March '11

Cutting Comments

This year, we decided to make an all out effort to prune all the olives trees that we are currently cultivating. In addition I wanted to finsh off thr last two terraces up the road on the left of the finca. Finishing these terraces, completed our cut of the trees over the road.
There were just under 600 trees and we had three months to get them finished and all the cuttings burnt. In addition we needed to cut the grass and flowers under the trees then plough the land at least once.

These pictures show the change from the old "wild" tree growth in the first column, then after they have been cut the first time. The thrird column shows trees that were cut for the first time last year (like the middle column and have then re-grown all that growth in less than 18 months.

These trees are now on their third year's pruning and are beginning to look like proper olive trees.

Spring is Sprung

We were not sure if we would get many wild flowers this Spring, as we had ploughed the land several times last year. Luckily, after a dry Jan & February, we got the rain we needed in March and we were surrounded by wild flowers again. The poppies seem to have done really well and they were plenty of other wildflowers for the bees to feast on.
Raoul, one of our Agents Rural, knew we are working organically, and asked if he could put a few bee hives on our land on one of the high terraces near the barranc. We were delighted and soon the bees settled in and before long, Raoul came round with two jars of dark brown honey and a few almost black chunks of honeycomb. The honey was absolutely delicious and was saved for our yogurt, banana & honey breakfasts which we always have, down in the finca.

Mist It

I did make a special attempt to get up and get a picture of the eclipse, but didn't have a filter even close to being strong enough to get a good image. The reflection off the filter is the only evidence of it. Doh. Still I did get a nice picture looking down from the village to the morning mists covering the whole area around our finca.

High Roller

Finally, we were impressed by the olive collecting rig which our local metalworker was putting together for one of the villagers.. Five rollers in front and three behind. All driven by what looks like a converted sit-on lawnmower. Neat.