Water, water everywhere...
...but something else to drink
We’ve worried about water for three years now – since we started our crazy off-grid adventure – but had no idea we’d be dealing with too much rather than too little.
Nevertheless, we are still happy to see the heavens open, despite months of above average rainfall – thanks to El Niño – and a massive storm system that’s been sitting off the coast of Ireland and hammering the Iberian peninsula all week.
Lisbon’s steep and narrow streets briefly turned to rivers, a video clip of a rare water spout near the Vasco de Gama bridge in the capital made headlines around the world, and building work here in The Valley of the Stars has pretty much ground to halt.
Of course it’s easier to live with when the temperatures remain in double figures and the sun shines between squalls, topping up our solar system and keeping everything running.
As the climate changes, more extremes are expected, which is why we’ve invested in 200,000 litre pillow tanks to collect all the rain and save it for our guests during the long hot summers.
Sadly, neither the gutters nor the tanks have been installed in time to make use of all the water now overflowing from our lake into a new river which is flowing down the valley.
The system for harvesting rainwater from our house and the solar panels got one step closer this week as we placed and buried the tank and all the associated pipes.
The land also keeps sliding in various places – this week part of the hillside around the lake collapsed – and we do wish our doors and windows had been installed before this latest inundation.
At least the builders invested some time in an innovative, gale-proof construction of wood and insulation foam to block the doors and windows where the kitchens have now been installed.
The delay to this key part of the project has slowed everything down on the building site, but we did get a few things done despite the rain.
The unpolished concrete people were back between showers to try another way of improving our floors (we’re still disappointed in the way they look) and the metal workers installed one of the two staircases,
Heat Pump Paulo connected everything up for the water and underfloor heating – as much as he could until we get all our utilities online (while also providing us all with plates of his famous fabulous rabbit and rice lunch).
We’re being drip-fed a water treatment system, and the absence of an electrician is perhaps expected given the poor relationship between rain and electricity.
At the very least we look forward to the years ahead when the rainwater has soaked through the ground and eventually reached the level of our borehole.
Of course the combination of rain and sunshine is fuelling some pretty impressive springtime sprouting.
We marvel at the green hillsides, the flowering estevas (rockroses), the revived and fast-growing grape vines and the colourful weekly additions to the pointillism painting that is the Alentejo spring.
It’s yellow time at the moment as everything bursts into life, and it’s weird to imagine all this vibrancy will be baked away in a month or two when summer sets in.
And for every day that more power and water is piled into the vegetation, my strimming workload grows.
Areas 50m around every building need to be cleared by the end of April to protect from fire, and three new buildings broadens my Spring fitness regime quite significantly.
We’re taking advantage of the sodden soil to pull out the tall and woody esteva which needs to be removed every few years as the combination of dry stems and oily leaves burn like little torches.
Fortunately, the large area of eucalyptus plantation on the other side of the hill has been chopped down and dug out, providing a vast fire break if the unlikely was to happen this year.
Everything is so easy to weed when it’s this wet, and so we need to take advantage of it while we can – cleaning up the gravel and planting the trees we bought on a rainy trip to the Monchique mountain nursery Viveiro Denis.
Justo and the builders had managed to get some basic landscaping down before the latest storm and so we are now turning our attention to transforming our building site before we open.
It’s not going to be perfectly manicured straight away – the delays have stopped us from planting as much as we’d like before the summer – but the seeds we planted in the future vineyard have sprouted well and we will be ploughing the greenery in once we get a few dry days.
Our soil sample results came back with uninspiring levels of most things, but grapes aren’t that fussy...and hopefully our half hectare can grow some wine-able grapes in a few years.
We aim to plant next March – and have a couple of weeks left to register our land and mark out where we will be planting what kind of grapes.
We were lucky enough to meet winemaker and viticulturalist Miguel Mimoso through our friend at the nearby Vicentino winery, and popped down to visit his project in the Algarve for a tour, some tips and some wine tastings.
Arvad is a beautiful winery producing some amazing wines and I’ll be writing about them and their Negra Mole grapes soon on our other blog The Big Portuguese Wine Adventure where we’ll be launching the podcast series next month. Check it out!
We’ve also been back to Vicentino to see their amazing new winery and have recorded an extra podcast episode there.
Miguel has already visited our land and we’ll see what he says about the most suitable grape types when he sees the soil sample results.
Today we’re tucking into an Easter lunch of Niels and Sybille’s finest lamb – born and bred roaming free: lots of amazing days and then one really bad one...the first instalment of half a sheep been slow cooking since yesterday while the rest languishes in the freezer.
We’re welcoming our neighbour Daniel (whose landscaping vision of his property is really starting to bear fruit) and our friends Tim & Trish who have moved into their new place (which needs a bit of good weather work) and have been battling a leaky roof and an exploding shower.
The lamb will be spectacular, but the party of the week has already been and gone.
On Good Friday our builder Joaquim invited us to a gathering in his village. We thought it was a traditional Easter event, but it turned out to be his 78th birthday.
Joaquim has been the bedrock of our building project – bounding up and down scaffolding, skilfully bricklaying our curved wind-break wall, sharing his lunch almost every day with Albie the dog and injecting a wonderful mischievous energy to our building site.
He and his pals were dressed in their Cante Alentejano best - periodically breaking out into traditional song throughout the lunch.
His whole family were there and we were honoured to be his guests.
As we left, he told us his work was finished at our site and he wouldn’t be coming back. He’ll be missed...but hopefully he and his choir can come back and help us open the lodge...once the power’s on and the doors and windows are in.
All the best Joaquim...and thanks for everything...here’s to 78 more!
Wikipedia write ápropos esteva:
Various Cistus species are known to emit volatile oils, rendering the plants flammable. Their emission of these essential oils is a genetic adaptation for the species intended to actually promote flammability and even cause spontaneous combustion.
Wow, spontaneous combustion!