The weather had turned quite pleasant by the middle of March and it seemed a good time to get on with covering the car port. Shelter is needed for the cars from the strong summer sun. Rather a lot of tongue and groove timber was ordered from the timber merchant in Puerto, the timber cut to length, screwed into place and then covered with fibreglass sheet and rubberised paint.
Just in time. Three days later we had a hailstorm and a deluge! We were sitting in a bar in Caleta by the sea and we thought the sky looked a little dark inland. As we drove back towards the windmill we ran into a wall of rain and hail.
The field filled with water and the dogs had ponds everywhere to splash and play in. Two brown grubby dogs.
After all that rain it was a good time to get the veggie garden sown and planted. As with the ornamental garden I will try everything to see how different plants stand up to the tough conditions. Good choices have been carrot, beetroot, Swiss chard, rocket, and to a lesser degree onion, spinach and lettuce. The dwarf beans have remained stunted. Despite adding a lot of compost the soil dries out rapidly and the high silt content causes the surface to develop a hard crust (surface capping). It seems best to start plants off as modules in the greenhouse rather than sowing directly.
We built a new gravel path to link up with the Jacaranda and the Flamboyant trees.
The wall to the car port needed finishing with a tiled top. These had to be cemented into place.
Quite tiring work and I was soon nodding off.
The great thing about having people coming to stay is that it is a good excuse to stop work and relax a little. My cousin Colin and his fiancee Caroline spent a few days with us and we visited the beaches at Jandia.
Then the mother-in-law. Rather easier to entertain as she was quite happy just eating, sleeping and relaxing in the sun. Alongside the dogs.
Last week I had about a hundred pine trees sitting in the greenhouse ready to plant out. With the warmer weather they had put on a lot of growth. Interestingly the plastic tubes are a big improvement on the root trainers which I used previously. I cut the tubes to eight inches long and so there is more depth for the roots to develop than in the root trainers. For the next batch I will use a wider tube as it is fiddly sowing in these narrow tubes. Also the growth should be even better in wider tubes.
Having lost my planting tool (David) I invested in a motorised post hole digger. This made quick work of digging 100 holes although with rocks hidden in the soil one has to be very careful as when the auger hits a rock it suddenly stops turning, and the operator (me) turns instead!
For weeks now the broken windmill sails have been hanging on the front of the windmill looking very sad. We still have not agreed a figure with the insurers. It would be nice to replace them with traditional hardwood sails which is very expensive, so we will need every centimo we can squeeze out of the insurer. In the meantime, this week, we have at last had the old sails removed, and taken advantage of having the cherry picker to repaint the walls.
This is the time of year when we have wild flowers springing up everywhere, though this year I have not seen any poppies. Curious. Lots of Marguerites though.