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......

Day two, in the woods

Today was successful, we felled alot. We had a couple of hairy moments when one tree split and snapped and another didn't want to fall down and wanted to go the opposite way to the way it should have gone, Rick's chainsaw got stuck and we had to rig up a chain and still the tree didn't go where it should have, I'm learning alot about felling, and although I'm not allowed to use the chiansaw (for obvious reasons, for those of you that know me!), i'm still enjoying it and enjoying watching my husband being manly.

Blokey stuff, part four?

Walnut whipped.....

We have been very lucky since we arrived in Portugal, lots of things falling in to place and even more things falling in to our laps! Thanks to our old neighbour Lia, we have bought all the timber we will need to build our house, but first we've got to cut it all down and plank it up and dry it!!!!!
30 trees, varying in ages, from 30 years plus, all walnut and chestnut. We have purchased a mobile saw mill, which arrived today from sweden and it'll be put to use on site to plank up and haul out.
Without the mill this job would be only marginally easier than the felling of the dark side, we've got a lot of work to do and only felled 8 trees so far (the smallest), more tomorrow and the next day and the next day and.........

Hidden terraces

We have made good progress on the land and it's meant Rick can start doing some of the other jobs that aren't so pressing. The olive grove is looking good, but there is more of it that had become completely inaccessible and as we want to harvest as many olives as possible Rick decided that he should thrash back some of the growth now to give the trees a chance to fruit for the next season. This is what the terrace looked like before and now, still needs a bit of work, we'll get there.

The lighter side

Remember the pictures of the dark side?
Rick finally finished clearing the forest, all for one tree....it was 30-40 meters high and at least 2 foot in diameter, when he dropped it it reached the length of Georges' feild (that's how we knew how long it was). It was diseased and needed to come out, several other trees had to come out before he could fell the wrongun!
It was a difficult job and very steep mountainside, with no access, doing this stuff by hand took it's toll and it took a winch and several burly men to push the dead tree down the mountainside. Our friend Wayne managed to jump on the tree and surfed it down.......all the wood is now on our land and is slowly being logged up for fire wood.

The day of the first vegetable...

It has been raining relentlessly for days, which has made gardening impossible, so we've been lying low and cooking and visiting friends. However, I have been to see the chickens and given them treats, mostly pasta and collecting their eggs and I couldn't resist a quick look at everything in the garden. As I was inspecting my not so neat rows of stuff I chanced upon some radish that not only needed thinning out but were ripe for picking, we'll eat them tonight dipped in salt, I know it's not a big deal, but it's the first thing we've pulled out of the ground since arriving, there will be lots more but the radish will always be the first.

Dragons den...

here's a picture of a fire salamander, only a tiny little thing. I accidentally disturbed it whilst digging, luckily he was asleep!

Basket case

Thanks to the happy hens we are now making money to buy their feed!!! that's how it should be, everything on the farm produces something that goes back on the farm

Under construction or should that be destruction?

Sorry to everyone and followers have massively cocked up blog by trying to get clever. Won't try that again......please follow us again