Arganil Social Club

At the market today
in a small cafe

Pizza hut

Yes we do have time off.......
sick and tired of trying to cook things in the oven in the kitchen we decided to finally light up the bread oven outside, Rick made pizza's.
This is where we will do all our cooking from now on, makes sense, it's practically free, takes half the time and it works!! I guess that's why most of the Portuguese have one and use them all the time.....

how does you garden grow......

The garden and the terraces are looking beautiful, foxgloves and wild flowers everywhere......I thought that March and April were beautiful, but this is amazing.

Rick's got wood

here's some more pics of Rick's wood!!

Home wood bound

The wood is slowly being bought back to it's final destinantion for drying.........still got a few more days left and 2 more trees to fell and then that's it for this year. Thanks to all for their help and enthusiasm!

Rick's new toy!

The saw mill arrived last week, from Sweden. All the trees we have cut down will be put through this mill, some to get them out of the wood as too heavy as they are, but don't wont to loose the length so they'll be "beamed". This was it's first outing with Rick practicing and seeing how it works with some pine that he cut down on our property. I expect it will become a bit of a spectator sport with the villagers once they get wind that this is what he's doing, we seem to be a constant topic of conversation.....

Torre da Paz – 7th May

Torre da Paz – 7th May
The Torre da Paz (Tower of Peace), is 11 meters high and its schist walls stand proudly in the middle of the white houses around them.( one of them is our rental!). The Tower is one of the symbols of the Aldeias do Xisto network and is also one of the buildings most cherished by the people living here, given the historical relevance of the tower once known as “Torre Salazar”.
It was the intiative of Mário Mathias “illustrious villager” that in 1944 it was decided that a monument to celebrate the end of World War II was going to be built, anouncing its end by the ringing of its bell. It was what happened for the first time at 2pm of 7th May 1945, when in Benfeita the end of the war was known, before it was even known in Lisbon (an employee of an english company, husband of a villager, called to give the good news). Since then, every day on that day the bell of peace sounds, ringing for 1620 times, the days that the “Potuguese Peace” lasted – starting the count on the day that Portugal assumed itself as a neutral country. Every year, in Benfeita, on the 7th of May, Peace is celebrated by the ringing of the bell.

Sorry I copied this from a web site....I attended very briefly, much to the delight of my neigbours who insist on me attending everything. A national TV film crew were there.....the singing was terrible!

Life's a bowl of cherries

Freshly picked today from our very own cherry tree

On the way to work today.....

Tea in the park

Lia serving tea in the woods

Timber

Day three, four and five

There have been some great moments on this project, none to really laugh about as incredibly dangerous, Rick nearly had his head knocked off a couple of times, thanks to his karate training he was quick enough to respond in time. We took out all the easy to access ones first (obviously) and the bigger one that were growing in the ditch to the left were left till last, they were all leaning the wrong way and we had to rig up various wire guy lines and a come along to get them to fall the right way without damaging any of the remaining trees, I'll post some pictures of Rick processing the wood with his new mill, we'll be back ilater in the year to cut the rest which will be even more interesting as the remining trees to fell are even bigger and they'll be a 10 meter radio astronomy satellite dish in the way......