The start of Autum

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.

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.