Self sufficiency in Galicia

The dumbest journalist ever? Says gold is 'backed by nothing' - NaturalNews.tv

2011-10-01T03:53:00.000-07:00

The dumbest journalist ever? Says gold is 'backed by nothing' - NaturalNews.tv

Farewell to Galicia

2011-08-20T11:47:00.000-07:00

This post is somewhat late, things have been rather busy since we left Galicia for pastures new. We were sad to leave our friends, but not too sorry to bid farewell to Spain. Life is never easy in a foreign country, especially one that has so many different languages and we never got to grips with Gallego which is what our neighbours all spoke, but we muddled through.
The farewell bash, arranged by our friends was great, hosted by Noel and Yo who opened up their house to all, Lisa was the general coordinator, and she did a brilliant job. Every one entered into the spirit of the thing by dressing up in the national Irish colours, even some of the food was was Irish coloured. So thanks to you all. We are now looking forward to October when we will have the first of our friends from Galicia coming for a visit, we miss you guys!
The move it's self did not go according to plan, the journey should have taken just two days,however that turned into over five days. Unfortunately the vets in Lugo had never done pet passports before, and did just about everything wrong that they could, although the procedure had been carried out to the letter, none of the paperwork had been entered into the passports, they even gave the wrong parasite treatment.All this resulted in a three day delay in Roscoff while a fantastic French vet sorted it all out for us. On the upside, if you have to be stranded somewhere I can think of far worse places than Roscoff, it is a very pretty place and the food in the restaurants is fantastic, we hope to return one day for a holiday there.The animals all took the delay very well and were not too stressed, I wish I could say the same about the humans.
So now we are in our new home and slowly getting things unpacked, there is always so much to organise when you move, however we now have a wood burning range installed, this does both the cooking hot water and central heating. The attic space has now been insulated with 300 mms of insulation, and both the plumber and the insulation company turned up on time! The poly-tunnel should be arriving this coming week, and the sun-room and wardrobes are all on order, and the first load of turf has arrived, so all in all things are fairly organised,Oh yes, the kitchen tiling has been done by Simon, and the garden is looking like a garden, we even had a few raspberries and the potatoes are ready for lifting. It's wonderful not to have to fight against the mice and Colorado beetle. So what do we miss? Our friends, but that's it, life is once again simple.

Institute for Responsible Technology -

2011-08-06T09:47:00.000-07:00

Institute for Responsible Technology -

A Lesson

2011-07-12T03:19:00.000-07:00

GOD & LAWN CARE

God said: "Frank, you know all about gardens and nature. What in the world is going on down there on the planet? What happened to the dandelions, violets, milkweeds and stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect no-maintenance garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long-lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honey bees and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of colors by now. But, all I see are these green rectangles."

St. FRANCIS:
It's the tribes that settled there, Lord. The Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers 'weeds' and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.

GOD:
Grass? But, it's so boring. It's not colorful. It doesn't attract butterflies, birds and bees; only grubs and sod worms. It's sensitive to temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want all that grass growing there?

ST. FRANCIS:
Apparently so, Lord. They go to great pains to grow it and keep it green. They begin each spring by fertilizing grass and poisoning any other plant that crops up in the lawn.

GOD:
The spring rains and warm weather probably make grass grow really fast. That must make the Suburbanites happy.

ST. FRANCIS:
Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it grows a little, they cut it-sometimes twice a week.

GOD:
They cut it? Do they then bale it like hay?

ST. FRANCIS:
Not exactly, Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in bags.

GOD:
They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?

ST. FRANCIS:
No, Sir, just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.

GOD:
Now, let me get this straight. They fertilize grass so it will grow. And, when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?

ST. FRANCIS:
Yes, Sir.

GOD:
These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.

ST. FRANCIS:
You aren't going to believe this, Lord. When the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it, so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.

GOD:
What nonsense. At least they kept some of the trees. That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn, they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. It's a natural cycle of life.

ST. FRANCIS:
You better sit down, Lord. The Suburbanites have drawn a new circle. As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.

GOD:
No!? What do they do to protect the shrub and tree roots in the winter to keep the soil moist and loose?

ST. FRANCIS:
After throwing away the leaves, they go out and buy something which they call mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.

GOD:
And where do they get this mulch?

ST. FRANCIS:
They cut down trees and grind them up to make the mulch.

GOD:
Enough! I don't want to think about this anymore. St. Catherine, you're in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?

ST. CATHERINE:
'Dumb and Dumber', Lord. It's a story about....

GOD:
Never mind, I think I just heard the whole story from St. Francis

Snake eggs

2011-07-06T12:23:00.000-07:00

Nature has a way of working out her own balance,pharmaceutical company's would have you believe that they are the only ones that have solutions to problems, be it mice, slugs, aphids or flea beetle, big pharma has the cure.
Well so does mother nature, today's find was a large clutch of grass snakes eggs, in fact it looks as though it is probably two clutches of eggs together, these when they hatch and grow will feed on the mice and voles which are being a real pain in the garden.
Also found today were a couple of lizard eggs, great to control small slugs and aphids. There is also have a great population of both the common toad, the midwife toad and we think also the natter-jacks, there are also two permanent pool frogs who live in the pond.
So who needs big pharma?

Cloudscapes

2011-07-06T12:11:00.000-07:00

We had a drive up into the mountains mainly to get away from the intense heat although we live at an altitude of 620mts a few extra metres makes a lot of difference, I use the term a few lightly, the mountain we explored was in fact 1000mts. The air was cool, well actually it was cold and blowing a gale but it was refreshing.It did try to rain, without success although there were plenty of storm clouds but it was beautiful and made for some nice photos.

Bridges, Newts and Stork nests.

2011-06-30T09:26:00.000-07:00

Now that we have a lot of spare time on our hands we are taking advantage and are able to visit both friends and places of interest, we visited Paza De Tor near Monforte de Lemos with friends on Tuesday. This is a lovely, very old manor house dating back some five hundred years, it has some interesting pieces of furniture, and I sure it also has wonderful paintings, these however are so dirty it is impossible to see them clearly. There is no charge to visit the house and is maintained by the government, I'm sure that if a voluntary donation box was provided for the restoration of these paintings the funds would soon be available. Unfortunately there are no photo's to show as it is prohibited, but any one in the area and interested in old buildings it is well worth a visit.
Wednesday was another day out with friends and we got to see the old bridge and old road over the Mino between O Savinao and Taboada, the lack of water in the river is due to work on the hydro electric dam near Chantada. It was then back to our friends house to view the crested newts which have taken up residence in their swimming pool, this has given them a problem as these newts are a protected species, not helpful when you want to clean out and use your swimming pool.
We then found a storks nest which gives new meaning to high rise living, by the size of the nest however it has clearly been in use for a number of years.

30 degrees and rising

2011-06-27T06:21:00.000-07:00

Yet another very close forest fire today, despite having had a big thunder storm last night and some heavy rain it hasn't stopped fire. This one is very close and the helicopters have recharged their water bombs from the water deposit tank in what was our field. The geese and goats are quite alarmed by these big noisy birds, the hens are terrified, it is quite likely to stop them laying for a while.
Many of the fires in Galicia are stared quite deliberately, we had an email from a friend on the coast yesterday, she lives in Pontevedra, they had seventy fires in just one day, most started deliberately, and for reasons best known to the government they have reduced the distance of trees from property.
We just hope that with the fire fighters taking the water from the water tank that some of the amphibious life living there remains.

Samos

2011-06-21T04:50:00.000-07:00

We always enjoy a visit to Samos, it is on the Pilgrim route and has a large Monastery situated beside a river as many monastery's are.
It was nice to see that the goose population had increased we are assuming that they have had young.
It was also interesting to see how much the new orchard, planted only a couple of years ago has grown. The trees were only whips, this year many are bearing fruit.
The livestock kept by the Monastery also seems to have increased, with a couple of very beautiful long horn cattle, I'm not sure what breed they are but they are superb, and a mare with donkey foal.
It was however sad to see the medicinal garden overgrown and neglected. We had on one of our previous visits met a very elderly monk, in his late eighties who explained to us with great pride that the gardens were his responsibility and that he grew all the vegetables for the Monastery, seeing the medicinal garden so overgrown we suspect he is no longer able to do the work, or maybe he is no longer with them.

Self sufficiency in Galicia: Casa de las Flores

2011-06-19T16:04:00.000-07:00

Self sufficiency in Galicia: Casa de las Flores
www.LifeinGalicia.com

Casa de las Flores

2011-06-19T12:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday at last we made it to Mer near Sober to Casa de las Flores, created by Martin and Barbara in just four years from a typical Galician meadow. From time to time they open their gardens to the public and their hospitality is great, tea or coffee and the best carrot cake we have ever had. Martin makes beautiful water features for sale which run from a small solar panel. Barbara grows plants! If you are looking for the unusual these are the people to contact. Just about one of the nicest nurseries we have ever visited.

Wild flowers

2011-06-16T05:08:00.000-07:00

We have both always had a keen interest in wild flora and fauna and in fact my husband along with his sisters used to collect samples for the artist, Barbara Nicholson who was an illustrator for Oxford University press. I when at boarding school had the nick name of ditch watcher, if there was something unusual to be found I would spot it. We normally manage to identify the plants that we spot, but sometimes we do draw a blank. Here we have the wild Gladioli and a mystery plant. Growing just above a river, standing over two metres tall, with an distinct aroma we have been unable to identify it.

Fire

2011-06-15T12:19:00.000-07:00

Living in rural Spain you are always aware of the danger of forest fires, Spain has many very big forests and are very hard to access, this is even more so in Galicia. We had our first experience of such a fire in Catalonia several k away from us, but we could see it and smell it, it was then that we realised that we had no evacuation plan set out. There is nothing like seeing an out of control forest fire to focus your mind, especially if you keep live stock. This particular fire took four days to get under control and several people lost their homes.
Today we have seen our first close by forest fire in Galicia, we became aware of it with the helicopters flying above the house every four minutes with water bombs, so far the planes have been flying for over four hours, dropping their water bombs every two minutes. This fire is only four k away, and there is a fairly strong breeze, having had no real rain for three months or so does not help matters and every thing is tinder dry although most of the local farmers have cut their meadows, the field behind us is uncut and surrounded by trees. We know from our neighbours that the forest above us went up in flames a few years ago and all the neighbours are out, keeping an eye on the situation.

Hedgehogs

2011-06-09T12:03:00.000-07:00

We often see hedgehogs but they are normally dead in the middle of the road so we were delighted today to come back to the house to find that a hedgehogs nest had been discovered. Unfortunately the hedgehog had been disturbed along with her babies, however, she gathered them up and moved them to a place of safety.

Dry, Dry and Drier

2011-06-04T09:58:00.000-07:00

According to records this spring has been the warmest and driest on record. We took a detour last week on our way back from friends to Portomarin, a very pretty village on the Pilgrim route. This is a village that had been moved when 'they' dammed the Mino river for a hydro electric scheme, flooding the old village. The water level is now so low that the old buildings are clearly visible and the track through the old village is now back in use, and what should be mud banks is now green grass. After over four years here we have come to the conclusion that all this rain that Galicia is supposed to get is mainly on the coast or very high up in the mountains.
All the fields are tinder dry and gardens need constant watering if they are to stand a chance of producing anything. maybe the rains will come, we will wait and see.

Poppies

2011-05-31T07:21:00.000-07:00

The rain over the weekend has cooled things down and it is now a nice comfortable temperature about 18c, if however we believe the forecast it is going to get hot again. Anyway, I'm sure that the rain and a couple of days cooler temperatures will have done the gardens a lot of good, weeds as well, still you can't have everything.It is very hard not having a garden here to work in, knowing what needs to be done, and wondering how our newly started garden in Ireland is faring, at least it shouldn't curl up and die due to no rain and hot sun. We sit here planing all the things that need to be done when we get back, or should that be 'what' we want to get done? It's now only six weeks until we go but six weeks seems a very long time when you are waiting.

Rain and roses

2011-05-30T03:58:00.001-07:00

Since March there has been very little rain so the rain that arrived on yesterday was most welcome, for once the forecasters had got it right. Heavy thunders storms in the morning with about an inch of rain in a very short time, now everything smells and looks fresh and washed.
Galicia is supposed to be a very wet province but we really have not found it so, it can rain and when it does it is normally very heavy but does not go on for weeks as it can in the UK and Ireland.
The roses in Galicia are something to behold, just about every house and garden have roses, mostly highly scented ones, we have found that they are very easy to take cutting of and all of the climbers here have been grown from cuttings given to us by an elderly gentleman in the next aldea. We shall try to take cuttings with us when we make the final move.

Gardening from scratch

2011-05-25T05:39:00.001-07:00

Not everything goes according to plan, we arrived in Ireland after three days travelling to find the the solicitors had not completed on our purchase of the new house, whether it was our side or the vendors I guess we will never know but we arrived with a van load of boxes and plants expecting to be able to move in and get the garden started to find that we were still homeless, our solicitor was away and could not be contacted for a further four days. Fortunately we have a number of friends there so accommodation was not a problem and the seller agreed that we could put our stuff into the cottage which was just as well as the first thing we found was water runner through the once perfect kitchen ceiling. We turned of the mains and had to leave it at that, it has done some damage but nothing we cant sort out when we get back there. We eventually got the keys four days later and set about getting the garden started, a few days later a friend turned up with her son and daughter plus a helpxer and they helped turn the virgin soil for us, we now have seven rows of potatoes planted plus swede carrots and parsnips, I also had some special seed potatoes which I have planted in the boxes we had transported our goods in.We have also planted some apple trees a Victoria plum, raspberries and blackcurrant bushes so we should have some food later on this year.
The area we are moving to abounds with wild life, foxes, of course, we intend keeping poultry, hares, and pheasants, we also have a nightingale who sing during the day as well as at night. Going back to keeping poultry, anyone who reads my blog knows that we have had considerable problems with Pine Martins, this is clearly going to be a problem again as we have one living in our attic. Sat down one evening after a days graft in the garden we heard loud scampering noises from above, certain that we don't have ghosts or lodgers living up there further investigation was called for, this turned out to be a very smelly job, Pine Martins don't use just one spot to shit, this clean up job has been saved for our return. It had made it's self quite at home there and appears to have been in residence some time, possible driven in during the very hard winter when temperatures were 18c below, it's possible that it is this little beast that has also caused the damage to the water pipes . One things for sure, it will be made to vacate the premises as soon as we get back.

Brittany

2011-05-25T05:10:00.000-07:00

The last three weeks have been interesting and when on several occasions we were asked where we were from we didn't quite know what reply to give, we seem to have done a lot of travelling both on ferry's and road and it became quite hard to remember where we had been and where we were headed.
We had a few days in Brittany on route to Ireland and on our way back. We got to see the standing stones at Carnac. Nothing we had read or seen about them had prepared us for the shear size of the site which stretches some five miles, many theory's have been put forward to their purpose but the fact remains that they are a mystery and are totally awe inspiring, there is no way to describe them and to do justice to them all you can do is to stand back take a deep breath and try to go back in time to some five thousand years BC and marvel.
Brittany is a very beautiful place and the people are so very friendly, the food is fantastic and there is a real sense of civic pride, the towns and villages are clean and well cared for with flowers abounding every where. The local councils seem to prefer the use of wild flowers on both their roundabouts and verges as you enter or exit towns, so much nicer, and environmental friendly than bedding plants.

Breakthrough honeybee drugs to treat Colony Collapse Disorder (satire)

2011-05-04T10:16:00.000-07:00

Breakthrough honeybee drugs to treat Colony Collapse Disorder (satire)

Disappearances

2011-05-01T15:45:00.000-07:00

Over the last few days things have gone missing, things that we had stored in the barn, and we think some chickens, now the chickens could be explained by four legged thieves, although no evidence was found, but when it comes to tools and things such as battery chargers and other smallish things we know that it has to be two legged thieves. Several weeks ago the Gitanos were around and every one in Spain knows these are unwelcome visitors, normally there are two men and a woman who normally has a small child in tow, they all do their respective reconnaissance,and have a habit of coming back sooner or later, this is who we suspect as all our neighbours we would trust totally. The upshot of all this is that we have now had all our stuff that we are taking with us removed and it is now safely in storage until July.

The no meat day

2011-04-28T16:27:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago we visited friends, we had left a message saying we would be coming over to see them and we hoped that would be OK, they can no longer contact us as our mobile went missing at Bristol airport a few weeks ago and we have no land line as it's not our house any more. We duly arrived and found that they had prepared lunch for us, but they hoped we would not mind the lack of meat as it was veggie day! Living in Galicia could very easily turn both of us into vegetarians, if you go for a menu del dia the main course is huge quantities of meat, normally quite greasy and either boiled spuds or chips. The meal that l and S had prepared will go down as one of our most memorably meals in Galicia, it was superb, so thanks guys for a truly great meal.

Being Bored

2011-04-23T11:22:00.000-07:00

For many years I have always joked that I would like time to be bored, well now I have and I'm bored being bored. Now we are living in just two rooms and with no garden to tend the days go very slowly, not having a proper kitchen any more does not help, I am used to baking every day, either cakes or bread, now all we have is a gas hob, so not even the pleasure of the Sunday roast.
Some people consider cooking a chore preferring to use tinned or frozen food that requires nothing more than heating up, now that must be boring.
We are still making our own yoghurt which is something, and although the weather is now getting quite warm we are cooking a lot of stews, we don't need an oven for that.
Thankfully we have quite a few friends that we can visit, without them it would not be worth while getting up in the morning. We could go out in the car and do some exploring but that means consuming fuel which we always try to conserve. I just have to bear in mind that it's only for another ten weeks or so and that we are going away for nearly three of them.

April Roses

2011-04-18T03:31:00.000-07:00

Following what has been the mildest winter we have known in Spain we now seem to be having a very early summer. There are roses out in the garden and yesterday on our way back from friends we spotted the first bluebells, this is a month earlier than normal. Once again the fruit trees have been full of blossom so it promises to be a bumper harvest for the second year running, it seems strange that I will not be bottling all this wonderful bounty this year, I always find it so satisfying seeing a pantry full of bottled fruit, knowing exactly what has gone into the jars and knowing that no chemicals have been used at all.
Last week we discovered that you can still get good service in the 21st century. We had to cancel the insurance on our old Vitara as she had met her maker, no, nothing to do with us, anyway we cancelled the insurance and surprise, the no claims bonus will be ready for us in a couple of weeks. We then took back a cordless drill which I had bought at Christmas, somehow in our absence the charger had been damaged, we thought the shop would order a new charger for us, but no, they replaced the whole package, drill, the works with no questions asked. It's just a shame that this happens to be the store that we have stopped using due to the loud music, maybe we should give it another try and just use earplugs.

Purple toothwort

2011-04-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

During our three weeks away from Spain we had a few days with relations in the West Country, although my husband is from this area we managed to visit several places that he had never been to including Morwelham Quay in Devon, this had been the most important copper mine in the UK up to the mid 1800's, it is now a living museum and attracts many school parties, the children all dress up in the cloths of the period, and all the staff are also in Victorian dress, it seems a wonderful way to teach children and they all seemed to be enjoying it.
Morwelham Quay was also the setting for the recently aired series 'The Edwardian Farm' in which a group of agricultural archeological historians lived and worked for twelve months recreating life as it was at the turn of the 20th century for a farming and mining community.
On our trip there we stopped of to investigate a lovely river flowing through a small wood in the Taymar valley, it was here that we discovered a plant unknown to either of us although we are avid ditch watchers and plant spotters. Once again we had discovered a plant very rarely seen, Lathraea Clandestina, it is a very pretty plant and highly perfumed it is also a parasitic plant, but does seem to have a number of hosts.
It is very strange still living in what until a month ago was our house, looking at the garden knowing that by now the potatoes would have been planted along with many of our root crops, we are however going back over to Ireland the beginning of May so we should have time to get our new garden started, we are planing to get potatoes, leeks, peas and beans planted as well as carrots and swede, we hope we will be able to find cabbage plants on sale and get them in as well. They should survive not being attended until our final move around the middle of July, after all it is supposed to rain in Ireland, although during our two weeks there in March we had just two damp days.

On the move

2011-03-29T08:15:00.001-07:00

After seven years in Spain we are returning to Ireland, we always thought we would and had in fact planed to put our house on the market next year, however, through chance, a helper who knew people who were wanting to move to Galicia things have moved forward somewhat. Having had no plans for a move this year, our pets, nine cats and three dogs did not have their pet passports so we have had to start from scratch,they will be able to move the middle of July, in the meantime we just have to be patient waiting for the day that we can go. On the whole we have enjoyed our stay in Spain but it is an alien country, the language has always been a problem, first Catalan and now Gallego and the way of life is very different from either the UK or Ireland'
So, what will we be doing in the future? Well being selfsufficient is our way of life so nothing will change there, renovation? Never again, it is quicker and cheaper to build from scratch. We have learnt a few things living in Spain, never take water or electricity for granted, and you can never have enough insulation.
So what are we moving to? A typical Irish country cottage with two acres of land, we have learnt here that it is quite possible to grow all you need on very little land, one acre will be used for planting a woodland for coppicing, the other acre will be for the veg, fruit,poultry and rabbits.The cottage is in an area that we knew as it was on our delivery round and we have friends and an organic net work to work with close by.
In the meantime we will try to help the new owners of this house with the animals and give them guidance on growing their own food, and hope that they learn to enjoy it as we have.

Earth Stars

2011-02-24T16:13:00.000-08:00

Spring is definitely here, the daffodils are now in bloom and the Mimosa is looking beautiful, the storks are very busy in and around their nests. This week we found our fist ever Earth Stars,on our land as well, these are a rare fungi and in fact had been though to be extinct in the UK, but then in 2006 they were discovered again. As you can see from the video, they are very interesting fungi and quite early.
Our geese are now laying very well and there are three nests of eggs, I wonder how many will hatch, providing the dogs dont start raiding the nests, which they are very prone to do.
There are big changes afoot for our selves, more news on that later in the week.

Spring is coming

2011-01-23T09:35:00.000-08:00

There are definite signs that spring is not far away, last week we saw the first storks , we will look forward to watching them building new nests and repairing the old nests, then seeing the heads of the young appearing and then their first flights.
We had the first goose egg of the season laid today, hopefully they will lay a nice clutch and sit them, then we will have goose to eat again.
Nature is such a lovely thing to watch, we are looking forward to hearing our pool frogs calling to each other, hoping that we have the same ones as last year which we could easily identify, they got quite used to us and showed no fear, we were allowed to get close to take photos of them.
We have also seen the first primroses and our hazel is full of catkins, hopefully we will get the nuts this year instead of the squirrels.
Our willow is also bursting with it's buds and the Camellias are blooming again.
I love spring, it is my favourite season, as is summer, with all the fruit, and then of course Autumn, with the mushrooms, so maybe it is just winter that is not my favourite season. But even winter has it's compensations, lovely wood fires, and the smell of the crispness of a frost on the air.

Traceability

2011-01-21T10:11:00.000-08:00

For quite a while the buzz word with major supermarkets has been traceability, as anyone who read our blog will know, we buy very little from this type of store and try to source locally or at least buy stuff that is produced in the country we live in. Today I wanted to buy some prawns, the only so called 'fresh ones' I could find were from Saudi Arabia, the label stated that they were a farmed product, however what was missing from the label was a farm reference number or even a lot number. I walked away and decided I would look at the frozen sea food section, there it was even worse, although there were plenty of different types of prawns on display only one section had country of origin been displayed, the others just said prawns, not even what class they were.I'm sure that things are no different in other countries, and that supermarkets only insist on traceability on the soft touches, i.e.the local farmer selling fresh food. If it comes from one of the big distributors it seems that this traceability goes out of the window. So yet another good reason not to shop in supermarkets.

Where's the winter?

2011-01-09T09:59:00.000-08:00

We should not be complaining, but what has happened to our winter? This year has been the mildest winter since we moved to Spain, yet other parts of Europe have had lots of snow and some places have had the lowest temperatures for decades. We had a few hours of snow the beginning of December, but since then we have had hardly any frosts and no more snow. It has rained the last four days, in some places very heavily and the river Mino has burst it's banks in Lugo, but today we have had spring like weather and I have even spotted wild birds gathering grass and twigs in preparation for nest building which could spell trouble for them if the weather does change and we get a late winter.
A lot of trees are showing buds and we have even seen some ornamental prunus trees in bloom, the Mimosa trees are already showing colour, this is all a month ahead of normal.

PET HATES.Shopping Centres. We buy very little in supermarkets, only what we would call utility items, we both find these stores soul destroying, this week however we bought even less, every store in this shopping centre had pop 'music' blaring out of their speakers,very, very, loudly. Of course every shop had different 'music' and the result was an assault on the ears, things did not get better as we entered into the supermarket, there the noise, I will refrain from calling it 'music' was so loud we could not even talk to each other to confer on what we needed to buy. The result, a nearly empty shopping trolley, the cat and dog food, a plastic bag of sugar [ they still have not replenished their stock of cane sugar] and that was about it. We could not even think what we wanted, let along discuss it. Why do these stores play this rubbish at full volume, it's bad enough that they play it at all, but customers do need to think, or maybe that is the game plan, dull everyone's senses so they buy unnecessary items. With us this just does not work and we left, having spent about half of what we would have normally spent.

Bread Making.

2011-01-03T08:43:00.000-08:00

On and off throughout our life we have been making our own bread, and for the last twenty plus years we always have made our own. When we first moved to Ireland we found the bread unacceptable, so started making our own by hand three times a week. As our organic business took off we often found we were out of bread and had no time to make it so we bought a bread maker, this was OK, it gave us quite good bread, but not as good as the hand made bread. Since moving to Spain we have reverted to hand made bread, sometimes we use the food mixer and sometimes we do the process by hand. We think the food mixer with a dough hook gives better results, although it takes about the same amount of time.
So to make bread.
1lb of strong white flour or half and half of white and brown. We always use Organic flour.
Half a pint of half milk half water, just warm.
1 egg.
18grams fresh yeast or two level teaspoons of dried yeast.
1 desert spoon of sugar.
1 level teaspoon of salt.
We always add the yeast to the warm milk/water with the sugar although it is not necessary to do so, we find this works best.
Place the flour with the salt in a large bowl or the food mixer bowl with the salt. Wait for the yeast to foam up,add this to the flour and add the egg, mix together well, if using a dough hook this takes about 10 minutes, if by hand about five minutes, with a further five minutes kneading, using the heel of the hand to work the dough, stretching and folding the dough under until it is pliable. You will know when it is ready by pushing your finger into the dough, it should spring back.
Shape the dough roughly to the shape of your tin and place in the greased floured tin, brush the top with either milk or beaten egg and sprinkle poppy seeds or sesame seeds on top, leave in a warm place to rise. When it has doubled in size, bake in a moderately hot oven about 30- 35 minutes. It is as simple as that,it should sound hollow when cooked, you can do what they call a double rise, this does not give a better loaf. You can of course add various thing into your bread, from garlic to stinging nettles, nuts to fruit.
Try it, it's fun and very rewarding.
Unlike pastry that needs the gentle touch, bread likes to be pummelled, it also likes warm hands, unlike pastry.
Last week we were forced to buy our sugar in a plastic bag, the shop had run out of the brand in the paper bags, the sugar in the plastic bags is made from sugar beet, so more plastic to get rid of, although it is a cent or two cheaper. The sugar in the paper bags is cane sugar, what we had not realised is that beet sugar is sweeter than the cane sugar. I had the second batch of Marmalade to make using the beet sugar we found is was far too sweet for our taste and had to use a couple of lemons, this of course changed the thickness of the marmalade so it is very well set, I just hope we can spread it on our bread.

Food for free

2010-12-29T05:31:00.000-08:00

Today is a jam making day, or more correctly a marmalade making day. Monday we were at friends for the day and they have a large, heavily laden orange tree in their garden,the winter months are when the oranges are ripe, one of those trees that flower and fruit together, we came away with eight pounds of oranges, far too many for us to either eat or make into juice but we both love marmalade, I have the first three pound simmering away, marmalade is not a quick job unlike most of the jams that we make, it requires several stages. This Christmas I was given a zester, so half of the orange peal has been zested and the other half grated, hopefully by this evening we will have our first batch of marmalade made. Of course marmalade is normally made with Sevilla oranges, however I have never been able to find them in Spain, maybe they all go for export.
So far the winter has been kind to us unlike other parts of Europe, we are getting lovely sunny days, very little frost and just one day of snow, it's also been quite dry, with only a few wet days. We just hope that the snow is not storing up ready for the peach blossom, this happened a couple of years ago resulting in a failed peach crop.
The new kids are doing well and enjoying themselves frolicking around in the field with the other kid.

An eventfull week

2010-12-26T06:35:00.000-08:00

However much we have tried to skip Xmas it just never happens and we now concede that it's a good time to have friends round and enjoy a meal together, compleat with all the trimmings.
This year was mainly home produced,however, I dont think prawns are something we can grow ourselves, well I suppose we could try fresh water cray fish but that might be taking self sufficiency a tad too far, so we are happy enough that the geese and the veg were ours, the sausage rolls, mince pies, Christmas pud and cake all home made, the greenery to decorate the dining room was all from the hedge rows, decorations that did not entail the uprooting or cutting down of a tree. Keeping it simple is fun although a lot of work! somewhat a contradiction in terms.
The past week seems to have be very busy, Simon had the last three of our table birds to slaughter, they all weighed about the same 6.5 lbs, and are definately worth doing, we have only cooked one so far, and it tasted like chicken should. Then came the slaughtering of the Xmas geese, this is quite hard work, and they are one thing that neither of us feels quite right about killing, geese have real personalities. Still that's the price we are prepared to pay. So the job was done, and all that was left was the baking, until Thursday. Simon went out to pick the greenery for the decorations and came back in with a new born kid, we instantly named him Noel, photo taken and the kid returned to mum and there was the second one. So we now have two more kids, Noel and his sister Gabrielle.
Christmas day was bright in more ways than one, we had our two newly married friends over with their helper, and after the meal played silly Xmas games,and had deep conversations, putting the world to rights, although it was conceded that is no longer possible to do so. The latest Wikileaks are an eye opener.We are glad that we did 'DO' Christmas this year, for who knows what the future has in store?

Organic chicken

2010-12-18T09:23:00.000-08:00

Today we have slaughtered the first of the four table birds that we got three months back, we have reared them for around 100 days, and the first one has weighed in at 6lb 4ozs, approximately 28000 grams, he looks good and has good breast length, under organic standards, slaughtering should not happen until at least 84 days so we were more or less on target. At least we know what he was fed on, and that he enjoyed his life. He will get stuffed with a few herbs and served with all our own veg.
Wednesday has been set aside for the slaughtering of the two geese that we reared this year, this is our Yule tide celebration meal which we will be sharing with some friends, although we shall miss having so many geese around we know that our dinner enjoyed their life's and have been fed on the best of feed, totally GM free. Hopefully they will taste as good as they look.
There have been a few hard frosts, but so far no more snow, the days are still sunny for the most part, tonight there seems to be a fog descending.
This coming Tuesday is the solstice, [the shortest day] and there is a Lunar eclipse, I'm sure this must have some significance, although we don't know what it is, no doubt someone will tell us. We are not too sure if we will be able to see it, I shall have to Google to see where it is visible from.

Yule Tide

2010-12-13T06:45:00.000-08:00

For two decades we have tried to skip Christmas and to some degree we have been successful, we refuse to become part of the consumer frenzy which surrounds this time of year, it is above all the celebration of the shortest day, and looking to the future, the longer days, the planting of the new crops and of new life in the spring, somehow it has been hijacked by the big corporations to make loads of money. Even here in Galicia we saw the first signs of Xmas at the end of Oct. We will celebrate, but it is very home spun, we always make a cake, but this is because we like a nice rich fruit cake, we will have a special meal,but they are still running around the field at the moment,[goose] and we always have a 'Xmas Pudding' but again, this is because we both love Xmas pudding, the veg is from the garden. What day we will have our Yule Tide meal has yet to be decided.If we do decorate the house it will be done a day before our celebration from whatever greenery we can find.As we have no open fires we can't have a Yule log, but we always make a candle holder from whatever interesting log we find.
We have a puppy lodging with us for the next month,owned by friends who have gone to the warmth of Tenerife for a month, he has settled well and our cats are fine with him, however our two kittens do not like him, they have had little contact with our own dogs, but no doubt, after a month they will at least tolerate him.
The last couple of weeks have been unseasonally warm, this warmth followed early snow which was very pretty and didn't last long, today however it feels as though the weather is about to change again, although sunny there is a distinct chill in the air.

Winter has arrived

2010-12-02T04:31:00.000-08:00

The weather has up until now been quite good, it was a very mild and dry autumn, just a few days of rain although a couple of those days it did rain quite heavly, a few light frosts, just enough to give good autumn colour.
Today we seem to have caught up with the rest of Europe and have had our first fall of snow, a couple of inches fell overnight and everything has a lovely frosting. It's nice to look out at. Our house is a warm house mainly because of the metre thick walls, double glazing, useful in the summer as well to keep the heat out, and of course lots of roof insulation, I dont think you can have enough insulation, the cost envolved is money well spent. Of course we also have our wood burning stoves, the Aga, which does both our hot water and radiators. So we are nice and snug, mainly thanks to a great helper, Rod, who spent a week or so cutting and chopping this years wood supply. Many thanks Rod.
I have still not planted either the onions or the broad beans, next week we have warmer weather forecast so hopefully I can get them done then.

Two paces of life in Spain

2010-11-29T04:48:00.000-08:00

Most things in Spain are done slowly, well anything that involves bureaucracy at least, however, last week there was the exception to the rule .We have friends who were wanting to get married, the main delay seems to have been waiting for official translations of birth certificates and waiting for their interview to assure the authorities that theirs was not a marriage of convenience, after being together for twenty four years hardly likely. We had made the cake some weeks before hand and had done the first layer of icing but had delayed finishing it as the icing would have been too hard. Monday I received an excited phone call, 'we have the date for the wedding'. Great! weeks of waiting and it was really happening, so when is it I asked? This Friday at 1pm !Help,! I could here Mike in the background and there were definite sounds of panic, also at our end. Although I had been trained as a cook this was many years ago, and cake decoration was not something I had ever enjoyed, probably due to the fact that I don't like icing, however, there was a job to be done, and done quickly. In the end it took just two hours, and come the day, Mike and John were over the moon with it.It was a beautiful day, crisp and sunny, the food, all done by Mike and John was superb, and we were all waited on by their two exceptional helpxers. Well done to every one who made this day so special for two very special people.

Strawberries

2010-11-21T05:46:00.000-08:00

This year seems to have gone with the blink of an eye, it's hard to realise that it's only a month until the Winter Solstice and the nights will start drawing out again, however living this far west we don't get the very long winter nights and it is still not quite dark at six thirty.
We are still picking strawberries but not too many, they are back to being a luxury, still we will probably get yet another picking before they take a well earned rest.
The weather so far is being kind,although we have had rain the last couple of days, it is still very mild and we have even seen a viburnum bursting into bloom.
With the days fast heading towards the end of the year reminds us that we have still done nothing about making a cake or pudding for Xmas, maybe we really can skip it this year, what a lovely thought.

Winter is on it's way

2010-11-14T06:22:00.000-08:00

We had avoided all the bad storms that we had been hearing about however it has sort of caught up with us now. We had visited friends on the coast yesterday and by the evening it started raining and the wind started blowing, the drive home was a little hair raising over the mountains, as by then the rain was very heavy with a gale force wind blowing, but when we got to Lugo there was no sign of the rain. Today things changed a little with some heavy showers and hail stones and it is now feeling quite chilly, time to start lighting the fires I think.
On our trip yesterday we did get some nice photos of the wild horses, although we have seen them in the distance before we had never managed to get good photos.
We now have our Organic hen feed from an Organic coop about 60k from us, they have to import the maize from Italy, as they explained to us that all the Spanish maize is now GM contaminated. The hens love it and cost wise it is only 50cents a 40kg bag more expensive than the conventional feed.This coop also do Organic feed for cattle, pigs and rabbits, make Organic cheese and we think are probably the main producers of Organic eggs with some 30.000 organic hens between several farms, it made us quite nostalgic and brought back happy memories.It was nice to talk to Organic people again, although our Spanish is still bad.
We have collected quite a lot of wild mushrooms and have dried them, we hope that they will retain their flavour so we can use them for soup.

Organic hen food

2010-11-09T03:27:00.000-08:00

After months of trying to find Organic hen feed we have at last tracked it down,I had some months ago contacted an Organic farm who kept hens but heard nothing from them. Friday we found organic eggs on sale in Lugo so bought half a doz so we could contact them to locate the feed, when we got home there was a email from the farm that we had contacted months ago, they had replied but realised from talking to a helper that we had never received their reply. The Company that they told us about was the same company that we had just bought the eggs from, so I guess fate has had a hand in all this. We have now made the important phone call and will picking up the feed tomorrow, it is only a little bit higher in price than the conventional GM feed. The the hunt is now over. We will continue to use the sprouted grain as well,the hens like it, and of course we have the worm banks all active for them so they should be the best feed hens in Galicia.
The weather is now wet, but although the forecast said it would be cold it is still mild, we are still picking strawberries from the tunnel but we have now picked the last of the tomatoes. There are still potatoes waiting to be lifted, but they will have to wait for a dryer day, I hope it's not too far away as we want to plant winter barley to keep the ground covered throughout the winter.

A new kid is born

2010-10-27T10:01:00.000-07:00

We were trying to reduce our stock, well goats really, however one of our elderly nannies presented us with a beautiful male kid on Sunday, she doesn't have that much milk so once again we are bottle feeding.
Our green manure is now well germinated and growing well, this month[where did it go?] has been very mild and we have had very little rain, the last time we had an October like this we paid for it come the following April when we got snow just as all the fruit trees were coming into bloom, still there seems to be no set weather pattern nowadays so maybe it wont be a repeat performance.
I have had to plant yet more carrots, this time in the tunnel as the mice or voles had devastated our crop, also helping themselves to parsnips.These little pests were something we didn't have to contend with in Ireland which is just as well as part of our income was from veg and herbs, still we have had a few good pickings of wild mushrooms so that's some compensation.
Our friends that came for lunch a couple of weeks ago are now realising that you should never take the word of an estate agent, S is studying for his PHD and one requirement when they were house hunting was internet connection, of course the agent reassured them, pointing out houses that he said had connection, although how he would have know this is somewhat of a mystery, and of course was not true. S and M are now faced with having to pay the best part of 1000 euros to get a satalite connection,added to that they also have to have a new roof although again the agent had reassured them that the roof was sound, in most countries you would employ a surveyor before buying a house, and maybe the Spanish do, but most of the expats don't,and end up with very costly bills, of course, if you are buying a house that seems to be cheap it would follow that you have a lot of work to do, and compared to UK prices houses are still cheap in Spain, but renovating a house, even doing it yourself is a costly past time as we have found out. Although we have built two houses in the past we had not realised just how expensive restoring an old house can be, agents will reassure you that you can do it for X number of euros, but if you double their figure and add another 10% that will bring you somewhere nearer the investment required.

Wedding cakes and tomato puree

2010-10-18T09:52:00.001-07:00

Our beef goulash with lyonnaise potatoes went down very well and our guests were full of praise, we followed it with crepes filled with fresh raspberries and topped with our home made yoghurt, this is delicious and makes a nice change from the normal lemon topping.
Sunday was spent catching up in the garden, the weather still being warm, we have pruned most of the blackcurrant bushes and taken cuttings for anyone of our friends who want them, we have also made a start expanding the fruit cage and have transplanted thirty raspberry canes, they had done a take over bid of the fruit cage and were smothering our rhubarb, this has now been transplanted into the veg garden, after all it is a veg and not a fruit, we then took stock of what the mice- voles etc have left us with root veg wise, not a lot, once again we are feeding the wild life of Galicia. I have planted more carrots in the tunnel other wise we will be having no carrot cake at all, they have left us a few parsnips, some carrots and we have a few small swede, the leeks bolted this year, it was just too dry, but we have plenty of cabbage and kale plus cauliflower and broccoli.
A friend very kindly has lent us some small jars so I have been able to make nine jars of tomato puree.
Today has been spent making a wedding cake for friends of ours, normally we don't ice our rich fruit cakes as neither of us like icing,but we both have a passion for marzipan, however these are special people so the cake will be iced for them. I did have to get eggs from a friend for the cake as it takes a lot of eggs, it was interesting to compare the difference between her eggs and ours, although her hens are free range they are fed on GM feed, ours are just getting wheat and barley, the yokes are however much brighter colour with the non GM fed hens.

Food for free

2010-10-15T10:44:00.000-07:00

We have now been able to pick some mushrooms, last week we found a few chanterelle mushrooms but it might be a bit early for them, last year it was November but we have gathered some field and parasols today to go into the goulash that we will be cooking tomorrow for some friends.We have to hope that it works out well as one of the people coming is a trained chef, so it has to be good! However, I hate recipes books, this probably goes back many years when I was doing my hotel and catering course, I was taught by a great cook who never used a book, she just remembered it all, the good thing about learning this way is that you can ask questions, with a recipe book you cant, I also have an aversion to all these cookery programs, once again you cant ask questions and the chefs never explain the why and wherefore.There is one program that we both enjoy however, Hugh Fearnley- Whittingstall of River Cottage fame makes cooking fun, he is not a chef by trade but he is passionate about Organic and Local food and has done a tremendous amount for the green movement plus his campaigns over poultry, he is very much a finger dipper, if it tastes right leave it alone, if it doesn't, work out what's missing.

2010-10-05T06:59:00.000-07:00

The last month has been very busy, we have had friends from France who we hadn't seen since we left Catalonia staying for a few days so there was a lot of catching up to do, we also had helpers here at the same time, most of my time was spent cooking and exchanging recipes.
We have had a bumper crop of peaches this year but I only had nineteen jars left for bottling so gave friends the rest. We have also had a mass of butternut squashes, so far we have harvested twenty from just two plants and there are at least another six to come providing we don't get any early frosts.
We also have a load of tomatoes, I had hope to be making tomato puree again this year, but have run out of jars, now that we are making our own yoghurt we don't get any jars.
Our maize was disappointing, a number of factors contributed to this, firstly geese attack, then the goats thought they would help themselves and the drought didn't help matters, still they are harvested now and stored away from mice, we hope! The ground has been cleared from weeds and rotorvated and now has been seeded with green manure, a combination of red clover alfalfa and phacelia, we are hoping that the weather is kind to us and we get decent germination, then next spring both the goats and geese can help themselves before we rotorvate it all in.
We will be growing more herbs next year, adding Arnica and Echinacea to our collection, this is thanks to a virtual WORLD BAN on herbal remedies, it is fortunate that I had done a herbal course years ago so will be able to make most of what we would normally use, there are some exceptions, so I guess we will just have to wait and see just how Draconian these bans are going to be.
We have had some rain in the last week, so now is the time for us to go forraging for mushrooms, we are hoping to find more Chanterelles than we did last year, once tasted, never forgotten, just lightly fried in a little butter and black pepper and served with home made bread, wonderful. Of course there other mushroom worth collecting,field mushrooms are good, as are the parasols and the inkcaps, many people use wild mushrooms in various recipes, but to us it seems a shame to loose all that subtle flavour by adding other things to them, unless of course you have a glut of them.
We also have had our first real harvest of walnuts, despite pruning the trees in Feb, which is not the right time,and they bled profusely, they had a second pruning from the council in Aug, which is the correct time, although we lost quite a few of them at this time we still have around seven kgs , enough to last us even though they are one of our favourites, we will be trying the rabbits on the chestnuts, I have couple of recipes to try out, but they are not one of my favourite things, still, we hate waste so will give them a go.

The Big Secret

2010-09-20T04:03:00.000-07:00

Our next helper is not due for a few weeks, it would appear from her emails that she is well travelled and likes to use public transport, before she comes to us she will be staying in another part of Galicia and had wished to travel to us by bus. We have tried to get the necessary information for her via the internet.
Although the bus companies have web sites, none appear to publish time tables. This appears to be a great 'State Secret', they give information as to the fleet of buses and the fact that you can get discounts, even pictures of their offices, nice to see that they have desks and chairs,one has a picture of a road with their bus on it,maybe to reassure you that they do have a bus, but no time tables!
We have come across this problem before when wanting to travel from our village to Lugo, it appears that to find out the times we have to go to the bus station in Lugo and ask there, there are several companies that operate within Galicia, but the information is only obtainable from the different kiosks at the bus station, often these are only manned for twenty minutes before a bus is due to leave.
Last year we also had a problem in trying to get the train time table, the only way to get this was to have a password to enter the website, this has now been changed, but it did result in us taking a plane for an internal journey, not very eco friendly.
Tourism has always been a big part of Spain's economy and it does have quite a good public transport system. So come on Galicia, get your act together and publish the times of transport, don't be so shy, people do want to use it.

The Future of Food - Introduction

2010-09-19T08:29:00.000-07:00

2010-09-17T07:30:00.000-07:00

The forecasters had promised us some rain this week and then changed their minds so we are still having to keep the garden watered in the hope that we will get a spurt of growth, I have had to plant more chard and leeks also swede, I will not be defeated, I have also made further sowings of carrots to compensate for the feasting of the mice.
Our young birds are still doing well and we think, well we hope, that we have defeated the pine martin, the chicks are now being fed on straight grains, wheat and barley which we are sprouting for them, they seem happy enough with the new feed.
We have come to the conclusion that we will not be able to continue with rearing quail for the table, these little birds are something that we farmed years ago with no problems and they were ready to eat at six to seven weeks weighing around 200 grams at this age,the birds we are rearing now are just not putting on the weight and at five weeks are just 2 ozs whatever that is in grams, this is consistent with all the reports that we have read regarding animals feed on GM's, we don't think it is possible to grind grain small enough to feed to them when they are first hatched.
I have just started reading a book 'Genetic Roulette' written by Jeffrey Smith, Jeffrey is considered to be the worlds leading expert in understanding the health issues surrounding GM's, his previous book 'Seeds of Deceit' exposes the corrupt dealings of the Bio-tec companies with government bodies. For anyone interested in in their health and the environment these books are must reads.Easy to read and understand, maybe these ministers who make the laws should be locked into a room and made to read these books.

2010-09-08T10:16:00.000-07:00

We have now given up trying to obtain GM free feed for the hens and will have to be feed straight grain, in a last ditch attempt to find feed we bought some eggs from an Organic Co-Op here in Galicia, this producer used to produce Organic eggs, now they only produce 'Free Range'due to GMO contamination.
We find certain world leaders have a double standard, the two in question have been the leaders in trying to convince the consumer that GMO's are fine, and in allowing the planting of the crops. both these leaders claim to be Christians, and in fact one, not so long ago converted to Catholicism, we were under the impression that the Christian hand book was the bible, well either these leaders are not familiar with it, or are selective in which parts they wish to abide by.

Jeremiah 2:7 And I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination.

"Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth" Gen 1:11.

To us, both these verses are clear,so what part of them do these Christians not understand?

2010-09-06T10:19:00.000-07:00

This time of year I always feel as though I have a lot in common with squirrels, I cant stand waste, and was brought up in the post war era when nothing was wasted. String and paper from parcels was always saved for re-use, buttons were always cut off from garments that had reached the end of their days and put in the button box, always a source of delight for kids to play with, the garments themselves became dusters or went to the rag and bone man. This year we have had a bumper crop of pears but not so many plums, I would normally use extra plums for the chutney, but this year it's the pears, which with the figs have been turned into chutney, and it's delicious. Of course I have also bottled pears and we have the peaches to come yet,the pantry is already nearly full.
We have grown two butternut squashes plants this year for the first time, no one warned me that they would take over the garden and that they produce so many squashes, they keep very well, and we should have squashes for the entire winter.
We have drawn a blank in our quest to find Organic feed for our hens or at least GM free feed, we contacted a company advertising Organic feed by email, after a week when they failed to respond we phoned them, they only supply in Cantabria which for us is a ten hour round trip. We then tried contacting the Galician organic certifying body, their email address does not work, neither does their website and when you try to phone it just goes to fax. so, back to plan one, feed the birds with straight grain and make worm banks for the winter protein.In trying to track down non contaminated feed has been interesting, and raises many issues, as Spain grows the most GM crops in the EU, why is animal feed the dearest in Europe? Maybe the answer is simple, according to the US government it is now accepted that GM crops do not produce higher yields, funny, I remember that this was one of the boasts of the GM companies way back in the 90's! Also, according to scientific evidence, GM crops have lower nutritional value resulting in lower weight gains for the animals that are feed with it, and although there has been no control group study carried out, there has been an increase in allergies in humans since the introduction of GM's into the animal feed. Independent research also has found it causes infertility and liver damage in animals.Note the wording, INDEPENDENT! not research carried out by GM companies, who do not make their findings public. There seems to be something very wrong somewhere.
It is also interesting to note that 93% of all patented seeds are owned by one company, I'm not giving any prizes for guessing who that company might be, but a clue,it is one of the companies responsible for the manufacturing of Agent Orange, used during the Vietnam war.

2010-09-02T11:47:00.000-07:00

Today was a day off, we went with friends to visit the Roman Gold Mines at Las Medulas, in Leon. The site is Fantastic, covering some 2000ha, with no less than 50 archaeological sites it is an UNESCO World Heritage site. The gold had first been discovered by the Asturs, people indigenous to the area, but then the Romans came. The only problem was how to extract the gold that lay within the mountain rocks. The Romans were incredible engineers and figured the best way to deal with the problem of a few mountains was to wash them away! This was done by means of building aqueducts, or rather enslaving the Asturs to build them, take water from the Sil river and several others, and just wash the problem away. They left the mines in the 3rd century, even though they were still working mines containing gold, the reason is not clear.

2010-09-01T09:03:00.000-07:00

At last we have had a nice drop of rain, it lasted for a couple of hours and has at least cooled things down a bit.
The Autumn raspberries are now starting, and hopefully, will continue to the first frosts.
We have hatched a few quail for the table but it was not a good hatch, the incubator is erratic. We have however found another use for it, Yoghurt. For one reason or another, in Spain, we have not made our own yoghurt, in Ireland we always did, maybe because we always had milking animals, sometime cattle and sometimes goats,and we had a range which was on all the time. Although we still have goats, somehow we have neglected to milk them, too much work on the house. Anyway, inspired by another blog I decided that I would go back to making our own, we have been buying a locally produced organic yoghurt until now, but it is expensive,at 3 euro for 700grams, and I'm sure that the supermarket is making a very good profit from it, more than the producer. Fresh milk is available but no organic fresh, so I thought I would have a go with the Organic UHT that we always buy, one litre for 1.27 plus three desert spoons of the organic yoghurt and four hours in the incubator at 40c and we have just over 1 lt. of organic yoghurt for half the price of 700grams. It turned out lovely and thick, so it's back to making our own.
We spotted a chicken in the woods fungi earlier this week and should have harvested it, but it has reminded us that the mushroom season is nearly here, we now know where to find the Chanterelle mushroom, in our opinion the best of all the fungi, so next week we will start making regular hunts for it. especially if we get a little more rain.

2010-08-23T11:28:00.000-07:00

I guess if we still lived in Ireland we wouldn't be welcoming the rain, according to a friend there it hasn't stopped all summer, but here in Galicia it is a novelty this summer, the last real rain was nearly three months ago, but this afternoon the promised rain arrived, too late for some of our plants,mainly flowers which we didn't find time to keep watered, it has however arrived just in time for my third planting of swede, which planted last Tues have now germinated, also another planting of carrots, we seem to use a lot of carrots, not just as a veg, we both love carrot cake and have a great recipe from "Cranks" recipe book.
Yesterday we found time to make our first batch of soap, I had halved the quantities given in the recipe as this was something I had never done before and I wanted to make sure it would work, it does, although it took a long time to reach the trace, we think this was due either to reducing the amounts, or not working fast enough and allowing it to cool to quickly.For colouring I used saffron which has given a delicate apple green colour. Tomorrow I will have another go using the full amounts as in the recipe.

2010-08-22T06:22:00.000-07:00

This week has flown by, I have been very busy bottling fruit, we have had a bumper harvest of pears and have bottled 15 jars, plus the figs and plums, we still have a lot of figs and pears on the trees but we can only eat so much in a year, I will try using the pears with the figs for chutney, last year we made plum and fig and it was great, but this is the bumper harvest year for the pears.We do not bother preserving any veg, the first year we were here we rushed out and bought a freezer, we filled it with beans and peas and cauliflower, yesterday we cleaned out the freezer to make room for suckling pig that friends of ours produce,the veg from three years ago was still there and is now on the compost. What we had not realised three years ago was the fact that we produce veg all the year round, despite the best efforts of the mice and moles to destroy our crops.The hens are a little doubtful about their new diet, plus I have to remember to soak the lentils and then cook them, but someone has now provided us with a possible source of Organic feed, it remains to be seen if we can arrange transport.
All the old breed chicks that we incubated are doing well, giving us a total of twenty breeding stock for our meat production, however this will not happen until the new year, so we have bought four brown broilers which should be ready the middle of Oct, so we will have chicken dinners once a month for four months by which time we should be incubating eggs from our own stock. Anyone who has eaten real chicken will understand why we are going to so much bother. We enjoy our food, but it does have to be real food and good.

2010-08-21T10:46:00.000-07:00

We have now come to the conclusion that we are no longer going to be able to get GM free feed for our hens, unless we can find an importer from France, which for about thirty hens is not really practical we have decided that we must turn the clock back some sixty years when there was little commercial poultry feed, and feed our hens on grains. Having been involved with poultry for a good number of years now one of the greatest problems is maintaining a diet with sufficient protein and amino acids,the amino acids, we hope, will be provided by numerous invertebrates, during the winter months we will have to provide worm banks, the protein will come from lentils which are 24% protein. We refuse to allow the international feed companies to dictate our choices, and in fact they have removed our right to make choices, which are informed choices.
Spain since 2001 has shown a 2.5 fold increase in Organic production, 60% of this is in Andalucia nearly 26% of this is arable, with some 121.000ha, the third highest in the EU, so WHY cant we buy Organic feed, the answer is quite simple, GMO contamination. 50% of Spain's organic sales are imported, this makes no sense whatsoever,it is also interesting to note that conventional feed costs in Spain are one of the highest in the EU, given the fact that they have embraced GM Maize so whole heartedly surly feed costs should be lower if we are to believe the sales pitch given by the GM companies. Spain can grow just about everything, here in the province of Lugo it is hard to find anything Organic,honey, mainly imported, milk, yoghurt, butter, cheese if you know where to look and if you are lucky, eggs . Organic meat is non existent,it is possible to buy free range chicken but at the same cost as you would pay for an organic chicken in the UK or Ireland, these free range chickens are almost certainly being feed on feed containing GMO's, which is why we wish to produce our own. Why the beef herds are not organic also makes little sense, all the cattle in our area are grass feed, and during the winter, if they cant go out are feed on hay or silage.The land is managed well, so why are they not part of the Organic production, there must surely be a market for it, and in fact we know that Irish Organic beef is imported into Spain.
Galicia as a whole would have been the ideal place to have been GM free region, and an Organic Flag Ship for the rest of Spain, in fact it has one of the lowest amount of Organic farms in all of Spain, could this be possible due to the fact that the province as a whole, with the exception of it's excellent fish does not have a food culture? Although all the ingredients are here, the knowledge of use of what they have is limited, presentation is non existent in the average restaurant, it is substantial, but food for the body and not for the soul. Maybe we were spoiled having lived in Catalonia which has a superb food culture.

2010-08-16T05:18:00.000-07:00

GMO contamination.
For some time we have been trying to find hen food free from genetically modified maize. Up until a year ago this was quite possible, we do grow a small amount of non-GMO maize but insufficient for our needs. In desperation we have contacted the Junta in Santiago de Compostela but received no reply, we then contacted Greenpeace who were helpful but confirmed our worst fears. It appears that the consumer has no say in these matters and the corporations have won. Below is the reply from Greenpeace.

Hi,

Spain is the biggest grower of MON810 - GE maize - in the EU, and subsequently it is very hard to find uncontaminated maize. We have spoken to various large scale organic farmers and producers and many are resigned to importing GE free maize from France. I think your best bet would be to feed the chickens something other than maize that is still grown in Spain.

I will forward your message to our Spanish office as well, and ask them to contact you if they have more information, although Greenpeace does not endorse specific products/brands, they may be able to help you.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,

Glen

2010-08-15T11:16:00.000-07:00

Once again it feels as though we are feeding all the wild life in Galicia, the mice or voles are having a garden party at the expense of our potatoes, we combated the Colorado beetle, we suffered blight and now the vermin are eating our spuds, well not just them, they are also helping themselves to our carrots and Jerusalem Artichokes, the flea beetles are trying to destroy our precious swede, helped by slugs, and the slugs are feasting on the lettuce, apart from that the brassicas are suffering from sun burn. Oh well, I suppose it could be worse, we could have a plague of locusts. I will not be defeated however, I shall plant yet more swede, more carrots and we have already put potatoes in one of the tunnels.
At last we have found a use for green figs, a friend gave us a recipe for Fig Konfyt, it's a long preparation , however, if the figs taste as good as the heavy syrup they end up in they should be good, we have adapted the recipe slightly by adding ginger which we both have a passion for.

2010-08-14T11:53:00.001-07:00

When it comes to the latest technology we are both Luddites, and quite proud of it as well, however, we are always open to having things demonstrated to us, who knows, we might be missing out on something.Our last helper, had a Satnav and demonstrated it to us several times, we were impressed, especially when with it's aid, we cut nearly a quarter of an hour off our normal time to a friends house.
We have just had a charming couple camping with us for three day's, they are house hunting. We had been told of a property close to where our friends live, and we also wanted to show our visitors our friends house,a very old Galician place that needed total renovation, including the roof, which our friends have restored on their own. As we were unsure of the new route as demonstrated by our helpers Satnav we thought it would be a good idea to make use of our visitors equipment. Well this one let technology down very badly, it took us up hill and down dale, up mountains and down again, ending up where we had started, some two and a half hours later it proudly announced that we had reached our destination, No! we were nearly at the top of yet another mountain with just a rubbish bin for company, so yes, OK, the rubbish bin did state that we were in the Consello of our destination, but that was about it. Had the equipment belonged to us at this stage we would have strangled the voice, and binned it in the basura! The journey ended up taking us two and three quarter hours instead of fifty minutes. The upside to the journey was the sight of fields of sunflowers, such a cheerful plant, and not GMO'd ...YET.

2010-08-14T11:06:00.000-07:00

There is one thing that we seldom see in Galicia, road kill, a sight which was common both in Ireland and the UK. Since we have been here we have seen a few poor hedgehogs, normally young ones which did not make the road crossing, a couple of rabbits but not much else, probably due to the many forests the wild life has no need to leave the safety of the woodlands, this week we saw a young deer lying at the side of the road, obviously having been killed by a car. We were on our way to Lugo so it was not practical to stop and put it in the boot. Imagine our surprise when on our return trip, some three hours later, the deer was still laying there, unheard of in the UK or Ireland, never ones for refusing a free meal we put it in the boot, half an hour later it was skinned, jointed and in the freezer, it yielded twelve pounds of meat, we hope to enjoy part of our bounty tomorrow for Sunday dinner.We are unsure as to the legal position in Spain regarding road kill, but it is an unusual sight.

2010-08-09T06:18:00.000-07:00

I had planed to be making our own soap this week as I'm still supposed to be resting my foot, however this has turned out to be a non starter as it seems impossible to get all the necessary ingredients locally, essential oils are quite limited and as I have found in the past not that good a quality, also expensive. Caustic soda was easy to find but coconut oil was in a small bottle and again expensive, so good old Google was called for. I found a great site, with everything that I need including recipes, oils and natural colourants at reasonable prices,
http://www.thesoapkitchen.co.uk/
supplies everything that is needed for soap making , natural cleaning products and even candle making equipment. I would have preferred to have bought locally, or at least Spanish, but it was not to be. Gone are the days when I could just go to one of Ireland's many health shops and get everything I needed.
Not to be thwarted by lack of products I have gone back to making my all purpose burn and cut ointment, I would normally have just used Calendula but we have so many lavender flowers I thought I would add some to the potion, this seems to have worked very well and has maintained the perfume. I was unable to find white fat so have used pork fat, again this is know for it's healing properties, some olive oil in which I infused the herbs in a bain-marie , rendered the pigs fat, cooled and then added some of the coconut oil, this should cover most household injuries.
Hopefully I will soon receive my soap making order and do what I have wanted to try for so long.
, http://www.thesoapkitchen.co.uk

2010-08-09T05:12:00.000-07:00

We always try to make time to relax with our helpers, we enjoy taking them out for the day and either having a picnic or a menu de dia, after all Helpx is about exchange, and not just work, we often meet up with other hosts and exchange stories and it's nice for the helpers to meet other helpers in the area, it's also nice to relax at home with a nice glass of wine and just chat. The house seems strangely quiet now with no helper due until Sept.

2010-08-09T04:20:00.000-07:00

The last couple of months have been quite busy and most of the time we have had helpers with us, quite a lot has been achieved with the new hen run now compleated with the help of a young American and Rod, a charming older man from Yorkshire. Rod did a tremendious amount of work, chainsawing most of our winter fuel and chipping the smaller stuff, not to mention fixing various electrical appliances and doing the washing up every night, a real gem.
We also had a helper who had been with us two years ago come for a" holiday" I use this term very loosely as her partner topped two very tall conifers for us, a job long over due, he is a tree surgen, and Lauren continued with the pointing which she had nearly completed two years ago, it was lovely to see her again and hope her next visit will sooner than two years hence.

Hot ,Hot, Hot

2010-07-28T02:26:00.001-07:00

The weather is now very hot, as hot as Catalonia, and to think we moved because of the heat. Sunday we deceided to take a trip to the coast we have never been there in season, the place was crowded, we had hoped to show our helper Rod how beautiful it is, well yes, it is, but far better to go out of season. Still we had an enjoyable day with a picnic overlooking a sea that was so blue, and that evening Rod treated us to a lovely meal out.
Work is rather slow because of the heat, bur wood is being chainsawed ready for the winter, and Simon has built a retaining wall to stop mud coming onto the outside steps. The goats also don't like this weather, and bring themselves back in after a couple of hours outside, which is fine as long as they don't decide to eat any more of our Kiwi's. We should have had a large crop this year but the goats had other ideas, still we still have quite a lot.
I am getting very bored, earlier this year rather enthusiastic digging led to me damaging my Achilles tendon, I have to wait until Sept to have a scan to see how much damage there is, in the meantime I have been told not to walk on it! this would be fine if I had wings but I don't.
I am hoping to find the ingredients to have a go a making soap, this is something I have long wanted to do and have been inspired to have a go by Coco. I have lots of herbs which I could add and as I'm now not able to do the garden maybe I can still produce something.

Hot hot Hot

2010-07-28T02:26:00.000-07:00

Harvests

2010-07-24T10:57:00.000-07:00

The hay has now been cut and bailed by one of our neighbours, this year we had more than other years but we don't really know why, we totalled two hundred square bales from just under two acres, we only needed ninety bales so the neighbour has the rest in exchange for cutting for us, a good deal all round.
The strawberries keep coming, and yes you can get sick of them, I have made quite a lot of jam and also bottled some of them , we have lost count how many kgs we have given to friends, the raspberries have also been very good and a lot of jam made from those as well.The florence fennel is now ready and we had our first bulb a few days ago, but once again I'm struggling to grow swede after having made two sowings with little result I'm trying again. we aren't to sure how well the potatoes will store this year, we managed to control the colorado beetle with stinging nettle juice but we weren't so luck with the blight, the strange thing is that this is a varity we have grown for the last three years with out too many problems but another varity that we are trying this year has not been affected, we have re-planted some of the saved potatoes from last year in the tunnel hopefully these will crop for us in Nov.So far the maize is looking good despite the best efforts of our geese, and our new chicks are in the new run and doing well.

Food, again.

2010-07-15T02:44:00.000-07:00

If it's made from a plant eat it, if it's made in a plant don't eat it.
This sounds like good advice to anyone who cares about real food, and was emailed to us from a Natural health care site.It appears that the UK government is emasculating the FSA and handing over to the food manufacturing industry responsibility for informing the public about healthy eating. Talk about the wolves caring for the sheep.

Food quality

2010-07-14T07:30:00.000-07:00

We have always had an interest in good food, having been organic egg producers we always tried to produce the best quality, we also only bought real food, by that I mean food that you don't have to read the attached label.
We recently had some visitors from the UK and they very kindly offered to bring over anything that was not available here. Well, Marmite was top of the list followed by mature cheddar cheese and a couple of nice gammon steaks.
I guess it's the thought that counts, and these people knew us only via emails, however we now realise that a lot of "food" sold in the UK is not what we would call fit for purpose.
A pack of three X two gammon steaks for only ten pounds! sounds too good to be true, as the saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is not true. The weight of these gammons proclaimed them to be 1386grams, in reality on reading the label 16% was declared as not to be gammon, the label further stated with added water, we assume that this was in addition to the 16%, in reality what we ended up with was about nine hundred grams of meat after cooking, bringing the true price of this item to over 30% higher than the stated price, each pair of these steaks were vacuum packed, then placed in a polystyrene tray, cling filmed, then all three placed in an outer vacuum pack. If that was not bad enough, the steaks when cooked exuded a white gunge and the only taste was salt. This is not food, whoever are these powers that be that grant licences to produce such rubbish? It might be safe, although we have our doubts about that, but why treat food with such contempt?
These people also brought with them a five kg pack of chicken breasts, only five pounds, that's less than fifty pence a pound for chicken breasts, certainly less than production costs even allowing for the fact that these poor factory chicks would have been slaughtered at just forty two days old, still cheeping, having had no life and unable to walk because of their vast weight.These birds are just reconstituted henfeed.What many people do not realise is that chicken, along with other meats get recycled, when a product is nearing a remove by date or sell by date these products get returned to processing plants that turn them into a different form, such as chicken breasts, chicken nuggets [with added fat] spiced chicken wings etc.
Our goslings are doing well and are well cared for by five mothers and the gander, we have had a great crop of blackcurrants, the strawberries just keep coming and the raspberries are excelling, with plenty to make jam from as well as eat. we have some very cross blackbirds who seem to be stamping their feet in frustration as they are unable to get to the soft fruit, still we consider we did our bit when they cleaned us out of cherries.Our new chicks are so far doing well and are confined to what we hope is a pine marten proof run and house, we also have a further twelve buff Orpington eggs in the incubator, friends kindly brought the eggs over from the UK for us, hopefully, these birds will go on to be our breeding stock for our tablebirds.

2010-06-24T05:26:00.000-07:00

The stork is one of our more welcome visitors, we just hope he is eating the crickets and not our frogs and toads.

2010-06-24T03:12:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that the year is half over, I'm not sure what happened to the first six months, but we are now suffering a heat wave, well I guess we have to complain about something, we are having to water the garden and tunnels every day, The solstice has now gone, although there seems to be differing dates for this,with most sources quoting the 21st June this year, here in Galicia they celebrated it on the 23rd, with the usual noise and very loud fireworks erupting till the wee small hours, around 3am in the case of our local village.
Beside the vast array of predators that we have we also have some friendly wildlife, we have two resident pool frogs who go in for croaking competitions, and several toads, all welcome. One of the local storks is a frequent visitor to our field, eating we hope, field crickets. The raspberries are now ready, but unfortunately the canes have got completely out of hand, we will have to have a rethink on our fruit cage as our blackcurrants bushes are huge, they are trying to become trees but are laden with fruit.
The roses this year are wonderful and the air is sweetly perfumed with them. Our new chicks are doing well but I'm very nervous about putting them out into the ark, this is something else that we must rethink.

2010-06-16T10:58:00.000-07:00

We are rather feeling that we are feeding all the wildlife in the country.

First was a total disaster with our young Buff Orpington and Jersey Giant chicks. Simon had carefully brought the eggs back from the UK and we hatched them in the incubator, then brooded them, all with loving care. We transferred them to their run, which they loved, we had made sure that they would not fall foul of the buzzards by covering the entire run with netting. All was going well, they were growing well and then were killed, all of them, by a Pine Marten one night. The Marten had managed to get under the netting and bled them all. We tried to trap it in a human trap, but all we caught was the neighbours cat who was most annoyed to find that tasty food left in the trap did just that, trap . Simon went out late at night to see if we had success in getting the Marten to find poor puss waiting to be let out. A few days later the Marten returned, this time taking a broody hen and the Speckled Sussex eggs we had set under her, they would have hatched just a day later.

We now have twelve chicks that we had hatched in the incubator last Sunday, and now we have to do a total re-fencing job to keep these little ones safe.

We have our yearly visit from the dreaded Colorado beetle, however, our fermented nettle juice seems to be keeping the grubs at bay. We have lost a few of our kale plants to mice, you can see their teeth marks, bless them, and a fair amount of damage has been done to plants by field crickets, who eat just about everything, roots, seeds, grass, they have even had half of the Florence Fennel, this is a plant that I would have thought would have been left alone due to it's strong flavour, it's a shame that they dont eat weeds, I would put up with some damage if they did.

We should have had a couple of kilo of Morello Cherries, but the blackbirds had them, but we have foiled them on the blackcurrants and the raspberries, having totally enclosed the fruit area with netting. the whole place is taking on the form of a prison camp, except we are fencing to keep things out, not in. Oh, the maize, well last year we lost most of it to a mini tornado, this year our geese have decided that electric fencing doesn't hurt them and they have had a field day!

Apart from that, all is growing well ,but we could do with some warmer weather.

2010-06-05T10:35:00.000-07:00

The last two months have flown by. We should have been going to the UK for a week in April,and had spent two weeks or more making sure the garden was OK to leave for a week and to arrange all the animals so they would be easy to look after but, due to a volcano erupting our flight was canceled, our animal/ house sitter was already here, having come four days before our departure to learn about all the animals, who has what, when and so forth, so we took a few days off to show her the area. Fortunately she was willing to return to us a month later, and this time we did get away although the flight was delayed.

This was not a holiday trip, but a trip to clear out my mother in laws cottage which has to be sold to pay for her continuing care in a care home, she is now ninety eight and a grand old lady, but is no longer able to care for herself, it just seems so wrong to me that someone who has worked all their life, and in her case until she was ninety, to own their own home should have to sell their property to pay for care in their final years, whereas someone who has been housed by the state and subsidised by the state, get their care free.

When we arrived on the Monday evening we thought it would be a good idea to go to the cottage to take stock of the task ahead, it was daunting! and even I, the optimist had my doubts as to whether we could really clear out sixty four years of accumulated memorabilia and furniture, I had already contacted various charities and we managed to recycle most things, we thought we were going to have a problem with the piano and chaise lounge fortunately, the postmasters son has just started learning the piano so was thrilled to have it, and his wife loved the chaise longue so these items are still in the village where they have been for over sixty years.

A few items have been put into store, again with help from the village, for us to pick up when we can.

This was my first real trip to the UK in over twenty years, when we escaped Thatcher's Britain and I was agreeably surprised. The people were helpful and polite, everything was so clean and well kept and the food in pubs was first class, the UK does have a food culture, all local, fresh and of first class standard, to say nothing off the real ale which we enjoyed several pints of! We were also surprised at the prices for food in the pubs which worked out about the same as we would pay for a reasonable meal in Spain, but of course, no vegetables in Spain, we dont understand how they stay so healthy and live to ripe old ages if they haven't been killed on the roads.

2010-03-28T11:03:00.000-07:00

Spring really is here, we saw the first swallows today but so far we have not heard the cuckoo, the peaches are now in bloom, just hoping we dont get any frosts now other wise we will loose the crop. The strawberries are in bloom in the tunnel so we should be eating them in the next few weeks the broad beans and leeks and cabbages are all fairing well and so far no slug damage no doubt this will change soon then back to the wonderful job of slug picking, I'm sure they must have some use in the greater scheme of things but we have yet to work out what.

The building work on the independent accommodation is coming on quite well with a new interior wall built and the lintel in place for the archway, it should be good when it's finished but I'm not putting any date on this job, when it's done it's done!Still it's quite exciting planning the new decor and once it's done we only have one more job scheduled, but this will probably change, these things normally do, no doubt we will find another project.

Spring is here

2010-03-24T10:34:00.000-07:00

Work has had to come to a halt on the house and the garden has taken first place in our priorities, we have had our first feast of the rhubarb and I've even found some sprouting broccoli for tonight's diner. The last two days have been sunny although we did have a thunderstorm yesterday however, the ground is warm and workable, so work it we must. 25kg of potatoes have now been planted after the area was weeded from the dreaded vipers bugloss, a very pretty weed, but so invasive, then rotovated and compost added, the compost looks really good and is teaming with worms although it seems a shame to disturb the worms who were so warm and snug in the heap.
All the brassica seeds are now planted into modules, quite a time consuming job as I plant just one seed per plug but as organic seed is quite expensive and I mostly source it from the UK I dont want to waste the seed. It is quite easy to get organic seed here, but the selection is very limited and I have not found anything that would be considered unusual, carrots, cabbage and leaks plus salad crops are all that appear to be available, so I depend on Chase organics for my seed, a company that I have used for years and I find the seeds very reliable.
The broad beans are looking good, although that was something that we had to buy another packet of, we found that in the first packet the seeds had been attacked by woodworm! still I guess that it proved that the seeds were untreated, let me hasten to add these were not seeds from Chase! The cabbages have all overwintered very well so come May we will probably be eating cabbage every day.
Chirper and Cheeper the gosling and wee hen are now outside although still confined, the big geese have shown interest in them, but somewhat aggressively, probably because they are very busy laying eggs although not showing any interest in sitting their eggs, when the incubator is free we will set some goose eggs and see what happens this time.

2010-03-10T09:23:00.000-08:00

Renewing driving licences in Spain has been quite an experience, we went first to the traffic department in Lugo, explained what we wanted [ at least I think we did] and showed them our nearly expired licences. They in exchange gave us a list of papers that we would need to renew, this turned out to be a load of bunkum. All that is needed is your old licence, two photos, and the astronomical fee, the rest is done by computer, including filling out the form. We then found out that it is not in fact the traffic department that process the whole thing, however, we managed to find the correct place, and duly got processed. We then asked how long would it be for the new licences to arrive, three to four weeks, ah yes, but this is Spain, it turned out to be six weeks, this meant that Simon who was visiting the UK could not get a hire car, so his whole journey in the UK has been done on public transport, very good from the environmental point of view, not so good from a financial and time point of view. He only had seven days there, to visit his mother for her ninety eighth birthday, three of these seven days has been spent traveling, it is understandable why the UK keep building yet more motorways, they just dont have a good or affordable transport system.

One thing that Simon is bringing back are some hatching egg of Buff Orpingtons, a duel purpose bird, so hopefully we might be able to get a breeding stock going and then chicken can be back on the menu.

2010-02-28T16:18:00.000-08:00

To say the weather is changeable is an understatement, Thursday we had nearly two inches of rain, Friday was bright dry and sunny, Saturday a bad storm was predicted, cyclone Cynthia, but luckily we only got the tail end of it and the only damage was to one of our chimney pipes, we do know that other parts of Spain were not so lucky.
Our latest helper is making a fantastic job of pointing in the old barn which one day is to become a bedroom, but work on the garden is not possible at the moment as the ground is too wet.
We are rather upset to find that our Mimosa tree so lovingly planted two years ago is dead, eaten by some underground critter, probably the same one that destroyed two of our kiwi's. we have no idea what it is, but it sure doesn't respect tree roots.

We made a detour on our way back from Lugo to have a look at the river, well it is hard to remember which is river and which is fields, the only clue is buildings sat in the middle of the torrent, normally there is a foot path there.

The primroses are now out, so it cant have been that bad a winter, although it does depend on which neighbour you speak to, one says this is normal, well maybe, we've only been here three years and it's not been like the first two, another one says it's the wettest for forty years, and yet another says it's been colder than normal, now I'm sure that's not true, we have had very little snow this year, but we have had a lot of wind and some very cold nights, maybe it's because the winter has been a long one this year, and we didn't get the really warm weather in Feb.

2010-02-23T10:35:00.000-08:00

I keep trying to convince myself that spring is just around the corner, the catkins are looking lovely, the willow 's all have their lovely pussy flowers and I have seen primroses out, we even have one very brave anemone out in the garden but the weather is pure rubbish, although we have seen the local deer in the fields and the storks are here, and even the buzzards are calling to each other the weather is the sort that just makes you want to stay in bed or curled up in front of a nice log fire. This time last year I was working in the garden in shorts although we did get cold weather after this, no doubt to prove that I was being complacent about it, this year the winter, although we think has been fairly mild has seemed very long.

We still have no name for the male kid, the name chops has just stuck, the one gosling that hatched has been named chirper, it did seem very lonely on it's own so we gave it a mirror which it cuddled up to, but it didn't seem right that it should have no company so we have bought a chick as a companion, after the initial shock of something else in the brooder that moved, and a few hisses later, { didn't know that goslings could do that so young} the pair of them are now firm friends, we aren't quite sure what will happen when they go into the big wide world and cheeper sees it's mate going for a swim, but it should be an interesting study. I cant see either of these birds ending up as Sunday diner.

2010-02-15T09:02:00.000-08:00

From time to time I receive emails or comments about our blog, normally people who are as concerned as we are about commercial food, my advice will always be the same, dont use supermarkets if you want real food. Most countries have farmers markets and most countries have organic veg box schemes, you may not be able to grow all your own food, but it should be possible to buy food that you dont have to read labels on. Although it might take time to prepare a whole meal from scratch rather than opening a can or a packet of frozen 'food' the end result is worth the effort, and in fact it is only the preparation that takes the time, the cooker does the rest.

2010-02-11T10:32:00.000-08:00

We now have two new arrivals, a male kid born on Tuesday and as yet unnamed, chops doesn't sound quite right, and a gosling has hatched in the incubator, we are waiting to see if anymore hatch, it was a bit of a surprise to us as we had had two power cuts lasting three hours each within the first ten days of setting the eggs.
Now the Billy goat has proven ability the next job is to build a separate stable for him, we dont want too large a number of goats, and one in milk at a time is sufficient. It all makes for extra work and less time that we can spend on the renovation, or even getting a whole day out without feeling guilty.
We have been involved in environmental issues for a number of years and recently saw the film Food,Inc. For anyone who care where their food comes from and how it is produced this film is essential viewing, although an American film it applies to where ever you live, it has been very well received in the US[ surprisingly] and has now been nominated for an Oscar, oh how companies like Monsanto must hate it, the truth, finally out for all to see. On the same subject, well nearly, we have been aware that there are many test sites of GM crops in Galicia, whilst visiting friends last Sunday we noticed two fields that had been growing a certain type of GM maize last year had been planted with winter crops, winter cereal and a fodder crop, these crops look sick! with yellowing and some white leaves and distorted growth, as we knew which variety of GM maize had been in these fields we googled it, and it appears, according to Reuters that there was a EU meeting on July 23rd last year where permission was denied for growing of this variety, it is clear that regulations mean nothing to these companies, this maize would have been planted last May in the full knowledge that it had not been approved. Living in a strange country has many disavantages, not least when you see that EU laws are being broken.

2010-02-06T07:55:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago the spout once again broke off our teapot, this to us is a disaster as we drink a lot of tea, I had mended it on several occasions, the last time using epoxy resin which did the job for a few months, however as this had now failed I considered it time to buy a new teapot. Not a problem if you live in Ireland or the UK, but try finding a teapot in Spain, that does more than two cups, plus I wanted a red one! So online I went, first to M&S no luck then B&H same story and then Argos who did have teapots but only small ones, so I thought lets be really silly and try Amazon, the selection was endless, but all I wanted was a large teapot in red, and I found one, ordered it and it arrived safe and sound, thank goodness for Amazon. I had not mentioned the old pots demise to anyone, so imagine my surprise when I unpacked my birthday present a couple of weeks later, from a friend in Ireland to find .... A large teapot, and yes it is red, and this one is BIG.

The weather is still mild but now it's damp, but it did stay dry enough to get the first veg beds prepared for early planting, and the rhubarb is through and hopefully we will have our first pickings in a couple of weeks.

Our poor lemon tree has an infestation of sooty mould, normally caused by aphids so it will have to be dosed with stinging nettle spray, this will also feed the tree, so double benefits.

The storks have now arrived back from their winter vacation so it feels as though spring in on it's way.

2010-01-15T10:56:00.000-08:00

From snow to rain and now the temperatures are up to 10c during the day, none of this seems quite right. We had very strong winds two nights ago, up 125k an hour, we had no damage but other people have not been so lucky, one friend lost his chimney! A lot of trees are down, and advertising hoardings broken in half. So far we have had very little snow, but we have another two months of winter to get through yet, and we can see it in the distance on the Cantabrican mountains. A lot of people are still without electricity, but we have been lucky, I guess if we didn't have a generator on stand by we would have been amongst those who have lost power.
We had already planted blackcurrant bushes when we first moved here and they do very well here ,so now we have bought two redcurrants and a blueberry bush in the hope that they too will like it here. The only thing we dont have is gooseberries but as I have never had any success with them in the past we will give them a miss and just live with the memory of them.

2010-01-09T10:02:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to one and all.

With the new year comes new life, we now have twin female kids born a week ago. Unfortunately the mother is one of our older goats and she had no milk for them so we have two wee things which we are bottle feeding, so much for having kid meat to eat!. The father is a young billy and young billy's seem to sire females. Our youngest cat rather had her nose put out of joint with these things demanding time from us, but she quickly got over it and now pretends they aren't here.

We feel as though spring is not far away despite the snow on the ground and have at last placed our seed order, a bit experimental this year, we are having a go at celeriac and Florance fennel, we have never seen these seeds on sale here, or the veg themselves so we will see what happens.

All the onions and garlic are planted in a tunnel, the onions last year did particularly well in the tunnel so we are hoping the garlic will as well.

2010-01-09T09:42:00.000-08:00

For years we have wanted to skip Christmas, this year we nearly managed it.

Although it's good to have a celebration in the middle of winter it's all the commercialisation that comes with Xmas, although in Spain it's not quite so bad as in Ireland or the UK, it's fast getting that way.

The first Christmas lights were up in the shopping centres at the beginning of Nov.

Christmas eve we made a concession with some holly and ivy to decorate a small area in the dining room.

Christmas day we went for a Chinese meal with some friends, and St Stevens day we had a nice meal followed by a Xmas pud I had made last year, and of course a bottle of wine, on the 27th we had some friends over for a meal. That was our skipping Xmas, maybe we can manage to really skip it next year, like a school report, we could do better. Maybe we will just celebrate Yule Tide on the solstice.

2010-01-09T09:22:00.000-08:00

The downstairs loo has taken two months to complete, although it's the smallest room in the house it posed some problems not least that it was below the septic tank level so we had to install a macerator, however it was finished in time for Xmas

[ All I want for Xmas is a downstairs loo] and the overall effect is great, no traipsing upstairs during the evening or trampling mud through the house to wash your hands when working in the garden, we also now have a very nearly completed pantry, so we have good storage space for all our bottled fruit.

The next project is to complete the stairs to the kitchen, as these are going to be of wood I might live to regret this if mud gets trampled in! Once this is done come the big job, converting the old kitchen and attached barn into independent accommodation.

2010-01-09T08:59:00.000-08:00

I have got rather behind with this blog over the last two months, autumn came late, but winter has now started. There was some beautiful autumn colour and so many different types of fungi and this year at last we managed to grow melons. Some people have no problems growing these, but I always have, the ones we produced were not planted, they appeared! obviously we had not got the compost heap hot enough and the seeds must have been in the compost we put into one of the tunnels, whether we can do the same again remains to be seen.

We have made a far bit of progress over the last two month though, the sun room is now completed and the downstairs loo is done, the pantry is now well under way.

The gander hunt

2009-11-10T09:53:00.000-08:00

Last January we lost our gander, as readers of our blog will know this turned into quite a saga, well the story continues. Two months ago we were having our doubts as to whether the new ganders were in fact ganders,a hint was the fact that they appeared to be laying eggs, well at least they were sitting on eggs but it's not unknown for ganders to do this while the females go out to feed, we had however set eggs in the incubator as well, nothing happened!! We had also seen the original geese trying to mate the 'ganders' in the pond, something was clearly amiss. We decided that we would contact the agricultural shop where we had bought all of our geese . As we no longer had a Spanish speaker staying with us we thought it best to email our request, the reply was affimitave, so we followed it up with a phone call to confirm that they could get a gander and that it would be at the shop waiting for us on Monday. In Spain we seem to travel vast distances to get what we need, and the geese are no exception, the shop being some two and a half hours drive away. Well, we arrived at the appointed time to find that the man in the shop knew nothing about it. After Simon had explained with his now vastly improving languge skills[a cross between Castilion Catalan and Galliegan] the man realized that we had in fact traveled a long way and that there were definite arrangements made and he knew exactly whom to phone! Someone somewhere had not passed on the message that the gander should in fact be in Padron, not still running around his field some forty km away, so with the aid of the map, plus an address and a phone number and a very protracted detailed list of directions we continued our journey, this time to the coast. The new gander, and yes, we do think he is a he, was awaiting us. It was by now two fourty five and we had planed to look for tiles for the downstairs loo in Santiago de Compestela, and were also due to go to lunch at three with friends who live an hours drive from Santiago[ in the right direction for us to get home] so the tile hunt was abandoned, a phone call made to our friends to explain what had happened, and a look at the map as Simon was sure we could find a shorter route to our friends house. Nice theory, the map showed a nice road, much shorter than the one we had come by, across the mountains, what however the map didn't show was how windy the road was, and in fact to get ten km nearer our destination you in fact travel twenty km. It would have been a beautiful scenic route if it hadn't been thick cloud and fog on the hills (mountains in our language, over 900 m, about the height of Snowdon).

At sometime in the future we plan to return to this coastal atea as it has great scenery and some interesting Celtic remains and monasteries but this will be for the warmer months.

2009-11-04T06:43:00.000-08:00

We love photographing fungi, just a small selection of the ones we found yesterday.

It's just a shame we cant find any pixies in the woods.

2009-11-04T06:09:00.001-08:00

Sunday was all Souls Day, for the previous week or more all the shops were full of Chrysanthemum plants and the farmers market on Friday was just a sea of flowers, although this day is celebrated in Ireland it is a far quieter affair. Halloween is also celebrated big time with lots of parties, and the shops full of spooky gear.

On the first of each month there is a big market held in Monterosso, and the one for November is huge with just about everything for sale except geese! Yes, we are again on the wild goose chase, the two we had bought earlier in the year as male are in fact female, so we are back to searching for a husband for them, when we get one I just hope he doesn't find it too much having seven wives.

On the first of each month we meet up with other expats in a hotel in Monterosso, mainly British but one Russian lady as well, it struck me that the landlady there must find us very strange as we sit there drinking tea and coffee or maybe a coke, I cant imagine a group of Spanish just drinking soft drinks when they only meet up once a month.

The weather is now mild and damp, just the right weather for mushrooming, we have found six types of highly edible ones, plus many very pretty ones which are not.Hopefully the weather will stay as it is for a little longer so we can pick enough mushrooms for drying.

A few more interesting fungi

2009-10-15T07:01:00.001-07:00

Health and Safety 2

2009-10-15T06:26:00.000-07:00

My concerns about the general safety for customers in shops is probably an over reaction especially when most accidents happen in the home, normally because people are using the wrong tools for the job, we are no exception to this, three weeks ago I attempted to remove part of a finger cutting up pork with a pair of scissors, on reflection not a good idea, this led to a very nasty blood infection which I'm still trying to get rid of, I guess if I wasn't so stubborn I would have gone to the doctor and by now it would have cleared up, but I didn't and it hasn't. I think Simon must have been feeling a little left out as I was feeling so bad so he thought it might be a good idea to chop up kindling wood with a 5kg axe and try to remove the side of his hand at the same time, he being so brave refused to go to the emergency room when it happened, so I patched him up as best as I could although to me it was clear that his hand needed more than a plaster, also the bathroom looked as though the chain saw massacre had just happened, however the following day I did convince him to at least go to see the nurse at the health centre to get it properly dressed, the nurse called the doctor who immediately wrote out the paper work for the hospital where we spent four hours being seen by numerous doctors nurses and the x ray dept, eventually he was stitched up and now has seven stitches to show for his efforts of chopping wood.

A chopper is used for chopping wood up small, an axe is for heavy logs that you aren't holding steady with your hand, scissors are great for cutting material paper etc, not for cutting meat. I guess we need to be a little more careful.

On a brighter note the country side is now full of mushrooms and toadstools and we had a feast of parasol mushrooms yesterday, tasting all the better as they were free, also the autumn crocus are now in bloom it's lovely to see the brightness of them nestling in the grass, these are NOT the saffron crocus although many people refer to them as such, indeed they are poisonous.There are also masses of chestnuts although they are not one of my favorites I must try to think of ways to use them as I hate to waste things.

2009-10-06T10:18:00.001-07:00

So! ..it does remember how to rain, I just hope it remembers to stop as well, after two months of no rain at all we now have very heavy rain, we managed to harvest the peaches before it started but the maize is still in the field. The peaches are now bottled and all we have to do is to find somewhere to store them, the next job on the agenda is the downstairs loo and a large larder, the sun room is almost finished, and more pointing has been done by our last helpers, but there's still one big wall to complete, then comes the major job, converting the old kitchen and adjoining barn into independent accommodation.

A couple of weeks ago was the Lugo honey festival, there were around twenty five producers all with wonderful displays and some super honeys including Organic honey which of course we bought.

Health and Safety

2009-09-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

We have now lived in Spain for five and a half years and for the most part it is good, however, when it comes to health and safety it's like living in a third world country.
Today was a typical example of customer beware, we paid a visit to the large DIY store in Lugo, on display were shelving units, these had been placed on a slightly raised area to represent a living area surrounded by a metal strip, needless to say this was not properly fixed, so I tripped on it but no harm done, we continued round the store, loaded up the trolley and made our way to the check out, this took us past the offending display, a mother and child went to look at the units and the child went flying, luckily caught by his mother. This sort of thing is not unusual in Spain, toilets in cafes often have a small step down, or even worse a door marked aseos which opens into darkness and a steep flight of stairs, I am against the Nanny State, however, I do expect a certain degree of safety in public places, I'm sure that there must be EU regulations covering this, however, if there is Spain has not read it.

The weather continues to be warm and apart from one day of light rain we are still in drought mode meaning we are still having to water the garden every couple of days or so.

The geese have started laying again but not sitting as yet, if they do hatch any they wont be ready for Xmas, but we will have geese for Easter. All the chicks are doing well, we hatched four in the incubator, and a hen hatched seven, so we will have to see how many males there are for the table.The peaches are ripening slowly, they need some rain, and also to be left alone by the geese who have learnt how to pick them, and the goats try to break loose whenever they can and make a bee line for them, but there's so many on the tree that we can spare some for the live stock.

Summer's back

2009-09-12T03:56:00.000-07:00

Just when I thought things were getting cooler at the start of the month with the first rain for weeks I was mistaken, the weather is even hotter, and at 6.30am last wed in Lugo it was 19 c. Lugo being several degrees cooler than here.

There are several people we know who are either on water restrictions or even worse, have no water at all.

We still have water and the garden gets watered every third day but really it needs a good downpour. The fruit and veg are still doing very well with lots of strawberries and raspberries, the first of the cauliflower are ready and this year for the first time ever we have grown garden peas as well as the mangetout.

Work is on hold for the next week as Simon is away, but the sun-room that he has started is three quarters done so hopefully that will be finished by the end of the month.

The start of Autum

2009-09-02T01:46:00.000-07:00

It seems as though the weather can understand the calendar,we had a light shower of rain overnight on the last day of August which freshened things up well and reduced the temperatures to more workable levels. Today we awoke to the first of the Autumn mists, a lot of Galicia seem to have these mists all year round, ours are few and far between but they do help with the watering of the garden.

The young rabbits are now weaned and were removed from Mum yesterday, much to her relief.They love their new home, and are hopping around like, well, young rabbits!

The past week we don't seem to have got a lot of work done, besides having damaged my back we have been trying to get together the materials for the sun room. This has involved visits to two wood yards. Of course, being Spain, one of the orders is not ready so we have to go back later, a visit to the builders yard for the blocks, and a trip to Lugo to a window manufacturor who we learned sells second hand windows. It's quite unusual to be able to get second hand anything in Spain, but we got exactly what we wanted very cheaply.

The main reason for the sun room is for a permanent home for the lemon tree and overwintering tender plants such as our geraniums and the oleander.

Although the sun room had been planned for some time in the future, after all we have plenty of work to be getting on with in the main house, we know that winter will soon be upon us and for just a weeks work we should be able to give a comfortable home for our precious plants.

Costing the Earth.

2009-08-31T12:02:00.000-07:00

Although it's not why I set this blog up I'm going to have a go about the crisis in Kenya, we are downloading a program called The Future Of Food, Kenya produces a high percentage of food for EU super markets, french beans for instance, which can easily be produced in Europe these are grow in Kenya, flown over to UK super markets and sold for 1 pound for 350 grams, in plastic of course, these damn supermarkets will not accept anything except the perfect bean, IE it must be straight and heaven forbid that it should have any sign of soil on it, anything which is not perfect is destroyed whilst the people of Kenya starve, it's not just the supplying half way across the world, these crops need water to grow, so deeper wells have to be bored which means that the indigenous people no longer have access to water either to grow their own crops or to drink. It's time that subsidies for exporting food were stopped, the money doesn't go to the growers, it goes to the governments and makes their balance of payments look good and enables them to repay their loans to the world bank.
Also we dont need food out of season although the supermarkets have convinces everyone that they do. People complain that food doesn't taste the same as it used to, of course not,
A it's been flown halfway across the world and
B it's picked unripe, so has no chance to acquire the flavour from the sun,
and C it's kept in cold storage, often gassified to keep it fresh!
I think that all young people should unite and set up communes to grow their own food, ten families buy 100 acres of land, each works ten acres, rotating their crops, and hey presto, you have no food bills, people can still work at their jobs but have a good lifestyle to come home to [ the houses would be self build of course from local materials] beside knowing where your food has come from, you have exercise as well, so are far healthier. That is my Utopia and that of the late John Seymour, however people nowadays want it all and want it now, they dont care where it's come from, or that it's costing the Earth! They seem to forget that we are tenants of this planet, we don't own it, and it's the only one we have.

Lessons of growing older

2009-08-29T05:44:00.000-07:00

When we are young we think we can do everything, but have no need to do so, when we get older we still think we can do everything, and have the need to do so and then find we cant!
The weather has got a little cooler this week making it bearable to work outside, so I thought I could get on with repairing a wall and pointing the same , the first day things went quite well, I was only pointing, just a little back ache, day two was replacing stones in the wall, to be more accurate rebuilding it in places, I now cant move my back and walking is pure hell! I have managed to trap the sciatic nerve, I know from past experience that the only treatment is rest, not something that I'm too good at, but as Simon is away to the UK in ten days time and I have a farm to run on my own whilst he's away it's what I have to do, so the wall will have to wait, it wont fall down and it's been like it for a couple on century's, the veg will have to compete with the weeds, but the veg are well established, and things will just have to wait, including myself.

Meanwhile the strawberries and raspberries keep on producing, plus all the veg.

Re-assuring [ Car insurance] and the Fat Cats.

2009-08-22T02:53:00.000-07:00

When we first moved to Spain we came with our original vehicle, our insurance from Ireland covered us for six months, we had intended to keep this Nissan Urvan , but as it was a commercial vehicle ,re- registering it would have been a long and expensive procedure, so we decided it would be best to buy a Spanish registered car, we asked around to find a garage who had a good reputation, found the car that we needed and the garage arranged the transfer of ownership and the insurance, which although was higher than we were used to didn't seem too bad, the following year we found that the premiums had increased considerably so went to our local 'gestoria' he was an agent for several companies and got us a good deal.
Then we moved to Galicia and although we had informed the 'gestoria' of this fact several times we have never received updated insurance details showing our new address, although we had contacted the company directly, we were told we had to go through the 'gestoria', so it was the never ending circle.
Now the insurance is due for renewal the beginning of Sept and our bank had informed us that they were now doing car insurance, so we asked then to give us a quote, this took a week to arrive and when we had stopped laughing, we thanked them and said NO THANKS! It was 120% higher than we had been paying. So we did what sensible people do and asked the other Brits in the area, we were given the name of three company's, one of which we tried to get a quote on line, after half an hour of filling forms the reply came up that we would have to phone them, so we did and were told that they would phone us back with an English speaker, well ,we are still waiting, however, as we always go into Lugo on a Friday we popped into one of the other recommended agencies, although she spoke no English and our Spanish is not good, within five minutes she had the quote, it has better coverage than we had before and was forty euros cheaper! We left with a smile on our faces, and celebrated with a cup of coffee. We are now pondering as to why the bank quote should have been 150% more, or is this going towards the Fat Cats bonuses ?
The one thing we have learnt living in Spain is always to asked around, normally within the Brit community after all, we all face the same problems and someone will have the answers.

Friends and Foes.

2009-08-18T08:25:00.000-07:00

Being 'Organic' brings many beneficial animals and insects, however it also brings unwanted guests, our latest friend is Mrs tiggywinkle, a hedgehog who moved into our big barn, to give birth we think, the unwelcome visitor was a Stoat! Now, as anyone who keep poultry will tell you, as pretty as they might be, you dont want them, fortunately one of the cats had killed this young one that we found, but there must be others around, last year we had a problem with Pine Martens, and we lost three broods of chicks. Our rabbits should be safe enough as they are housed where the dogs sleep, but the hens are very vulnerable, especially the chicks, we now have four more chicks from the incubator, two black and two blond, we are hoping that there is a colour link to the sex and the the black ones are female, we shall have to wait and see.

We have now set the first batch of quails eggs in the incubator, although we had to go back twice to the agricultural suppliers to get the females that we required, the man had a very strange way of sexing them, he looked into their eyes! in the end I had to show him the males foam ball, I do suspect he had a surplus of males and thought he could palm them off to the stupid Brits.

Colorado beetles will always be a problem, as will mice, who nibble the potatoes, as do mole crickets, they also eat any roots of young plants, moles are a menace as well. We have found that the second lot of potatoes planted didn't get either the beetle or blight, we experimented with just using stinging nettle juice and using cut nettles to earth up, we shall rerun this experiment next year to see if it was just a fluke.

Latest catch of veg

2009-08-18T07:37:00.000-07:00

Growing vegetables here is too easy, we seem to have a constant glut of most things, our tomatoes were self seeded and are producing well, the physalis are the plants from last year which I had cut down and left just the stubs in, when I went to pull them up in March I found that they had new shoots so I just let them get on with it, the cucumbers are also self sown, I just transplanted them to another spot, we had grown salsify last year, that also has self seeded, and in fact looks though it might take over the vegetable garden, this of course appeared after we had planted scorzonera! We have for the first time got some pears, the trees had been neglected for years, so last year we attacked them and they have rewarded us with fruit, I must look up the correct way to care for them.

Our last helpers left last Friday, they were a great couple from Texas, they did a vast amount of weeding, chainsawing wood and lifted all our potatoes, so many thank guys.

2009-08-10T07:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the day of the Samos artisan fair, a month earlier than last year and with half the amount of crafts on show, as far as we could tell there was also no traditional dancing, we are guessing that this is probably due to the recession, although there was the local honey on sale there was no organic honey included this year, we are suspicious that this may be due to GMO contamination as there are many hectares of GM maize planted, if this is the case it will put many Organic farmers livelihoods at risk. Unfortunately we do not have a good enough command of the Spanish language to ask the question. It was however a nice afternoon out and gave us all a time to relax, and for our helpers to see a little more of Galicia and the surrounding country side.

The courgettes have now won, and taken over, you can only eat so many of them before you get sick of the sight of them especial as now the runner beans and calabrese are ready two weeks earlier than last year.

Today one of our neighbours has turned up to cut our field for the winter hay, so the goats and ever increasing family of rabbits should be well fed. The litter that was born last week appears to have eleven kittens, but we may have miscounted, it might be twelve!

We have a great selection of amphibians that have moved onto our land, frogs, toads, lizards and newts, and we are very grateful for the help they give us with the slugs

2009-08-04T07:16:00.000-07:00

2009-08-04T07:04:00.000-07:00

The soft fruit has done very well, we have been picking strawberries since March and the suckers which we transplanted are now in flower. We also have blackcurrant bushes, rhubarb and raspberries, it's a shame that the garlic has not done better.