When Tristan was over here from Australia he took some great pictures. Too many to post here, but here are some of them. Definitely going to get a couple blown up and framed.
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I am sitting here nursing an aching back, again. (Yes, it is back to lugging heavy rocks around. More of that later), and thinking what a really nice Christmas and New Year we have had. The highlights being having Tristan and Cat coming from Australia and Harriet and Jon from the UK to stay with us. On top of that the weather has been glorious. The run up to Christmas included an ice spectacular in Puerto (actually the ice was replaced by some slippery plastic material), a Christmas carol concert in the church in Antigua with lots of noisy parents and unruly children, a living nativity scene in the plaza complete with Mary arriving on a donkey - though the donkey did rather disgrace himself. So we were in the mood by the 25th! Harriet and Jon prepared the veggies for our Christmas dinner. One of Wendy's teachers, Vickie and her daughter Alaxandra, joined us. I thought we all had a great time, though looking at this picture everyone looks rather glum! We were playing a kind of trivial pursuits game so maybe that is it, we were all thinking hard! Goofy joined in the fun too though he wasn't sure about the Santa hat. While Wendy had new woolly socks for Christmas, Goofy and Pongo had a rawhide bone each. Strangely, considering how they act like a couple of vandals most of the time, they were on their best behaviour and were reluctant to tear open the parcels. Just to prove the point that they are not two little angels, we put brand new cushions in their beds in the casita and, guess what? While Pongo gazes into the distance as if he is bored and has nothing to do with the mayhem and destruction behind him, Goofy is trying to brazen it out with a fixed stare into the camera. I reckon I know who the guilty one is. I decided to start the Christmas tree project with 150 to 200 trees for the first year. The Afghan pine seeds arrived from a supplier in the US and are being stratified. This means keeping the seeds in the refrigerator to simulate winter conditions. Stratification, or vernalisation, is a way of kickstarting seeds into germinating more quickly and more uniformly. The seeds need to be kept damp, so I have mixed them into damp perlite. It is recommended to stratify these seeds for 4 weeks, so I will sow them around the 23rd January. The greenhouse is still pretty full. I have some really nice Osteospermums with purple flowers which I have taken cuttings of and these are growing nicely having potted them on just the other day into large pots. I had no success with taking cuttings from these earlier in the year, and this has re-taught me a lesson about cuttings. They must be taken from plants which are actively growing, that is the mother plant must be in a juvenile state. Therefore the mother plant has to be pruned to encourage fresh growth and patience is needed to take cuttings at the time of the year when the plants are actively growing. I have had problems with home made potting compost where I included some of the clay loam soil. It tended to stay wet even with added grit. So I am now using a peat compost (Bord na Mona) available locally at a good price, mixed with a little scoria if the plant needs really sharp drainage. I am starting to discern a pattern with some of the plants. For example, my hibiscus plants had hardly flowered through the summer. Since December they have all started flowering, even the smallest. Lantana, on the other hand, flowered prolifically through the summer and now seems to have gone to sleep. Bougainvillea are growing and flowering well in January. The pond is coming along nicely. The last stage in lining it was to put on a finishing coat of mortar. To prevent hairline cracking I added polyester fibres to a standard three to one mortar mix and trowelled it on. This moved ahead quite quickly once David was back at work to help mixing up. A week later it was time to fill it up and see where the leaks are! So far so good. Now just the waterfall to finish building. This involves lugging heavy rocks into position, running round to the front of the pool to see how it looks, going back and adjusting the position, then removing it, putting down a bed of mortar and replacing the rock. There is a bit of guess work in trying to work out how the water will flow over the rocks when it is all finished. The important thing is to ensure the rubber liner is brought up high enough and sandwiched between the rocks so that there are no leaks when the waterfall is running. Then just plumbing in the pump and return pipe to the waterfall. The pump is German, made by Oase, and delivers 15,000 litres per hour but drawing only 85 watts. It has a poor performance in terms of the height it can pump to, but this in not a problem for this set up as we only need about one metre head. A note of gratitude here to Harriet for accommodating it in her luggage (along with various valves and other devices). I then had the nerve to ask her to help me with lifting heavy rocks. So we both ended up on the Voltarol! Despite my disparaging remarks about the dogs vandalising behaviour they have both been remarkably good about not going in the pond. Admittedly, they have only to go near and I growl at them. I caught Goofy lying on the lower stone of the waterfall the other day. He found it was the same size as his bed and was the perfect fit! We are now moving on to the next project which is to start building path edges and small walls around the beds. It will be good to get rid of the stone mountain which has been sitting in the garden most of the year. I have a new windmill! Harriet gave it to me for my Christmas present. Here it is. Actually I was with her when she bought it, and we were shown by the little old guy who made it how the doors open and he showed us the switch which operates a motor to make the sails go round. He told us that it comes with a lifetime guarantee. If you drop it or whatever, he said, bring it to me and I will fix it free of charge! How about that? Who said the Spanish know nothing about good service? It is hard to believe that it is Christmas day next week as I sit here in my shorts and t-shirt. Current temperature is 25C. Somewhat bizarrely the shops are resounding to the usual Christmas songs (We're dreaming of a white Christmas!). Frosty looking Father Christmas's and red nosed reindeers are on sale everywhere. In the Chinese store there is a terrific choice of nativity figures including a tiny baby Jesus in a box which actually looks rather like a gremlin. There was carol singing in the church last night and we are going to see an Ice Spectacular in Puerto tonight so we are definitely getting in the mood despite the heat. My time recently has been taken up with building the fish pond. To make it dog proof as well as water proof it was necessary to cover the butyl liner with concrete. It is a sort of a club sandwich: concrete, geotextile to protect the liner, the butyl liner, more geotextile, then more concrete. There remains to put on a finishing coat of mortar. It is a lot of work but made easier by using lightweight concrete. This is where the stone aggregate is replaced with a lightweight material; in this case, lava rock, or scoria. This is in plentiful supply here where it is known as picón. The Romans apparently built the Pantheon using this material and since that has lasted 2,000 years it will probably suffice for my fish pond. Before this I had to finish installing my bottom drain. The dirty water flowing out of the pond is piped through the wall, behind which I will site the filtration, pump and hydroponic beds. In the picture on the right I have started concreting in the pipe and the bottom of the pond. Once the liner and concrete was in place I could start building the pond edge. To look convincing, and in proportion, I had to use the largest stones I had available. This was somewhat back breaking work, rolling the rocks into position, checking that they looked alright, and then securing them in place with mortar. The waterfall, unfortunately, cannot be very high as the pipe returning the water cannot be higher than the drain from the base of the hydroponic beds. It didn't help that David was off work for two weeks so I was left doing this on my own. David is quite accident prone and he managed to fall down his staircase at home, with no help from anyone, and injure himself quite badly. I am rather concerned what he could do to himself moving heavy rocks around! Anyway, last week he limped back to work and daughter Harriet arrived too. So the work is now moving along nicely. In this picture Harriet is building a small wall to form a planting bed which I will fill with gravel for marginal plants. We discovered another odd thing about our odd dogs the other day. Pongo likes to eat sweet melon. This is in addition to sneaking the occasional tomato. He had obviously had his eye on this particular melon for some time, waiting for it to ripen. One morning he appeared with it in his mouth, freshly picked. However, they seem to thrive on their strange diet. Goofy with his sticks, rocks, doormats etc. Pongo with his fruit and veg. Wendy took a super picture of the 'boys' where they look very fit and healthy. Regarding the finca and how I will be using the land, I had what I think may be a good idea. While the stony land presently growing Aloe vera will be used for a hydroponic/aquaponic project, I have always felt that the farthest land, which has good deep soil, should be used for growing crops. But which crops? Well, I think there may be a gap in the market for Christmas trees. Apart from plastic trees selling anywhere from €15 to €140 the only real trees available this year anywhere in Fuerteventura have been two feet tall, imported from Holland. People have been growing pine trees for the Christmas tree market in the SW of the USA since the 1960's, in similar conditions to here (dry alkaline soils). I will try it on a small scale to see how well they grow, and to see how many I can sell. In the meantime the seeds are on order from the US and I have the water pipes ready to connect up for irrigating the fields. Let's see what 2016 will bring! Autumn has arrived. Damp misty mornings followed by bright sunshine and a temperature today of 26 C. This is why we live in the Canary Islands! Having said that, we had torrential rain a couple of weeks back. This is good and bad. The good is that the countryside around us has turned bright green and my plants in the garden are growing rampantly without any assistance from the irrigation system. The bad part? First of all Wendy had a terrible journey on Thursday evening in the car coming back home from the school, with rainwater washing across the road and zero visibility. Then, the next day, I reversed my truck out of the car port onto the gravel drive and it promptly sunk. However after much swearing, cajoling and some Spanish muscle we managed to pull it free. Naturally Goofy and Pongo couldn't believe their luck. A large lake at the end of the field to play in, and even a nice little mud bath right by the house. With perfect timing we had just finished having the roof of the windmill waterproofed. Although we had it painted last year it was not done properly. The right way was to use a waterproofing paint with a fibre mesh. The colour is also an improvement; a more sympathetic light grey. So, what of the dogs' mud bath? This is actually destined to be a fish pond. Possibly a Koi pool or, more likely, an aquaponics experiment using goldfish or Tilapia. It was rather a last minute decision I made when Antonio was digging holes for us to put more plants in the garden. I quickly marked the outline with stones and we got digging. I then had to work out how to build it. First of all I realised that I must have a bottom drain. This is not what it sounds like and yes, it is a subject for polite conversation especially among Koi pool enthusiasts. This is what it looks like. That little black round thingy is waiting to have pipes connected to it. On the internet it looked to be about three inches wide and so I was surprised when a rather large parcel arrived containing my 12 inch bottom drain. Beware of pictures on the internet! This reminds me of a friend in Vanuatu who was directing a search for wrecked second world war aircraft which had crashed in the jungle of the island of Espiritu Santo. The native bushmen were shown pictures of bombers and fighter aircraft and asked to go and look for them. After several days they had had no luck and finally they admitted that it was practically impossible to find something so small in dense jungle! The container store has been finished. Last month we had cut out the holy steel roof and replaced it with timber beams and plywood sheets. It has been painted 'gamuza' brown to blend in with the landscape. A surround was built on top of this using 6" timber.and holes drilled in the sides to take small pipes for drainage. The next job was to lay down a waterproof rubber membrane over the timber; actually this was EPDM pond liner. Over this was laid geotextile to protect the membrane from being pierced by the 'picon' or lava rock. This picon which acts as a drainage layer was carried up a ladder and spread to about 5 cm deep. Another geotextile sheet was then laid over this to keep the growing media and drainage layers separated. Here is David putting down the geoxtile to protect the rubber membrane. And this is after securing the geotextile with timber battens. All the drainage and growing media had to be carried up by hand. I filled the buckets and David shimmied up and down the ladder. The growing media is 75% picon mixed with 25% compost. We mixed this by hand and this was spread to 4" depth to the top of the timber surround. You can see here the little drain pipes sticking out through the timber sides. Then the best part, setting out a variety of succulent plants which should eventually grow together to cover the roof with green plants. Voila!, a green roof. We had an unusual visitor the other day. David is a bit of a nutter with his animals. Eleven years ago, on Gran Canaria, he saw this being tortured on the side of the road by some young kids. He stopped his car, boxed their ears and rescued it. It has lived in his house ever since (along with his two dogs, cat, and tropical fish). I am unsure who looks more fierce, David or the Iguana! The dogs are doing well. If there is no muddy water to play in then the sand pile makes a good game. King of the castle. Lastly some rather sad news. We have lost Ellie. She had begun to follow us on our morning dog walks. The first couple of times it was a 2 kilometer round walk during which she would refuse to be picked up and carried. She would arrive home panting and totally exhausted. Then she got the idea of sitting under a bush and waiting for us to return. Then she discovered that there were mice to be found and played with. Then, one day, she completely disappeared after our morning walk. We didn't worry to start with as she was now used to being out and about. But then as time went on, and we had walked all around outside the finca with the dogs to sniff her out, we realised that something must have happened. We still cannot understand it. Possibly she became stuck down a rabbit hole while chasing a mouse? Perhaps she came face to face with a large rat. We just don't know. Let's hope she just wandered off and has found a nice kind home somewhere else. An extraordinary amount of rain fell last week (extraordinary for September) and there are already signs of growth in the countryside. Grass is sprouting from the cracks in the ground and the tabaibas (large succulent plants native to the Canaries) are flowering. Then it was back up to 37 C yesterday! The rain was a good test of how waterproof the roof is now that we have removed the skylight. The result, in fact, was that rain came in and the top floor was flooded. So, another waste of money. This time we will have the whole roof painted with a polyurethane waterproofing paint in two coats reinforced with glassfibre mesh. This comes with a five year guarantee so it sounds as though it should work. The colour is a grey rather than black but we think grey will be more sympathetic anyway. In the meantime I have been cracking on with waterproofing the container. This meant cutting off the steel roof with an angle grinder. I somehow managed to set myself alight in the process (from the sparks hitting my T shirt). It must have been quite a sight with me standing on top of the ladder frantically pulling my flaming T shirt over my head! At that point I decided to hand over to David. David also has a better head for heights than I do and is happy to run around balancing on small planks like a squirrel. My idea is to build a green roof on the container, growing drought hardy succulents which will clothe the top and drape over the sides. They will have to be able to thrive in six inches of soil and pumice with only an occasional splash of water from a hose pipe. Having removed the top we bolted two six by two timbers to each long side and more six by two's across at 2 foot spacings. With half inch marine ply screwed on top, this will be more than capable of taking the weight of the green roof. The plan is to cover this with a pond liner to make it waterproof. A kestrel has been visiting us on and off over the past few weeks. We have seen him balancing on the solar panels and then swooping down to pick off caterpillars from the bell-vine growing on the fence. These caterpillars are whoppers! And just look at their horns. This one seems to be having a mid-life crisis, (also known as metamorphosis). Anyway, the kestrel seems to love these tasty grubs and he has been sitting on the container just a couple of feet from where I have been working. This being a good spot from which to spy on the caterpillars. He seemed perfectly happy with me being so close by and I feel that, with a bit of time and patience, he could be tamed. Other news - we finally managed to track down some garden furniture for the roof terrace. Unfortunately it was in kit form. Fortunately it was cleverly made and quite simple to fit together. And credit where credit's due, Wendy helped put it together before she sat on it. People here seem to collect dogs without really trying. Sure enough it was almost our turn the other week when we found a stray dog cowering and shivering at the top of our road. We caught and put him on a lead and led him down to the finca, introduced him to Goofy and Pongo, and then gave him food and water. That night he slept in the kennel with the other two. The following morning we took him to the vet. She found a chip which from which she could read details of his owner, whom she was able to contact and arrange for him to collect the dog. His name was Tan and he was a hunting dog, presumably lost chasing a rabbit or some such. We had already become rather attached to him. We had even given him a name - Tramp. Here he is, all skin and groan, after we had got him on a lead that afternoon. So, what of the kitten? Well she is now more of a cat. She does not like to be excluded from the morning walk. Never mind that she is only pint sized, she insists on joining us, alternating between hiding under a bush and running at top speed, all the time with her mouth open and tongue hanging out. David is proving to be very useful. I am trusting him with more and more different kinds of jobs. (Especially dangerous ones)! He is really quite capable and needs showing only once for him to maker a good job. Here he is putting in a new concrete step. The weather has been very settled and really calm and pleasant for the past few weeks. During the previous months we have had some very windy weather which we found quite unpleasant and have seriously thought that if anything would encourage us to leave it would be the incessant wind. In fact the last couple of days it has been so hot we have been praying for a breeze. The sunsets have been pretty good too. With my parents coming out in early September it has been a rush to get lots of jobs finished. This was a good thing as I find having a deadline spurs me on to achieve more. The most important job was to get the guest room finished which included installing a new window. The room needed more light and air. We had Pepe to make the window and Jose to make a hole in the wall and fit it. We found some colourful material in Decolar in Puerto and Wendy made curtains and matching cushions. New beds and covers came from Ikea. I was painting the window on the morning before they arrived, so it was all very last minute. So here is your bedroom for when you come to stay with us! Since Mum and Dad are of 'advanced age' (they read this so I am being as polite as I possibly can) we thought it prudent to put in handrails so they could access the upstairs rooms in the windmill. Experimentation with bending steel tube didn't amount to much and we ended up with having a company specialising in stainless steel to fit them. And they look very nice too. The roof terrace was another job to finish. The walls at the back we had built up to give some wind protection but it still remained to fit steel railings to discourage people (and dogs) from falling off the roof. A little one man business just down the road in Antigua was the answer. Alonso has to be one of the fastest welders I have ever seen, which is just as well as he charged us next to nothing to make up the four railings. Bernat and I made holes in the tops of the walls and secured them with Sikaflex resin and then tidied it all up with mortar and white paint. David has been helping out. He really is a Trojan worker. The only problem is he hates seeing me do a job which he thinks he should be doing. If I am digging a hole he will jump around me saying 'Jefe, Jefe, es mi trabajo! trying to grab the pick or shovel out of my hands. A couple of weeks ago I set him to work to repaint an old metal garden table and chairs. We used a blue Hammerite paint and made new seat bases, cushions and covers. The glass table top is probably not very safe to have outdoors so I have cut a new one out of marine ply which I will cover with mosaic tiles when I am feeling arty and have plenty of time. We found a secondhand barbecue in Puerto to complete the patio. What else has been going on? I built a stone edged gravel path to make it a little more comfortable walking up to the dog's casita. Then we laid out lines of stone to mark out new paths and low walls elsewhere in the garden. David is away getting married (this Saturday), but when he is back working we have this to cement in. Alonso made the steel arch in the centre pic below. The plants are (finally) settling in well. The secret has been to water, water and water. Some of the plants are fairly romping away. Here are some of them. This is a Moringa oleifera tree which died back to nothing after planting. Six weeks later it is six feet tall. It should prove useful in that all parts of the tree are edible, and it can be coppiced to use as animal feed or green mulch. This large succulent is one of the very few plants which I found growing in the finca when we arrived. It is a majestic Agave attenuata. It makes a superb focal point. I removed small offsets to plant on the other side of the windmill to balance the planting. Here are tomatoes (and a melon) overtaking the ornamental plants. The tomatoes originated from one solitary plant which had sprung into life all by itself, which I then carefully tended, only to have the fruits devoured by the dogs (in one sitting when I wasn't looking). At this time Wendy thought it would be a good idea to put the collected dog poo around the plants as a fertiliser. The next minute the tomato seeds in the poo had germinated and now we have tomato plants growing up all around the garden! A very useful plant is the Neem tree (Azadirachta indica), from which can be extracted neem oil. This is a natural insecticide which is widely used in India and other tropical countries, and is now becoming commercially available in the developed world. This tree has grown about four feet since it was planted earlier this year, and looks extremely healthy. It helps being behind the windbreak fence. We now have a number of edible species planted including Orange, Pomelo, Lime, Mango, and Fig. Here are the Olive, Avocado and the Loquat. It will be interesting to look back in a few months time at these pictures to see how they have grown (or died!) A very nice plant is the Milkweed Asclepia curassavica with its red and yellow flowers. It attracts butterflies too which is an added bonus. However I didn't really think this through as last week the plant was completely defoliated by masses of Monarch butterfly caterpillars. At least the caterpillars were lovely to look at for a few days. Below are more plants which are becoming established. Clockwise, starting at top left, is the African Daisy Osteospermum, a red Mandevilla to grow over the new arch, the violet blue flowered Solanum rantonettii, a succulent with carmine flowers which I have not yet identified (anyone know?) which is growing into the broader leafed Aptenia on the right, Senna alexandrina to keep us regular, then a new bed planted with banana, Phoenix roebellinii palm and a Desert Rose Adenium obesum in a pot. The bottom left picture is the Ficus lyrata the Fiddle Leaf Fig from west Africa, a Passion flower Passiflora and a Dwarf Poinciana Caesalpinia pulcherrima. Lastly, a Flamboyant tree Delonix regia, also known as Poinciana or the Christmas Tree in Australia as it bears scarlet flowers there in December. When the wall was built we left planting holes to allow plants to cascade down the stone walls. This is a Scaevola aemula from Australia which is also great in a hanging basket. It is standing up well to the wind and seems to propagate very easily. I knew its cousin in the Maldives very well, Scaevola taccada, which is a large shrub with white flowers.This is much nicer. Scaevola is sometimes called the Half Flower as the corolla is only half round. I have germinated some Eucalyptus seeds with the idea of adding Eucalyptus to the stock of windbreak trees. So far E. leucoxylon and gunnii are growing well. A few Pampas grass seedlings have germinated as well. My friend Peter in Tenerife kindly sent me some seed of the Argon Tree Argania spinosa which have just started germinating. Argon oil is produced mainly in Morocco (just down the road), and the tree is very very drought resistant. The animals seem to be getting on well. Top dog is Goofy and he asserts his dominant behaviour more and more over poor old Pongo. Goofy is also very fond of Ella who just loves leaping onto Goofy's tail. It can be a bit horrifying to see Ella's head almost disappearing into Goofy's mouth when they play. Ella finds everything of great interest, including my plants. It is a battle to encourage them to grow ahead of the steady rate of attrition she is causing. Here she is caught red-handed. I wonder how the hierarchy of dominance will work out as she grows older? She is certainly trying her best to be the most important family member, which includes taking over Goofy's bed! In the meantime I have to assert my position as leader of the pack. This is reinforced twice a day at mealtimes when they have to sit and wait for my signal for them to eat. You can't actually see the drool falling from their mouths in this picture, but I can assure you there is plenty there. Then it's walkies! Of course when my parents and daughter Harriet arrived it was down tools and time to kick back and relax a little. And a good excuse to try out the new BBQ. The animals were thoroughly spoilt. Each had a present. Goofy's toy was made of a material which was not completely indestructible, so it lasted about half an hour. Yesterday we had Bernat and Pepe here to remove the skylight on the roof of the windmill and fit roof timber in its place. There was a lot of wind noise coming from the flimsy skylight and we think it was where the rain was entering. It was fun watching them play around with the crane. Rather them than me though. I find as I get older I really don't enjoy heights. The power company has been replacing the pylons this week.This combines two of my pet hates, heights and electricity. Next on the agenda is clearing rubbish out of the shipping container and fixing the roof to make it waterproof. Then building paths and stone walls around the garden. The stone walls are an integral part of the scenery in Fuerteventura and I think it important to bring that landscape element into the garden as much as possible. Wendy starts school again on Monday. So far 140 enrolments! The last few days the weather has been settled; not so windy and quite warm. This is good gardening weather so much time has been spent sourcing and planting plants. The aim has been to concentrate planting to the north, outside the front wall and just inside to create a windbreak. This is a priority to give shelter to other plants elsewhere in the garden to help them cope better in these conditions. The steely grey shrubs growing just outside the fence are Atriplex nummularia which survive hot dry conditions in the Australian outback so they should be OK here. The small tree to the right is an Ombu, Phytolacca dioica, which grows to a very large size though with soft spongy wood. It is found in the Pampas of Argentina and makes a welcome shade tree for the Gauchos. The plants inside the fence are well protected from the wind and are growing well. There is an Olive tree, Orange, Avocado, a Loquat and various ornamentals. There is a also a Neem tree which has been growing best of all. This will be my future source of insecticide as the fruit and leaves may be pressed or crushed and mixed with water and a little soap to make an effective spray against pests. Planting here is a lot of work compared to back in England. Apart from digging holes through solid rock, then mixing up a compost/sand/soil planting mix, then staking them against the wind, I have also had to set up irrigation for them consisting of a few hundred metres of irrigation pipe, connectors, taps and drippers. We have had stone walls built on either side of the house. This immediately gives a bit of rustic character making the windmill look older, and also creating more of a windbreak. We have had a group of Morrocans here doing the work. It has been built with lots of little stones making some nice detailing. However these guys have been a proverbial pain in the ...! They have been helping themselves to anything lying around so that I have had to keep a constant watch on them. One of them suggested I might like to go down to the village and buy him a packet of cigarettes! Bloody cheek. This will make a nice area for planting tender species. A barbeque will go in the corner of the patio. Rather a lot of unused rocks to clear up first... The other side has turned out nicely. It would be nice to finish it with an arch. I asked them to leave planting pockets on the tops of the walls for drought resistant plants to cascade down. We have also made progress with our pergola. This was needed to create a shaded outside sitting area and also to break up the straight line of the conservatory. To grow up and over the beams I have planted a purple Bougainvillea on one side and a Passion fruit on the other side. Pepe the carpenter made a good job of it and it looks just right. Our hammock from Oaxaca has found its way here. The very comfortable teak chairs we found in a local shop, and the table which was lying around in the finca David sanded down and treated with teak oil. I like nothing better than to upcycle old furniture which other people might consign to the rubbish dump. We had two wooden benches in the conservatory which we thought would look nice outside in the right place. The cushions had to be thrown out but I made a solid base with tongue and groove timber and David sanded them down and painted them a matt white. We are now looking for suitable filling to make large colourful cushions for them. Now let me introduce you to Ellie. She was four, now five weeks old. Nearly as long as my foot. Very vociferous and extremely confident for something so absolutely tiny. Goofy and Pongo are extremely curious. It seems that Goofy is more genuinely interested in her and likes to nose her around and lick her. Pongo is interested but possibly more in gauging its nutritional value. But then food is really Pongo's only interest in life. As I write this she is lying on the top of the back of the sofa in the conservatory in an all commanding position. Incidentally we called her Ellie because ella is Spanish for her, and then we thought Ellie is nicer. The one thing we have hated ever since we first set eyes on the windmill was the tarmac around the house. It was like an enormous car park. So it was with great relief that we finally pinned Berna down to removing it and putting down some stone terraces and paths. I marked it all out with a paint brush and white paint. (This was after placing stones carefully to mark path edges, only to find the dogs were picking the stones up and running off with them). Also agreed was a timber pergola and stone walls. But first I planned on hiring a mini-excavator and a dumper to remove rubbish from the finca, dig holes for plants, and dig out topsoil to use in the garden. I also managed to find a lot of rocks as I was digging out the topsoil which are ideal for building stone walls. These were added to the growing pile. Berna thought there was not enough stone for the walls which we agreed to have built so he decided to get some more! Very unfortunately poor Berna's wife has being diagnosed with cancer of the colon which means they will be travelling every week to the University hospital in Tenerife which has the only machine in the Canaries for radiology treatment. So standing in for him, Tuesdays to Thursdays is José, assisted by Elias. They started by cutting the tarmac following the lines which I had roughly marked out, so that they could use the tarmac as a base for the stone paving and then removing the remainder with a JCB. Antonio trundled along with his JCB to start digging up the unwanted chunks of tarmac, taking time out from his other role of policeman. As usual he was ready for the job, sporting the latest in protective clothing; flip flops and shorts. I had attempted to break out some of the rocks in the garden for planting, but my little mini-excavator's hydraulic breaker was not man enough, and I asked Antonio to have a go with his 'pica'. Poor Wendy was being driven to distraction by the constant hammering, all while she was preparing for the end of term exams. We toured Puerto del Rosario looking for a suitable stone. The right colour (warm sandy brown is what we wanted), the right thickness, the right wearing quality, and of course the right price. This was with Berna sitting in the back seat giving us a running commentary on everything around us at full volume. Why do Spanish people have to talk so loud, and non-stop? Eventually we found the perfect stone. The next job was to load the old tarmac into a truck to take to the tip. The stone was laid pretty quickly. Actually too quickly and I told them to go back and take more care and more time. But what an improvement on that horrible tarmac! The slow bit is pointing up all those joints. Here is José and Elias getting on with this back breaking job. You can see that the cracks are not just in the paving. Goofy and Pongo have had a bit of a rough time. Poor dogs. No regular walks, and being locked up while some of the more dangerous work was going on. On the other hand there has been a lot going on for them to watch, and things left lying around for them to pick up and play with. They had also become extremely dirty and very dusty and so we decided another swim was in order. This time we would be on the look out and avoid any sandy or dusty places, and stick to the pebble beach. We prefer our dogs black, not brown. Then it was getting on with the planting. The very best job! But, with a lot to do I decided to train up David as a 'jardinero'. And I had learnt already that we needed to be careful about the planting. The silty/clay soil sets rock hard once wetted and so sand and compost has to be added to the soil. I arranged for 10 cubic metres of compost to be delivered from the zoo at La Lajita (Oasis Park). This compost has a wonderful mix of elephant poo, camel poo and God knows what else. It smells fantastic. The other thing is of course the wind which is a factor to be dealt with, and this meant buying some steel bars to tie the plants to. I have found a few local nurseries for buying plants. But cuttings take off really quickly in this heat. So the first thing I do is to whip some cuttings off any new plant I buy so that I will have more plants to bulk up the planting later. The greenhouse / net house is really beginning to fill up. I had been thinking of buying a Yucca. It is appropriate for this climate and would look OK. But then we were taking a walk through Caleta when I tripped over a branch on the roadside which had fallen off, or been cut off. Wendy was rather disapproving of the idea of me carrying a large tree branch along the high street so we fetched the pick up, collected my Yucca, and drove it home. It is now doing very nicely in a pot in the greenhouse. All this physical work is leaving me definitely thinner (I have lost more than a stone) , browner, dirtier, but probably healthier than I have been for a long time. It is not doing much for my looks though. Over the past four weeks we have seen temperatures as high as 42 C, cold winds (well, cold for here) of 16 C, and now high winds. The windmill is booming and groaning in the wind. Roll on the balmy summer days... The largest agricultural show in the Canary Islands is held right here on Fuerteventura, and it is a big event. Feaga 2015 was held, as it is every year, at the agricultural research station at Pozo Negro, which for us is just down the road. I was like a small boy in a sweet shop, looking at plants, compost and machinery, though I don't think Wendy was particularly impressed. It was brilliant for me as it was an opportunity to meet all the suppliers from here and other islands. The whole show had a party atmosphere with a band and octogenarian couples doing the tango. However, Wendy did find some animals to coo over, and I made friends with a donkey. The little greenhouse is finished and all up and running. We spent hours and hours sewing the netting onto the steel frame using fishing line, Wendy on one side and me on the other. When it was finished I went inside and found that the wind was pretty much as strong inside as outside. I should have used a finer mesh! So, we went back to sewing on another layer of shade netting onto the bottom half. With that done I put in a water tap, built a potting bench from scrap wood, and started propagating! Planting a garden here is challenging to say the least. The plants are either being scorched, blasted with a cold wind, or being dug up by DOGS!! Yes, we have two dogs now. The new arrival is Pongo. His previous name was Apollo which really didn't suit. He is a pedigree labrador, three years old who spent two years of his life being chained up. He is very good natured and gets on really well with Goofy. But, like Goofy, he has bad habits. One of these is that he likes getting himself wet and then rolling in the dust so that he ends up looking like a cuddly brown bear. This has only happened once at the Finca, but then we took them to the beach at the weekend, and here they are. That's Pongo on the left and Goofy on the right. And now here he is looking as he should. He and Goofy are the best of friends and neither seems dominant over the other. Talking of dogs, I recently noticed the dog food was disappearing rather rapidly. Then I saw a hole in the bag and noticed mouse droppings on the floor. So, off to the Chinese shop for a 'trampa' (mouse trap). The last time I used one of these was when I was a student. I discovered that my notes were being chewed up. A mouse trap with a vicious spring and a lump of cheese worked very well. But, the mouse was caught by its neck and was still alive, with its back end and feet hanging off the trap. I thought it would be humane to drop it into a bucket full of water, which I did. Then, when I checked on it ten minutes later, I saw that the trap with the mouse was floating, and the mouse was propelling himself through the water round and round the bucket, as if it was on a surf board. This time the mouse was caught by his tail, and was still alive. I took the easy way out and released him in town where I hoped he could carry on a reasonable life, albeit with a broken tail. The refurbishing work continues, made easier by re-employing David the 'peon'. The spare bedroom is now finished and pretty well ready for occupation should anyone be travelling here. The downstairs bathroom will also be 'tarted' up with a bit of paint. And we now have curtains starting to appear on the windows. It is almost like a home! Modifications are also being made to Mr Goofy's and Mr Pongo's house. The other day the roof threatened to lift off in the wind. Some four by two's and steel brackets were called for. Pongo is casting a critical eye. It is not all work here, though it seems like it much of the time. We had a weekend off in Lanzarote staying in the capital Arrecife in a hotel which is the tallest building on the island. We had a room with a view! The island is fascinating, if you avoid the tourist traps like Puerto del Carmen. The artist Cesar Manrique built a lovely cave house which you can walk through. Many of the walls and paths are finished in a smooth white painted concrete which contrast beautifully with the black volcanic stone. My favourite was the window through which you could see volcanic rock and cacti. Inside the window more rocks and cacti had been placed which allowed the landscape to continue seamlessly inside. Also extraordinary is the system of planting of grape vines. Each plant position is hollowed out and a semi circular wall loosely constructed to shelter the plants from the wind. A rather extensive system of agriculture but one which appears to be profitable. Certainly, some of the red wines from Lanzarote are excellent. It seems that Aloe vera plants have little value. I have advertised mine on 'Segundamano.com' at a give away price but so far no takers. I suppose we could always strip the leaves and fill the bath with Aloe vera gel then soak ourselves in it. This just may make us look young and beautiful again. I can hardly believe how more than a month has passed since my last blog. We must be so busy, or enjoying ourselves so much, or something. I suppose also that since the builders have been off site progress has slowed so there is less to report, but it is giving us a chance to do all the little niggly jobs without having people around to supervise, check on, or answers questions to. The latest project is the little greenhouse. I have managed to fix timber foot boards, shelves and a door to the steel frame, using mostly materials lying around the finca. The shelves were part of the bed which I cut down. The door made of pallets and scrap timber is self closing which uses a line running through two pulleys from the door to a weight on the inside of the greenhouse. I pinched the idea from the Eco Centre on Soneva Fushi where they used a coconut as a weight. Not too many coconuts here though... I picked up a roll of netting this morning from an agricultural merchants in Gran Tarajal, to cover the roof and sides. It was an opportunity to look at their stock and I was pleased to see they have a good range of fertilizers with which I can make up hydroponic nutrients in the future. The netting is going to need cutting into panels and sewing to the frame with fishing line. Summer really does seem to have arrived. The days are sunny though the night temperatures can still fall to 16 centigrade. The plants outside are starting to show signs of new growth at last. It has really been a terrible winter, the coldest since 1998 someone said. The wild flowers are looking terrific however. I have been collecting seed on my dog walks. Mostly Ox-eye daisies (Marguerites), Poppies, a yellow Senecio, and Bladderdock. This last one (Rumex vesicaria) is interesting in that it has a high content of antioxidants, has some antibacterial potential and it can be good for your liver. It is used extensively as a folk medecine in India and Saudi Arabia. Collecting the poppy fruits was a bit time consuming but at least each one contains a massive amount of seed. I will sow this tiny tiny seed by mixing it with sand and broadcasting by hand. I love the fruits which are like little salt and pepper shakers. As the wind blows them about the seed is released from the ring of holes near the top. The Ox-eye daisies are easier to harvest and the seeds easier to handle, though I still lost some when the wind was gusting! I will try sowing a small patch now which I can keep watered (assuming we have seen the last of the rain), and save the rest for sowing next winter/spring. With this amount of seed it should ensure a colourful display next year. Goofy is doing well. He is learning to sit and stay. Here he is sitting waiting for his dinner - looking the other way as though food is not really something that concerns him. However, this morning Wendy took him for a walk and, for the first time in his life, he saw two goats. So off he went in full pursuit with Wendy whistling and yelling for him to come back. Last seen he was disappearing in the direction of Las Pocetas. Wendy returned without him, somewhat anxious. Goofy found his way home half an hour later to be met with some very stern words. Next walk, he is going on a lead until he learns better manners. We have sorted out our internet and TV. On the hill behind Antigua are the antennas for both, and so we now have two fairly discrete aerials for picking up the internet signal (with which we can access TV channels from any country) and an aerial to pick up the local TV transmissions. The local stations are mostly in Spanish (though occasionally English films) which we watch to help brush up the language. Other house improvements include putting windows in the doors to the lounge and the bedroom in the windmill. These rooms were impossibly dark before. We found some new pine furniture for the windmill lounge. It needs staining to match the rest of the woodwork but then it should look the part. I had been in favour of a cow skin rug but Wendy was not happy with the idea of dead animals on the floor, so we will go for a round sisal rug which will need to be brought out from England. The blue rug which is there now of course had the end chewed off by 'you know who'. The car port turned out well. Though I have to remember not to drive under it when I have tall things loaded on my truck. I have managed to bend two lots of curtain rails that way! There was no second coming of Jesus (the electrician) so I was left to investigate why the light over the car port didn't work. My experience so far of Spanish workers is that they are in a great hurry to finish the job quickly so that presumably it doesn't get in the way of their leisure time. Jesus is no exception and I found he had wired up the light incorrectly.
I must try to write my blog more frequently. I suppose another excuse was that we made a short trip back to England to see everyone and to check on our cottage in Oxfordshire. But, while we were there, we were able to visit daughter Harriet's painting exhibition at South Hill Park, Bracknell - 'One hundred paintings in one hundred days'. Here she is, and it is (was) Day 94! |
About usWe are Richard and Wendy. Richard is an agriculturist turned horticulturalist and Wendy is an English teacher. Archives
July 2015
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