RAIN AND STORMS

Yesterday afternoon, brought a huge downpour which almost flooded us! Luckily it stopped before I had to bail, and I had no idea where my Wellington boots were!

Before the storm hit us, I took a group of photos as the clouds were amazing.  I tried to get a shot of the lightening but missed it each time - darn it!

Even the big rotten palm tree bowed what is left of it's trunk!

Today the sun is out again, for now.

WHERE DID THOSE MONTHS GO?

It has been nearly 7 months since I wrote anything here and so much seems to have happened.

We are still here in Mallorca, for the time being at least.  Life just seems to have taken over and left me no time to concentrate on the blog, but I am hoping to take it up again and leave as many posts as I can.

Animal update: We still have two dogs here, Rex and Ruffa.  We now only have 1 of our original hens but we have another 3 girls as well, the cockerell, as you will know if you have read the blog, has gone - thankfully.  However, we now have a broody hen who will sit on the nest for hours incubating eggs that won't hatch!  I have to lift her off constantly.  Not sure what to do about her yet.  

Cat update: some have gone, some are still very much here, and there are many new additions.  Samuel Sprat comes and goes, and he turned up tonight with loud meows and is currently asleep on one of the kitchen chairs.  He'd been gone for about two weeks and I did miss him.  The lovely Jess has had babies (3) and Pipla, her daughter, has had two, one of which is not right (just like her last ones), we will have to wait and see what happens to that one.  Another girl has had 4 kittens and is keeping them nestled under the log pile in a small nook.  Her name is Mittens, but she is not very trusting of humans and quite feral.  Total number of cats (including kittens) around here at the moment is about 16.  The good thing is that I haven't seen any rats or mice for ages!

The vegetable plot is suffering.  It is full of weeds, which we are tackling next week, and there is nothing growing in it at the moment.  We are going to deal with it and put some chicken manure down, dig it in and plant again.

The pool is still covered because although the sun is warm during the day, the nights and mornings are quite chilly still.  The weather should start hotting up pretty soon.  We had a very mild winter, I didn't even put the rugs down this year, which was probably due to laziness, tiles are so much easier to clean!

Well, I hope I can keep this up again, feel free to nudge me if I don't.

Here are a few pictures of the past 5 months!!

AN OSTRICH AT NATURA PARC - ZOOLOGICAL PARK.

EARLY MORNING SUNRISE

MASSIVE RAIN STORM.  ONE OF THE HENS IS STANDING OUT IN IT - CAN YOU SPOT HER?

JESS WITH HER BRAND NEW KITS

PIPLA IN THE FOOD BOWL, SOAKING UP THE SUN AND HAVING A SNOOZE

POSSIBLY THE WORLDS SMALLEST MANDARIN, GROWN ON OUR TREE.

STREET BONFIRE BUILT AND READY TO BURN.  SANT ANTONI JAN 2014

THE STORM IS COMING.  (AND IT WAS A HUGE ONE).

SA POBLA WINDMILL

SANT ANTONI MAYHEM, ALL THE CHILDREN CHASE THE DEVILS AROUND THE TOWN, THE DEVILS GO INTO EVERY BAR!

And finally.....

OUR 4 GIRLS, PECKING HAPPILY IN THE 'NO VEGGIES, VEGGIE PLOT'.

PLANTING BEGINS

So although it has been extremely windy over the last week, we have had some sun, which is great.  If it weren't for the wind it would feel very warm indeed.  I believe it got to about 21 here today, but with a chilly breeze.

Hoorahh, we have started planting finally.  C has toiled hard in the vegetable plot, preparing the beds, and we now have cabbages, cauliflowers, two different types of peppers (small and large - the farmer didn't know their names), swiss chard - we're giving this another go, it all got eaten and died last time.  We also have salad and cooking tomatoes in, Romaine and Iceburg lettuces and.......oh yes, aubergines and one watermelon plant.  Melon plants take up an enormous amount of space, so I said I only wanted one this year, it is like a giant triffid that crawls along the ground! AARRRGGHHH.  

The tomatoes.  We will make a proper frame for them when they get a little bigger.











Cabbages, Cauliflowers and two types of lettuces.

Two types of peppers.  We are waiting for a third type to plant, should be ready  next weekend!

Our parsley has got out of hand! There is loads of it.  I am going to have to try to dry it I think, otherwise it will go to waste!

The pear trees, I pruned fairly vigorously earlier in the winter, are blossoming, I am so pleased, I thought one of them was dead as it was choked by a giant climbing weed! But no, it has blossom, yipeee.

Pear blossom

The quince bush I pruned so heavily earlier in the winter, I seriously didn't think would come back, but it has leaves on it and has returned to the land of the living once more.

The nispera pears are growing and the orange blossom is out once more, the smell is so amazing, it's fantastic.  On a walk this afternoon with the dog, I could smell it on the wind, (the orange blossom, not the dog!) heavenly.

UNPREDICTABLE MARCH

Not much to report at the moment.  The weather is very unpredictable with it being about 18 degrees one moment and the following day only about 12 or less.  Apparently we are expecting more snow on the mountains and I have reports from Puerto Alcudia of snow falling yesterday! yikes. The sun is out here in Sa Pobla for the moment, but there is quite a lot of cloud about.  

No new planting as yet, perhaps in another week.  We had our first cauliflower yesterday for lunch - delicious although it was a bit small.  

The hens are still laying, which is great and I am supplementing their feed with blended veggie cut offs, stale Weetabix and a few oats, they seem to love it mixed up with their corn.

I'm happy to report that the rice husks are proving a godsend on the ground and so far neither the hens or us have any problems with the dust from it.

There are many spring flowers out on the island now and it is very beautiful.  Almond blossoms, large headed daisies in whites and yellows and the poppies are out now also - lovely.  

A stroll across the Albufera

View down one of the lanes on the Albufera national park.

On a walk in Puerto Alcudia

The irises coming out.

Our first cauliflower this year.  Small but perfect - yummy.

Puerto Alcudia, lovely sunny March morning

The cats all snuggled up from the chill.  Adolf, Samuel Sprat and Pipla.

EXTREME WIND

The past week has been a little busy - hence no posts!

We have had a wonderful week of bright sunny weather and the temperature during the day even reached a balmy 20 degrees C around Wednesday.  Lovely.  But now, alas, the weather has turned again and we have very cold, strong winds.  Apparently there should be snow on the mountains again this weekend, but it is so dark and cloudy over them, that I haven't been able to see.

We have had a little rain but nothing major yet.  All the cats have been sheltering from the winds.  Living here, amongst the fields, we are a little exposed and all the trees almost bend in half! brrrrrr.  One of the tall palms at the front of the house has lost some of it's branches in the night! They were strewn about the yard when I got up this morning.  Glad no-one was standing under those!

C has been very busy cooking all sorts of lovely things.  He experimented making cheese and curry savoury biscuits, which I have to say didn't last long, really good.  He has also made a pear and ginger loaf, again delicious. It's great having a husband that enjoys cooking - yummy.

Curry and cheese savoury biscuits.  Taste a bit like cheese straws but with a curry spice zing.  Delicious.

C has managed to prune most of the palms and disposed of the branches/leaves on the big fire heap at the front of the property.  It will need setting alight again soon.  

We have all be struck down with nasty colds/coughs so things have slowed a little, but we keep plodding on.  Adolf the cat that has a very nasty wound on his neck, has wriggled his way back into the cat family outside. I am keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn't suffer any more fight wounds for a while.

The hens are still laying, although we are now averaging about 1 per day! not much but at least it's something.  We will have to resort to more supermarket eggs!

Stay tuned......

A SUNNY VIEW AND CHICKEN POOP (oh, I mean coop!)

So the sun came out at last.  It didn't really rain for long but it felt like it.  I suppose I just hate gloomy weather.  Yesterday was a lovely sunny day, today a bit of a mix.  Apparently we are in for another storm tonight so we will have to batten down the hatches (shut all the persiana's).  Persiana's are shutters for the exterior of windows.  Very common here in Spain and many other countries also.  

Snow capped peaks of the Tramuntana Mountain range.  View from Son Sintes, Sa Pobla, across the potato field.

We had a fairly quiet day today, although we had guests for lunch.  C was in the kitchen all morning - almost.  He made a marmalade cake (which we gave our guests to take home with them), a pear and ginger cake, which was served hot for pudding (with cream), roast chicken & roast potatoes with lots of fresh veggies.  We also served some shortbread biscuits at the end of the meal, I made these on Friday evening.

We finally managed to get some sawdust for the hen house (it is so expensive) so I was able to clean out the hens yesterday, which I do regularly, but at least they had some better bedding.  They keep kicking out all the straw from the nest boxes so I am going to see if I can find an alternative.

 The cleaning out process.  It was very muddy so I spread some clean straw around the coop which helps with the footing (mine not the chickens).

Sawdust - hooray.  

 Rex and Ruffa

Keeping en eye on this girl, she was behaving strangely for a day or so!  

I have also wormed the chickens now, so we can't eat the eggs for a few days.

More news soon.  Lets see what tomorrow brings.