​The year started off well. Light steady rains. None of the torrential rain and storms we had in the first couple of years here. Though not enough rain to soak in and encorage wild flowers. But then the virus and the lockdown happened. Fortunately for us our daily routine hardly changed: walking the dogs, and doing odd jobs around the finca. Only that there was no one around and no traffic passing on the road. Not that we see many people here but it was almost like we were alone on the planet. With Armageddon seemingly on the horizon my thoughts turned to growing vegetables and keeping chickens.
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​Looks like Armageddon, actually a duststorm or ´calima´.

The difficulties with growing vegetables here range from poorly germinating seed to pests, diseases, wind, the heat, and the need to water frequently.. It is so important to check the date on the seed packet. Even then there is no guarantee of good germination. I have often had my newly germinating seed  eaten by mice. My tomatoes always suffer from phytopthera blight, making it vital to remove affected leaves and water at the base of the plants to avoid spreading the fungal spores. I have tried dusting the plants with sulphur fungicide and it seems to help.
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The maize has grown well despite newly emerging shoots being eaten by chipmunks. Beans, cherry tomatoes, peppers (pimiento padron) , rocket, carrots, mint, pennyroyal and beetroot are all growing here.
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​Just two of many beetroots that went into pickling jars. Quite a good size!

The chipmunks are correctly named Barbary Ground Squirrels.They were introduced from Morocco many years ago and are considered invasive and a threat to the natural ecology of the island. They are definitely a threat to my vegetable garden!

I have waged war against the chipmunks with the asistance of two traps baited with tomatoes. It was the tomatoes that attracted them in the first place. I wouldn´t mind if they just picked a whole tomato and went on their way but no, they climb up the plant nibbling at several and destroying so many at once. The question was what to do with them when caught. They are quite cute to look at so ducking them in the pond wasn´t a realistic option. They were instead given a sentence of transportation. Here is one waiting to be transported to form a new colony.
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Then into the back of the truck and off to pastures anew.
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Ever since we gave up on the idea of a wood burning stove the old woodstore has been redundant and this suggested itself as the starting point for building a chicken coop. So I set to work.

Then we had to find some chickens. From asking around we found a farm in Casillas del Angel with battery hens.They were on the point of clearing out their 18 month old hens. We took four and saved them from the compost heap. Rescue chickens to add to our rescue dogs. Unfortunately they were in a terrible state. Not many feathers, red bottoms and completely stressed out.
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But within a week they had settled down and are already becoming quite tame. By removing their feeder at night and returning it in the morning they have associated me with food. So now I am being attacked in the morning when I return with their re-filled feeder.  To keep the feed area clean it is advisable to suspend the feeder off the ground. But this means that the feeder starts to rotate when the chickens get stuck in and it hilarious to see them racing around and around in circles trying to grab some food.

Just two weeks after our ladies arrived we were presented with the first egg. It felt like it was their way of saying thank you!
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So, not content with dogs and chickens we thought we should add to the fish population. We hadn´t seen any fish for weeks and thought the heron had taken them, so I bought 15 goldfish from the petshop. Then three large ones appeared from nowhere and so we had 18. Then we saw some tiny babies - another six so we are up to 24 - and counting.
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For some time now we have noticed that the plants near the water tank have been growing luxuriantly and at the same time we noticed water pooling in the pump house. The conclusion being that we had a leak. A local firm offered to fit a rubber (EPDM) lining at a reasonable price. They had previously supplied our pool liner. It was arranged for them to fit a liner inside our water tank, but first I had to empty it and clean it out.

This was Wendy`s opportunity to put the lid back on and keep me out of the way for a while!
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We, or maybe just I, were tempted to add to our collection of livestock when this little fellow appeared.
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​Very cute little kid but we decided to find his owner who turned out to be a farmer living up on the hill about a mile away. So we took him for a ride in the truck and he (the kid) thanked us by giving us some of his fleas!

Then one of the adults appeared in the garden of the house at the top of the rioad. Attracted, no doubt, by the green astro turf and the swimming pool water. Neither of which would have been particularly palatable.
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As I write this we are gearing up to fly back to Britain for a few weeks leaving our finca in the hands of house sitters. We are so looking forward to seeing our grandchildren. Wendy has been busy making masks for the journey......
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​Gone are the days of posting updates every month. Now aiming for twice a year! 

We are still looking for a buyer for the windmill. All we need is someone who likes plants, tranquility, wacky houses, and no electricity bills. There has been some interest but no one has yet been quite right.

Sitting writing this in July I have to think back to the last post in November and what has happened since then. Chiefly some health issues slowed me down from achieving very much, though there have been some successes (as well as some failures) in the garden, I have gapped up the Christmas trees which didn´t make it to their first year, and the fish pond has now had an overhaul.
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It would be interesting to review some of the successes and failures. One of the garden failures is the Ombu tree (Phytolacca dioica). Growing on the Argentinian Pampas I was told when I bought it that it develops into a huge evergreen tree apparently welcomed as a shelter from the sun by the Gaucho cowboys. My little five year old Ombu tree might just about afford some shelter for the odd lizard or two.
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​On the other hand the Passion fruit (Passiflora edulis) which I planted with the hope of it growing over the gate arch has now done exactly that. It has also flowered and maybe we´ll get some fruit in due course. In England there is only one species hardy enough to grow there, Passiflora caerulea, which does not have edible fruit, so this one is very welcome. It is a terrific genus. There are some amazing ornamental tropical passion flowers which I will try growing one day.

​This picture was taken in May and the passion flower has put on a lot of growth, and flowers, since then. The blue flowered Duranta (Duranta erecta) on the left has flowered continuously all year. The shelter from the wind afforded by the stone wall makes this part of the garden very successful.
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The yellow flowered Gofio plant or Popcorn plant, so called depending on what the smell of the crushed leaves remind you of, or Cassia didymobotrya,  I have grown as a standard tree as well as a sprawling shrub, both of which can be seen here.
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The Bougainvillea growing over our pergola has the loveliest dark purple flowers. I grew it from a cutting which was pinched one dark night with secateurs and a plastic bag from the Elba Golf Course hotel. It would now be about five years old.

Another success would be the Casaurinas planted as windbreaks, though this is not surprising as it is widely planted on Fuerteventura. Casaurina equisetifolia is an Australian native well suited to arid and alkaline conditions. (I seem to be flagging up the successes rather than the failures here, but then I guess the failures are probably now in the compost heap).
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Also planted to the north of the finca are some Canary Island palm trees, but these have not done so well and it is interesting to compare these with the now large Phoenix canariensis in the garden. The one on the left was planted as a large specimen tree. Whereas the one on the right, growing in the garden, was originally a one foot high freebie from the Cabildo Department of the Environment. 
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​Another palm tree planted as a large specimen was the Sabal palm (Sabal palmetto). This was planted into a deep hole prepared by the JCB with plenty of compost. It has grown very little in five years, though it is reputedly a slow grower.

The red, white and blue theme in front of the windmill is working quite well. The white flowers are the white Oleander which is growing very strongly. The red colour is from a red Oleander and red Bougainvillea, while the blue flowers are of the Potato Bush (Solanum rantonnetii). In the centre is a Travellers Palm (Ravenala madagascariensis), not a palm as such and related to the Strelitzia Bird of Paradise.
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​The Travellers Palm flowered in May and it is clear to see that is related to the Strelitzia. Similar flower form, just different colours.
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One plant I have been very surprised about has been the Amaryllis. These well known plants are sold as bulbs in England in late summer to flower at Christmas but are more correctly named Hippeastrum. There has been a lot of confusion about the naming of these. Although similar in appearance Amaryllis are from South Africa while Hippeastrum are from South America. Anyway, I bought mine a couple of years ago from Lidl in Puerto and they have been growing in the conservatory as well as outside in the garden. They have bulked up nicely and this year they have all flowered profusely through May and June. I only have the pink flowererd cultivar so early this year I bought a couple more when I saw that Lidl were selling some red flowered plants.
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​Another plant which has really taken off this year (no, not rocket!) is the Cycad palm, (Cycas revoluta). This is another palm which is not a palm, but is more closely related to a conifer. Cycads have been around for a long time and have the distinction of keeping dinosaurs company some 300 million years ago. 

The pine trees have had their best year yet thanks to a liberal dose of NPK fertliser. In fact probably a little too much fertiliser as some of them died when the weather turned warmer. Too much fertiliser, which are salts, dry or burn the roots and when the trees need more water as it gets warm, they suffer physiological drought and can die.
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This picture of the second field was taken in May exactly 12 months after planting. Some of the trees are already two feet tall. There was a blaze of colour among the young trees as common poppies (Papaver rhoeas) appeared, germinating from the seed I collected and sowed the year after we arrived.
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Here I am in May replacing the dead trees. The replacements were raised from seed sown in January into plastic tubes sealed at one end with drainage holes made using a hole punch. 
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The fish pond has been looking quite disgusting for some time now. I rather lost interest after the heron made off with all the fish last year.

​The first step was to drain the pond which was also an opportunity to ´fertigate´ the nearby plants.

​As the water level reduced I fancied I caught a glimpse of flashes of something orange. Could it be a goldfish? In fact it was the three goldfish we thought had been eaten by the heron long ago. They were large, fat and seemingly quite healthy, apparently having survived only on the bugs and vegetation falling into the pond. Was the turtle also there? Unfortunately no, he truly had taken his leave and crawled away, obviously preferring to try out one of the hundreds of natural pools in the nearby countryside....

The water lily was duly rescued and put in a bucket, and the fish put into a larger bucket with an aerator to keep the water fresh.
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​​The next step was to pressure clean the sides and bottom to remove all the gunk. Pongo, as ever, is trying to work out what is going on and whether there might be something edible for him.
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Having scrubbed the concrete with mild brick acid I made a little hidey hole for the fish where they could dodge out of the way of the heron. This would also serve as a support for the water lily to bring it closer to the surface where it can receive more sunlight.
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When the pool was first built I should have sealed the concrete to prevent lime leaching from the concrete into the water. This can raise the water pH which is harmful to fish and which is probably why many of the original fish died. So I took the opportunity to paint the pond this time with two coats of an acrylic swimming pool paint. 
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This was all getting to be a lot of work and so we took the next day off and went to the golf driving range with some amigos. For just a few Euros you had a golf club and 50 balls. Wendy enjoyed herself. I thought it was a lot of balls....
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Then back to work. It was a hot day and the pond looked so inviting we were thinking seriously of turning it into a plunge pool for ourselves, never mind about goldfish!

One last touch was to put in a short piece of drainpipe as another hidey hole for the fish.
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​Time to put the fish back into their old home. Pongo has finally realised this could be the edible part of the whole exercise. Come to Daddy....

​I have no idea of the sexes of these fish but it was interesting to see that as soon as they were put back into the pond the two large ones immediately started a kind of courtship. Maybe the clear fresh water was making them frisky. If we see some babies - they are heterosexual, if not - we have LGBT goldfish!

The banana is flowering again. Pongo has already seen this and he is keeping an eye on it. Though it will be September before the fruit ripen. He is very much into his fruit. I was wondering why my tomatoes were disappearing from the vegetable garden, until I saw him one day coming out with a guilty look on his face.
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​And finally the Flamboyant tree (Delonix regia) is flowering. This has to be my favourite tree. The fresh green of the finely divided compound leaves together with the scarlet flowers and beautiful umbrella shape makes it one of the best.

Disaster struck at the end of September. We travelled to Britain to spend a few days with Wendy´s mother to celebrate her 90th. It seems that soon after we left a pipe in the downstairs bathroom burst and flooded the bathroom, kitchen and conservatory. Rosa, our cleaner and general helper, came by a couple of days later to check on things and found water pouring out of the conservatory door! We are still drying out two months later, and the swollen doors still don´t close. Note to self: turn the bloody water off next time!

​Last month we saw an explosion in butterfly numbers. There were clouds and clouds of butterflies. The greatest number was of Painted Ladies. These are long distance migrants which travel between North Africa and mainland Europe, even as far as Britain.

There have also been a number of Monarch butterflies, also migrants. These lay their eggs on the Milkweed plant (Asclepias). Unfortunately I have only two Milkweed plants in the garden and they are both rather small and incapable of surviving an invasion of Monarch caterpillars. So, as much as I love to see the butterflies, I have to consider the survival of my plants and I have been picking the caterpillars off as they appear.

The same has to be said for the African Migrant. Not the one so much in the news just now which travels on a rubber dinghy from Libya, but the small pale green or yellow butterfly which feeds on the Gofio plant (Cassia didymobotrya). The colour apparently depends on whether they are feeding on leaves or the flowers. These have been devastating my three bushes which are normally covered in bright yellow flowers. Despite picking off hundreds of caterpillars this one lost the battle. And here is a picture of one of the culprits. In Spanish they are called orugas. I call them ´orrible orugas.

The only other species I have seen are the Cabbage Whites, although not so many. I have no idea what they feed on (there are no cabbages in my garden) and they are always flying, never resting.
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At the end of October we made a trip back to the UK to empty out our cottage near Banbury which we had sold. It was our bolthole in England for the last four years which we rented out as a holiday cottage. This was followed by a few days in the South West to view some investment properties. Followed by a 93rd birthday get together for my mother. A very busy few days and it was a relief to get back to Finca El Molino.

​While we were away we had a huge amount of rain. There were pop up rivers everywhere on the island. This coupled with generally calm and cooler conditions and further gentle rain have encouraged plant growth. The garden plants (with the exception of my Gofio plants) and the Pine trees in the field are looking splendid.. The countryside too has, in parts, turned a bright spring green.

​The Pine trees have really put on some growth. Getting the watering regime right over the summer helped (1 1/2 hours every nine or ten days) plus fertilising (N,P and K and trace elements) every three months, and now gentle rain, have all helped. The tallest are around 120 cm and the trees we planted in June have doubled in height already.

I think Goofy and Pongo look so much better against a green background!
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With the garden looking good, now might be a good time to take stock of which plants have done well and which are destined for the scrap heap. 

First up is the purple flowered Duranta. This one is in a sheltered postion behind a stone wall, though there are two others in more exposed positions which are surviving quite well. They do not appear to be  quite as drought resistant as some other plants. Duranta erecta is a relative of verbena. The Painted Ladies love it. On balance a worthwhile shrub in this garden.

​I suppose my favourite has to be the Bougainvillea. Such a mass of colour, a terrfific variety of colours and it is tough and fast growing. The shell pink variety below is a stunner.

​Another favourite, and one I didn´t know before coming here, is the Blue Potato Bush or Solanum rantonettii. It can be a little fussy, prefers to be on the drier side and doesn´t like having wet feet, at least until it is well established. I have quite a few of these and they all seem to do well regardless of position in the garden. The  flowers are a wonderful vivid blue. I have some growing next to red bougainvilles and white oleanders to create a patriotic red, white and blue theme!

In past years I have had mixed feelings about Hibiscus. They really dont like the wind and flower only on the leeward side and the leaves tend to yellow. However this year some of the Hibiscus shrubs have performed better, as can be seen in the picture below which is a lovely glossy green. It seems to be that (like many other species here) they take a while to settle down, for their roots to extend to the point where they are tolerant of too little or too much water. I believe this is the result of the silty clay soil here being very impermable. Water is slow to permeate down to the roots and slow to drain from around the roots. So this is one of the better hibiscus.
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​Another plant that has done well in places is Lantana, another member of the verbena family. Lantana camara pictured here has orange yellow flowers though I recently found and planted another species with purple flower heads, Lantana montevidensis. Funny how this is a treasured garden plant here and yet it is a noxious weed in Australia where it is toxic to cattle!

Whereas most of these shrubs were raised from cuttings I have raised quite a few perennial plants from seed. The advantage of these is that they are often free to seed themselves and spread around the garden.  I have found one of the most prolific self seeders to be African Daisies or Gazania. These pop up everywhere. Also, if I want one in a place where it hasn´t appeared, it is easy to dig up and divide a large plant and chuck the new bit back in the ground. There are many varieties but I have found the best to be those with silver grey leaves (rather than deep green leaves) which seem to be more resistant to mealybug.
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Another plant from the same Asteraceae family (Asteraceae all have daisy like flowers) is the red and yellow flowered Blanket Flower or Gaillardia. This has proved quite tough and has seeded itself around, although to a lesser extent. Pictured here also is another African Daisy the purple flowered Osteospermum. This hasn´t spread by seed and suffers from attack by mealybug. It has only survived so far because I cut out all the infected parts. A couple of years ago Osteospermum was planted on the roadside in Caleta. It was soon removed, I suspect due to mealybug attack. Although it is a super colour to have in the garden, if it were to die out I would not bother to replant it.

​A very succesful plant has been the pink Gaura. It was never really on my radar as a plant in England. But here it comes into its own with masses of pink flowers which are happy to be blown around in the wind. Gaura lindheimeri is very easy to propagate from cuttings.

I am a fan of grasses and one of the best has to be the Japanese blood grass or Imperata cylindrica rubra. It doesn´t come true from seed so I had to bring the first one from England in my bag wrapped up in some damp sweaty socks. From a rather ignoble start this plant has established itself in a couple of places now and looks fantastic in the early morning or evening when the sun is low and causes the leaves to glow a blood red.
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​For a blue coloured grass I have Blue Lyme Grass or Elymus arenarius. Great colour but it is a thug sending out runners which have to be pulled out to keep it under control. The light feathery grass to the right looks like Stipa tenuissima but it is not and to my shame I have forgotten its name! Definitely a great grass for the garden here, well behaved and occasional seedlings crop up which is very useful. Below shows the three grasses combined.

Grasses are very architectural plants as is also the Agave attenuata sitting at the back in the above picture. This plant was one of only two or three plants which had survived four years of neglect before we bought the finca. The small ones here were taken as plantlets from the original Agave two years ago.
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I reckon that is enough for this month. There are more plants which I want to review and these will be in the next blog. The Flamboyant, Colvillea and the Jacaranda trees are all looking better than they have ever done and I am rather hoping for some flowers in due course. In the meantime one of the nastiest plants I have ever come across is this cactus which is armed with long vicious spines and little hooks which make it almost impossible to pull out of your skin. Despite this, when I saw this one, I could only admire its flower and the little snail sheltering inside. Isn´t nature wonderful.
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We were away for all of July and August and left the windmill, dogs and finca in the capable hands of Arvid. Arvid is Dutch and is so there was an immediate interest for her to live in a windmill! Though we were disappointed that she she didn´t bring her clogs with her. She looked after the house and garden extremely well, and especially Goofy and Pongo. They became good friends.
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​We travelled down to Australia to see Tristan and his new wife Cat. A bit surprised to find it was only 3°C when we arrived in Sydney at five in the morning. Well, it was winter. A few things of note here regarding Oz. Firstly there was a terrific green wall display in the Sydney Botanic Garden. The largest (they said) in the southern hemisphere. Though, of course, there are not that many countries in the southern hemisphere! Interestingly the display was made up of plastic gutters of an appropriate shape to take standard 9" plant pots set at 45 degrees. This made a seamless floral display. 
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Secondly we discovered that Rainbow Lorikeets can be tamed using honey. They love it! They came most mornings for a feed on the balcony.
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Wallabies are not quite as fussy. Dog biscuits will do. This was at a small private zoo near Nowra, south of Sydney. An absolute gem of a place.
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A fascinating day was spent in the Daintree rainforest in far north Queensland with an Aborigine, Michael, who showed us how his ancestors utilized the various plants of the rainforest. One species of Acacia produced a soap when the leaves were crushed and rubbed with water. Another trick was to grab a handful of stinging ants from a tree, crush them to release a zingy citrus smell (the formic acid), and then eat them! Later he collected some pebbles from the beach and by rubbing them on a stone with some water, was able to produce paints for body decoration.

​With a couple of weeks in England before returning to Fuerteventura there was time to visit the Blandford steam fair where there was good a selection of very wacky and eccentric people in addition to the steam engines. Here they are threshing the corn. Thank God for modern combine harvesters where all that work can now be done by just one man sitting down.

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It was so nice to get back to the windmill. The space, the peace, the quiet, and of course, Goofy and Pongo. The garden was looking good. A new bunch of bananas has appeared, the Desert Rose is flowering, and the Christmas trees have grown!
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lots of 
This time of the year the Pampas grass throws up its creamy white flowers. A good plant for the windy conditions here, accustomed as it is to the plains of Argentina.

​ I am having yet another go at the vegetable garden, sowing in situ, but this time under a shade net. When I checked this morning there were carrots and beetroot seedlings appearing, so maybe this is the answer.

​The Pine trees planted out in June, just before we left, have survived extremely well and put on a few inches growth. I think only one of all the trees we planted didn´t survive.

Last Friday 14th September was the day of the annual pigrimage to say hello to the little statue of the Virgin Mary at the church in the village of Vega del Rio Palmas. We decided to give it a go. This involved a 45 minute slog up the mountainside, taking time to look back and admire the lights of the walkers snaking up the track from Antigua far below. Then it was down the other side of the ridge through Betancuria and along the track to Vega del Rio Palma. The whole trek took us from 9pm to just before midnight when we were in time to see the fireworks. There was a terrific party atmosphere with bars selling food and drink, people dressed in traditional costume, a large dance hall, and everything to cater for as many as 25,000 people.

​I love watching people dance in Spain. They are so unselfconscious. This fellow, obviously short of a partner, seemed to enjoy very much dancing with his dog!  We didn´t dance. Too selfconscious of course but also too knackered!
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Meanwhile, while we sunk a few welcome bevvies,  the devout queued up to pay homage to the Virgin.
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A major decision has been made. We are going to sell the windmill and finca and move on. This also means selling the language school in Puerto. The plan is to be able to spend more time with our families. Where we move to hasn´t quite been decided....
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Goofy and pongo had a very enjoyable two weeks at the end of April when Wendy's mother came to visit. She gave them tidbits and food scraps when she thought we weren't looking and they all became good friends!

One major landscaping job has been completed, at last. The large pile of rocks to the front of the windmill has been getting steadily smaller as I have built walls and put in path edgings. But the problem was what to do with the area once the stones were removed. I decided to build another parking area as we already had enough plants in the garden and more visitor parking would be useful. This meant using up the stones by building a low dry-stone wall. Aston gave me a hand and we took down a section of the existing wall alongside the driveway to form the entrance to the new area, and then started by setting out the new wall using the largest rocks to form the base. There is Aston over there on the left, I think he is looking rather dejected at the scale of the project facing us.

In fact we needed a lot more flat rocks and Aston spent most of the next couple of days searching for suitable material. I, meanwhile, struck up a power pose for the camera and then got on with the job. 
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Once the wall was built I had to get rid of the remaining rocks, and so it was time to call in tthe JCB. I had used Antonio before when we did the initial clear up four years ago. He is also a policeman. Whether part time police man or part time JCB driver I don't know. Perhaps both. Whatever, he has a healthy disregard for personal protective equipment. No hard hat, no high-viz vest and definitely no steel toe-capped boots. In fact he insists on wearing flip flops. I dread to think of the agony if he dropped a large rock on his foot. 
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He did a great job scooping up the rocks and putting them around the edge of our land outside the front gate. Then Julius the tipper truck man brought in a couple of loads of gravel to tidy it all up.
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There were other jobs waiting for the JCB. In the finca were some more piles of rocks which needed removing. Holes to be dug for a few more plants. Topsoil for the new round planter. And there was also the old water reservoir which could be turned into a swimming pool. However, I suspected there might be a lot of rubbish hidden in there, and I was right. We filled a large skip with old washing machines, building waste, plastic, tyres, and old plant pots. There was quite a bit of soil too which we used to make a neat bund (gavia) between the Aloes and the Christmas trees.

​This job was not pleasant. It was windy, and the dust was being kicked up by the JCB. Antonio was fine sitting in his cab, but I was clinging to the side of the machine pointing out to him where to go, and half the soil being picked up in the bucket seemed to end up being blown onto me.
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​I managed to get Rosa to fill the round planter with topsoil (or I should say - topdust). It may sound a bit harsh for a woman to do be given this kind of job but we now live in an egalitarian society, and she is built like an ox. We mixed in some of our home made compost, planted a Canary Island Date Palm in the centre with a few odd plants that had been kicking around in the greenhouse. Added a garden light and the irrigation. Job done.

​This year the weather has been strange to say the least. This morning (3rd June) there were spots of rain in the air. In fact we have had rain fairly regularly all year so far, with the weather coming from the north and west bringing a cold wind. This was the view just a couple of weeks ago. 
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The cold wind has held the plants back, and the vegetable garden has been a disaster. But there are now signs of summer and just in the last few days the north-east trade wind seems to be getting established. The plants in this sheltered spot have been doing well. The pink Hippeastrum is romping away.
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We have only four weeks to go and we leave for the summer. We are going to visit Tristan in Oz. A very nice Dutch lady (Arvid) will look after the finca and the boys. Just a few jobs to get done before then. There are some holes dug by Antonio which still need planting, reconnect some garden lights pulled up by the JCB, and finish off the rest of the path edges......
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​Late February brought wind and rain to Fuerteventura. The rain is always welcome and we were expecting, with so much rain, that we would see an explosion of wild flowers in the countryside. Three years ago we were treated to the sight of poppies and marguerite daisies sprining up everywhere. So far though, just a few roadside flowers have appeared. 

The wind though is altogether something else. Fortunately the new windmill sails have survived the gales. My greenhouse was a different story. The propagation bench blew over and I lost a large batch of flower and vegetable seedlings. This was the scene that greeted me the morning after the gale.

​I rebuilt the bench securely attaching it to the greenhouse frame this time, and started resowing.

Of course Goofy and Pongo are very happy to stay inside when it is raining.
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​The great thing about the weather here is that it can change so quickly and we were treated just a few days later to the most glorious sight of a a new moon rising above the horizon. By the time I had stared at this massive red moon, then thought about grabbing a camera, the moon seemed to have shrunk in size and changed colour. Even so it still looks nice with the windmill.

​I managed a couple of days back in England to visit a company who are researching novel ways of producing food crops using vertical towers, LED lighting and hydroponics. These units can be installed into shipping containers (or disused warehouses) and be monitored remotely by computer. Quite impressive. A food production system of this kind could have a great future in an environment such as here.

We are now up to around 600 pine trees in the field. They have shown much better growth since I started top dressing them with a complete fertiliser. In fact the newer trees are catching up with the older ones. It seems that the best time to sow pine seeds is around December so that the seedlings can germinate and then benefit from the warmer weather in March/April to grow quickly to planting out size.

The other tricky aspect is watering. Too much water during the winter when there is a cold wind can lead to poor growth. Yet they can quickly dry out when the weather turns warmer. I look at how the other plants around the finca are doing to help judge how much moisture is in the soil.If the cacti are flowering then there is probably plenty of water in the soil.
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Seeing that Fuerteventura is normally a choice of holiday for sun lovers, beach bums and lovers of all-over tans, it was lovely to have my 92 year old mother to come and stay. Good for her, at her age. Daughter Harriet came with her to hold her hand, and we all had a great time.
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We are still feeling a little bereft at losing our fish to the heron. But then, one morning a couple of weeks ago, I was walking past the pond when I saw what looked like a couple of little orange flashes of light in the water. Looking closely, yes it was! Two baby goldfish or Koi carp. Hiding away all this time. They are already two to three inches long! Maybe the turtle is down there somewhere. Wendy is not trying to catch them, rather she is cleaning the pond of algae which has started growing with the warmer weather.
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Just a day or two of warm weather, and especially no wind, brings out the leaf and flower buds in the garden. The Jacaranda tree is in leaf. Leaf buds are just appearing on the Flamboyant trees. Flowers are showing on my Kniphofia (Red hot pokers), which I raised last year from seed. And my Amaryllis is flowering nicely.

​I have to say, one of the most successful parts of the garden is what I call the succulent garden. Here the drought resistant low-growing plants, mostly from South Africa, including ice plants, Carpobrutus, Aptena, and aeoniums are showing a riot of colour.

There are still quite a few jobs to get done in and around the finca. The part of the garden originally earmarked for a swimming pool now has a raised planter which I built using dry stone walling. It is yet to be filled with soil but the irrigation pipe and lighting cable are in.
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A few small paths have been built. I should hasten to add that this has been without any assistance. Enrique had been helping me until recently but he was then given a contract of work for three months. It works like this - work on contract for three months at which point the employer needs to get rid of you otherwise you obtain employee rights against dismissal and severance pay. Then you are entitled to draw unemployment benefit while going to work for someone else unofficially. Or sit around and do nothing.

Another job completed was planting 132 pine trees. Here I am setting out the planting stations starting from a string line with stakes every 120cm, then using two equal length stakes to mark the next line of trees. 

​It is has been 11 months since our windmill sails blew down in a storm. Earlier his month we had the news that the sails were going to be installed and, quite coincidentally, the insurer finally improved their offer to settle our claim, which we accepted. So, last week, Santiago and his crew arrived with the new sails.
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The first part of the job was to raise and attach the hub which was going to hold the four sails.The hub, like the sails, is made from mulberry wood which is strong yet flexible. There is a thick steel plate attached to the back of it and this bolts onto the axle.

A truck with a Hiab crane was on site to lift the sails while Santiago was standing in a cherry-picker to guide them into place. Quite dangerous and risky and yet, in good Spanish style, there wasn´t a hard hat in sight!
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Each sail had to be guided into the slot on the hub to then be secured with two large steel bolts. This bit was quite hair raising, especially as the wind was starting to come up, and it took ages to align the sail just right for it to fall into the slot.
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Once the sail was secured then the hub could be turned and the other three sails fitted in turn.

​We had decided that the sails would not rotate, which meant that they could have steel cables attached back on to the windmill wall and down to the ground to prevent a recurrence of them breaking in strong winds.

We are really pleased with the final result. They look just like the traditional sails that are seen on the old windmills. Santiago did a cracking job.

​You might guess from that last picture that the weather might be a bit dodgy. In which case you would be right. We have had very high winds, lots of rain, unusually low temperatures (8C), hail in the north of the island, snow is covering Mount Teide in Tenerife, and there was even a water spout off the coast of La Palma.

Meanwhile our second hand of bananas matured. We couldn´t eat them all so Pongo was drafted in to assist. He was more than happy to oblige!
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We thought an addition to the pond might be nice and so when we saw some turtles in a small fish tank in a pet shop in Puerto, who looked as though they needed some serious space to swim around in, we couldn`t resist buying one. Only €40. Unfortunately, after he dived into the pond he was never seen again! I may just as well have screwed up two 20 euro notes and dropped them in the pond. Oh well. But just to prove that Tommy Turtle did once exist, here are the pictures.

There is a possible explanation for the disappearing turtle. Returning home from walking the dogs one morning we were just in time to see a rather large heron walking down the garden with a fish in his mouth. Yep, all the fish have been eaten and maybe the turtle too. I hope the shell stuck in his throat!
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Still no rain and the dogs have been getting really dirty. They love to roll in the dust, but of course that gets carried into the house, Fortunately Pongo really likes to be vacuumed. A sort of sucky massage.
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Goofy, on the other hand, is very frightened of vacuum cleaners, garden hoses and probably a lot of other things as well. He is a complete nutter as can be seen here in his usual relaxation pose. Goofy by name, Goofy by nature.
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The really good news is that today we saw the new windmill sails being built in the carpentry shop in Puerto. The timber is Morera which translates as mulberry. This is apparently a very hard wood but also flexible and is/was used for making bows (as in bows and arrows). So we are now looking at around the end of December to have the new sails up. Yay!
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The weather during the past month has been really pleasant. No strong winds. No violent rain storms or hail as we have had for the past two years. This has meant that the garden plants and even the Christmas trees are showing some growth and are looking quite green and healthy. 
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​Every year on the third Saturday in September the people of Fuerteventura make a pilgrimage, walking from Antigua up the mountainside to the hill town of Betancuria and then down the valley to the church in Vega de Rio Palmas where resides the statue of the Virgen de la Peña (the Virgen and child). Literally thousands of people turn out for the Romería de la Virgen de la Peña. The statue itself is hardly a statue as it´s not much more than 8" tall. Still. they say it has the power to bring rain which, before the arrival of desalination plants, was probably quite useful. We decided to walk from the church, down and along a very hot and dry valley to where the Virgin had been found by a Franciscan monk after being rather carelessly lost for many years. A small chapel was built to mark the place where it was found.
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Back at the finca my Agave attenuata has finally decided to flower. This is one of the very few plants which had survived three or four years of neglect before we arrived. Super drought tolerant then, but also a majestic plant.
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​And these are the individual flowers. Beautiful.

​The bananas have started to ripen and I removed one bunch. Unfortunately Wendy doesn't like bananas so I have rather a lot to consume. I tried feeding bananas to the dogs this morning. Pongo was a bit suspicious of it, surprisingly, as normally he will eat absolutely anything. However on the second try they demolished their bananas in seconds. Good, only 36 left to go.

The Island Government´s Department of the Environment distribute native trees and shrubs every year during November. I took advantage of this the first year we were here and I planted a Canarian palm which is now some 10 feet tall.
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​So we visited their nursery up at Betancuria this year and helped ourselves to ten of their Phoenix canariensis. The hard work is next week when I need to get them planted. Luckily, our cleaner, Rosa, has come back to work for us and I have drafted in her husband Enrique to do some heavy work which will include digging holes for palm trees.

Of course the whole plant distribution thing was completely disorganised and we were kept waiting for ever, as can be seen from the very bored expression on Wendy´s face.
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​More pictures of the garden.

​A new introduction has been the Blood grass Imperata cylindrica rubra which has to be propagated vegetatively. This meant bringing a small plant back in my hand luggage this summer and splitting and growing it on several times. The species enjoys tropical climates so it is quite happy here and so far resists the mealy bug attacks and is wind resistant.

We have started harvesting the beetroot. Another food not on Wendy's list of favourites. Need to check on recipes for banana with beetroot!
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​The herbs I generally grow in pots in the greenhouse, apart from rosemary and rocket which does very well outside. The mint and basil are really easy to renew, once they get a bit tired. I plant tip cuttings into compost and cover with a half bottle top and they root and grow in no time at all. With any plant cuttings it is important to select plants with strongly growing shoots.

These mint cuttings are about five weeks old.
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​I am finally getting Goofy to obey the 'down' command. No problem for Pongo as you just need to wave a treat at him and he will get down and sit up in turn in desperation to see what will work!

Last month saw us getting the school redecorated and fitted with televisions for showing online teaching material. It is incredible how dirty the children must be that we have to repaint the school every year! On top of that is the blutack to scrape off the walls and the chewing gum to scrape off the underside of the tables. 

​Here I am framing a very nice world map which I found on the Spanish Amazon site. There are many stories of how things bought on Amazon never arrive here, so I was surprised to get a phone call from DHL saying they had a delivery for me. An hour or two later the DHL van pulled up outside the school and in he came struggling with a huge parcel, about ten times the size of the rolled up map. The extra cardboard packaging filled the recycle bin completely. The thinking of the seller being, presumably, that if you make the parcel large enough, it is less likely to get nicked! Anyway, people standing in reception have been studying the map, probably thinking just how tiny and lost their island is compared to the rest of the world!

Goofy is a changed dog. He no longer, or rather extremely rarely, chews and destroys things. I feel I am tempting fate saying this, but it it appears to be true. So, his specially built play pen/gaol has been transformed into a vegetable garden. My attempt at growing veggies earlier this year met with only partial success. Lots of Swiss chard but which was firmly rejected by Wendy as being unfit for human consumption, some beetroot, quite a few carrots, but little else. The wind was chiefly to blame and clearly some sort of windbreak was required. Early last month we dismantled the dog pen and re-erected it around the veggie beds.
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The chain link fence was installed, then some shade net fabric, and then some cane fencing to keep the fabric in place and to get it all to blend in a little with the landscape.
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​Looking a little empty just now but there are lots of babies in the greenhouse coming on nicely and soon to be planted out. Interestingly it would appear that much of the packaged seed available here is of poor quality. One needs to check the expiry date of course, but I have failed with getting sweet corn to germinate (should be very easy), and onion. I guess I need to stock up the next time I am back in England. Fresh seed from the fruit in the supermarket is the best bet, and I have Canarian tomatoes growing well and sweet melon. 

​This time of year is great for the plants in the garden. Warm days and cool nights. Looking really good is the Gaura lindheimeri, that is the pink flower in the foreground. Flowering continuously it just bends with the wind and shrugs off any attempt to be colonised by the dreaded mealybug.
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​Son Tristan and long time girlfriend Cat came to stay, arriving from a holiday in Argentina and Chile. Whilst there Tristan asked Cat to be his wife, and she accepted, which I think is pretty good of her as she had to be dragged all the way up to the top of a mountain for Tristan to pop the question.

​Anyway, he brought with him his latest toy - a drone.

​Difficult to see, it is hovering to the right of the Flamboyant tree. Goofy is wondering what it is all about. This drone is the most amazing thing and took some extraordinary pictures and video. For the first time I could see the house and garden in plan form.

Although they only had a few days here we found time to visit Ajuy which is on the west coast, not far away,  and is well known for its caves. But even more spectacular is the sea arch. Tristan set up the drone to fly around it. I thought a fly through the arch would look good on the video. Tricky and probably do-able, but then there is a limit to what you will do with $1500 worth of kit!
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​Back to the finca, where I have been doing battle with things eating my seedlings - again. I set traps and put down a lot of rat poison all of which disappeared overnight. Conclusion; I had a biggish rat. That afternoon I saw the little b....r sitting on my water container where I keep my aquatic plants. (The poison warfarin makes them very very thirsty). Then he took a swim doing a sort of breast stroke. Then he sort of expired and was unceremoniously plucked out and lobbed over the fence. Good riddance! Here he is looking a bit miserable, just before his swim..
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Indoors we had a problem with a water leak in the bathroom. This was the same pipe we had a problem with last year and I was resolved to pass a new smaller diameter pipe through the leaking one to avoid more problems in the future. However, because the builders had committed the cardinal sin of burying elbow joints in the walls and floor (through which the new pipe could not be pushed) I had to break out the pipe run in the bathroom. What a mess! The good news was that it was an insurance job and they paid to have new tiles put down. These white tiles are so much nicer than the horrible brown fake stone we had before.
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​At the end of September there is a celebration to mark the anniversary of the battle of Tamasite and Cuchillete which took place in 1740. For many years pirates had been raiding the coastal villages of Fuerteventura. That year a bunch of English pirates were unsuccessful and, even though they outnumbered the local majoreros, they were beaten back and forced to flee without their usual haul of .... goats? What else was there? Anyway, this remarkable feat is re-enacted every year with the English pirates now appearing as Royal Navy Marines resplendent in their red uniforms, all shouting for the glory of the British Empire. Hilarious! Well, it makes for a good day out......

​We had some hot weather last week with a calima which brings the dryness and the dust. Despite washing the dogs they were full of dust again in no time. Fortunately Pongo absolutely loves being cleaned with the vacuum cleaner. I think he must have been a carpet in a previous life.

I only recently realised who these people are in this trompe d´oeil painted on the wall of our local pharmacy in Antigua. 

This is Eric Clapton with BB King and someone I don´t recognise playing harmonica.
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​And of course this must be Theresa May in a miniskirt!
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​Finally, we may be a step nearer to getting our new windmill sails. The insurers are keen to reach a settlement and we will get the start date for the work next week. Or is that maňana....?

Only four months since the last post! I suppose we have been busy. June was hectic with arranging exams for the kids at English House and then we were off on the 1st July for our two month break away. First to France where we met up with friends and family in a chateau near Guincamp in Brittany. This fifteenth century house had umpteen rooms so, although around €1,000 a week, when divided by a reasonable number of people it cost us next to nothing. Such an interesting and historic building with beautiful turrets. It also had a private chapel and a pigeonnier!

We had glorious weather in France and we were fooled into thinking it would be much the same in England. But no, and here is the proof. Wendy is clearly not enjoying the typical summer's day in Lyme Regis.

​But now back to Fuerteventura and the finca. The last days of June, before we left, was a mad rush to get the 300 or so pine trees planted out. Marking out, digging holes, planting the saplings, putting nets around each tree, and laying out irrigation. It was a lot of hard work not made any easier by the strong wind which kept blowing the plants and nets away before they could be put in place. It was all made a lot easier by having young Aston to help.
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Aston also helped to strip out the passionflower from over the pergola and put up shade netting. We had had enough of the pigeons sitting in the passionflower and covering our table and chairs with the unmentionable.
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The 24th June is the day of San Juan which has pagan origins celebrating the summer solstice or midsummers day (21st June). On that day, or rather evening, it is customary to light bonfires. Last June I had no idea about el dia de San Juan and I was extremely concerned to see what appeared to be bush fires springing up all around me. So instead, this year, we had our own merry conflagration.
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Being able to spend two months away from Fuerteventura required some forward planning. This involved exploring a website called www.trustedhousesitters.com, which is excellent. The result was we were able to get in touch with a lovely couple, Alan and Joan, who live in Tenerife, and they were more than happy to come and stay in Finca El Molino for July and August and look after the garden, the finca and, most importantly, the dogs. 
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​I felt really happy about Joan looking after the garden, and I think this was really down to her being an absolute dead ringer for Carol Klein, the TV gardener.......

​Anyway, the garden was well looked after despite scorching temperatures and high winds.

Our large hand of bananas unfortunately fell off but they have been replaced by two more! I managed to sample a couple of fruit from the first bunch and they were fantastically sweet.
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I think Goofy and Pongo enjoyed their summer with the house sitters though we were pleased to get a great slobbering reception when we arrived back home. However there was one curious incident of the goldfish which, mysteriously, was found out of the water and lying by the side of the pond, quite dead. Pongo was seen to be pushing it around with his nose as if he was trying to wake it up. Goofy was nowhere to be seen until later when he was discovered sitting quietly in his casita, which is where he will go when he has been naughty. From this conclusions may be drawn! I only hope Goofy has learnt a lesson about the inability of fish to survive out of water.

We are now down to three.....
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Still no windmill sails. The carpenter has had an ailing wife, so we are told, and this has meant him going to the hospital in Las Palmas and this has put him behind with his work. But we are ever hopeful, and that the work will start towards the end of the month.

We also had yet another water leak in the house. This time the cold water feed to the upstairs bathroom in the Molino. I had the plumber out last week and we traced the leak and it has been fixed. But since this is the second leak in this pipe we will use the existing 25mm pipe as a conduit to pass a new 15mm pipe inside. Rather hoping that they will not be able to match the old tiles which were broken out, and that we can have a new bathroom floor!