7 or 8 years ago, and it served us well when we were ‘SWARM’ offering a non-commercial marquee space at festivals (free tea!), and travelling in our Dodge50 live-in truck.
Its been getting tattier and tattier, so earlier this year we asked Fiona, a friend, to repair/rebuild it.

Here’s the frame, with the inner liner going on:

It is really small, just big enough for a double mattress and a burner, but we are putting a single bed into it, with a very small burner in the centre. We’d tested the canvas outer sheet, and it fitted, with the roof being a little loose. But now, with the felt layer fitted on, the side sheet of canvas is too short! We are going to have to get an extra strip of canvas sewed on to make it fit.

It is sited over near the main yurt and kitchen caravan, and will provide another valuable warm sleeping space. The base is a ring of bricks with wooden platform that was built last year, before we decided that it needed serious renovating.

And, I have to post the following photo, with the caption ‘What are they doing?!’

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