I've found clumps of a beautiful wild daffodil, growing along our track; I think it's Narcissus Triandrus (it's a new one to me).
BEE KEEPING:
The bees took all (1 litre) of their food from the feeders within 48 hours, so we replenished it - without any stings this time!).
Judith gave us a lesson on applying wax to the frames, as we have to put our 'top boxs' on the hives next time the weather warms up, we also have to check for queen cells (and destroy any we find, or our bees will swarm) - they have to be checked every six days.
Five days later...
Judith & Pedro came to show us how to check our hives and put on our top boxes. As we only have one bee suit atm I had to stay in the car with the windows firmly closed (it was like being in a sauna); I was too far away to see much and couldn't hear anything - but I did take photos!
Brett inspecting the frames
Top boxes on
Apparently both hives have swarmed (which is a shame, but there were queen cells so we should be fine), we should have checked them last week!POULTRY:
As the evenings are getting progressively lighter it's getting harder and harder to put our birds away before we leave for our twice weekly Portuguese lesson - in fact last week one of the hens was left out all night (we were lucky, she survived). So Brett has built a large, fox/dog proof enclosure for them (so we can leave them in on class days).
GOATS, MILK & CHEESE:
The goats haven't kidded for more than a year, but I have been milking them continuously; suddenly milk production has gone up by 50% - it must be all the fresh grass that's started growing at last, I'm making cheese every three days. I have an old fridge freezer in the cold store, that I cool with frozen bottles of water, as a cheese cave. This afternoon the temperature was ...
24C outside the cold store
12C inside the cold store
6C in the cheese cave
We opened a cheddar that I made at the beginning of August (it's been maturing, in the cold store, for seven months); it's a bit dry (it's impossible to calibrate my cheese press, so it was obviously over pressed) but the flavour is wonderful (happy dance).
Brett is making me a press that I can use with weights so I know exactly what pressure I'm putting on my cheese, then I'll have no excuse (except I'm using goat's milk not cow's).
CRAFT MARKET:
A few of us (we have a committee of five) have organised a monthly craft, art, secondhand etc market. The first one was 16th April, we had thirty one stalls; and quite a diverse mix - bric a brac, carboot, household, clothes. samosas (Hari Krishna), hummus (vegan), barbeque chicken (!!!), fresh fruit juice, cakes, soaps, lotions & potions, paintings, loads of jewellery stalls, glass (me), cards (me), ACV, Fire Cider and Elderberry Syrup (all me), homemade cider (not me!), and lots, lots more.
My only complaint - it was bloody hot!!!! And hardly any shade, fortunately Figs (who was next to us) had a gazebo (we ended up sitting behind his stall rather than ours!).
NAUGHTY NETTIE:
She's growing so quickly.
We now walk her up with the sheep every evening, then she does her stint in the shed with them - she's still only doing two hours, the sheep are definitely more relaxed around her. But naughty Nettie has taken to walking home whilst we are busy (Brett preparing the shed and letting the sheep into the shed, and me watering the polytunnel) so we then have to drive her up to the shed, whilst she struggles and whines. However when we go to pick her up, two hour later, she's always sound asleep and appears quite happy to stay up there. Once we get her out of her pen she just flops on the straw completely relaxed and doesn't want to move.
Next day ..... Nettie only walked halfway to the sheep shed, refused to walk any further, so I had to pick her up and carry her - she's getting rather heavy. So we're going to have to train her to walk on a lead.
Two days later ...
Haha, walking her on a lead is fun .... she thinks it's a game and holds the other end of the lead (as if she's walking me). She now voluntarily walks into her pen,
LANGUAGE COURSE:
We're halfway through the course it's getting quite hard now (we're learning past tenses). A few weeks back we had our first assessment, we had our papers back today - Brett did better than me (he IS much better at it than me, so that was expected); he got a 'muito bom' (very good) and I got a 'bom' (which I was extremely pleased with).
This evening we were told we have another assessment next week.
BATHROOM:
I christened the new shower, it's so much more salubrious than the other one (even though we're still using a solar shower bag).
The shower itself is finished (it just needs plumbing in). Brett has plastered the walls of the bathroom, he needs a final skim then the lighting can be installed and the floor tiles laid. We will even have a flush toilet (very posh) going into a tank full of worms!
SPRING IS SPRUNG:
I heard a cuckoo today (22nd March).
