Finally
we enjoyed a sunny although not very warm weekend. The air was
extremely clear, washed by the previous rain and offering some
splendid views over the Pyrenean mountain range.
Looking north-west from the higher, central terrace with
Hypochaerisradicata and Sanguisorbaminor.
Sunday 10:36
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Nice weather for working. I collected the hay that had been drying
for a week after last
Sunday's cut. I set up a kind of traditional haystack for
storage. Normally the hay is stacked about 20 cm above the ground to
keep it dry, but I am not so much interested in getting good quality
fodder as in offering accommodation for wildlife. The contact with
the earth will also stimulate the decomposition, turning the stack
into a sort of infinite store.
The haystack on the lower northern terrace,
looking north-east.
Sunday 9:24
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A relatively urgent job was the cutting of firewood. The plan is to
finish the garden house before the coming winter and during winter
we pretend to
use a woodstove for supplementary heating. Firewood must dry for at least half a
year, depending on weather and wood conditions, so we had better cut
the wood before the summer.
After considering several mechanized solutions I finally opted for
the manual approach. Chainsaws use petrol and oil, need maintenance
and storage, produce a hell of a noise and are quite dangerous. A
brief look at any chainsaw manual shows the extreme precautions you
have to take, including special, expensive boots. Everybody who
works regularly with these 'weapons' can tell you bloodcurdling
stories about accidents and they should in fact be used with a
second person nearby for a possible first aid, reducing the
efficiency by 50%.
So I use a bow saw and an axe with specially adapted
'workbenches' (see photograph). After
some adjusting and learning I more or less got the trick and managed
to cut a much bigger quantity of wood than expected.
Wood for the near future is provided by the pruning and clearing of
almond and oak trees, while for the long term we plan to
reserve part of the terrain for some kind of fire wood plantation.
Undersignedchopping away.
Sunday 15:47
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Safety
precautions are really no joke. This is usually learnt the hard way,
as I experienced on Saturday. I was working on the foundation walls,
mixing the lime mortar when a splash of the mix reached my left eye.
Lime is alkaline and quite aggressive and I felt an instant burning
sensation. I directly ran for a bottle of mineral water to wash it
out. I thought that the worst had passed and continued my work but
the following day the irritation was still there with quite a lot of
tears and pus and we decided to go to hospital where they diagnosed
an acute conjunctivitis which fortunately can be treated easily with
the regular application of an ointment.
From now on I will use glasses while at work, even when chopping
wood or pruning trees.
The foundation wall almost
finished.
Looking north.
Sunday 9:23
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Part of a good working method is taking ample rests and doing
something completely different. The simple observation of what is
growing on the terrain offers nice opportunities, although , in my industry, I
can't help to convert it into another kind of job, registering,
photographing, pruning etc, but the point is to do something else.
Come to think of it, the difference between rest and work is quite
arbitrary. Making some giant thought leaps, I wouldn't even mind
defending the idea that the extreme division we have made in our
society between free time and working hours is at the heart of the
schizophrenia and the cultural and political crisis of modern times.
The pond border is nicely covered with
spontaneous plants like Fumariaofficinalis and
Papaverrhoeas.
Sunday 9:39
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Down to earth: here just some flowers that started to bloom these
days. Comparing the vegetation with last year's, it is
really surprising that this year doesn't offer the waves of
dominating species so conspicuously present last year (with the excepcion of Hypochaerisradicata) Last year saw
invasions of Alyssum
alyssoides, Orlaya
grandiflora, Melilotus altissimus and
others. Of course they are present now but much more modest and
dispersed. Different meteorological conditions will be
responsible.
First flowering of Verbascumblattaria.
Looking east.
Sunday 10:03
First flowering of the planted Cistus
albidus.
Sunday 10:41
Echiumvulgare in
front of some dead almond tree trunks.
Lower eastern terrace, looking south-east.
Saturday 9:57
