A Casa do Campo
I know it's not spring quite yet but it’s difficult to hold fire in the garden (as I know I really should) when the weather has been so spring-like. The fruit trees are blossoming, the birds are singing, and squabbling over the insects on said fruit trees, and there are butterflies galore flitting around us as we drink our tea outside in the sunshine.
Flutterbys and plum blossom
I’ve been busy pruning the fruit trees (and removing the brambles which have wrapped themselves around the trees over the winter). From the allotment, I can just see the back of Mum’s Casita through the trees. I know the cocina is going well from the smoke gently rising from the chimney.
I can watch the smoke rising from Mum's chimney from here.
Pruning is a good job for a frosty morning. The sawing soon warms me up as my breath puffs out in little plumes of steam. This morning, the sun was up before me and it was really rather warm out there. The chickens soon wandered over to have a look at what I was up to, and to see if there was food involved. Kalimata, Katy and Kimberly are two years old now, as daft as ever but very loving and friendly, and inquisitive of course! I’m sure they’d help if they could.
My corkscrew hazel on the allotment is a mass of catkins. This single tree always flowers around a month earlier than the other hazel trees. This means it rarely gets any nuts on it as there is little chance of cross-pollination but I forgive it for its early beauty.
While I was in the allotment this morning, four buzzards were circling above me. I’m always wary of these beauties with my girls, though I think the chickens are almost as big as a buzzard. These four weren’t looking for dinner though. They were twirling, soaring and twisting in a fabulous mating display which reminded me of an ice-dancing routine as they slid around each other, wings almost touching before gliding apart.
Of course, you can’t see the buzzards in the photo unless you have a magnifying glass handy. But they were there, honest!
In the garden, the spring bulbs are up and away with bright daffodils and pure white snowdrops romping around the beds.
Spring flowers make any day sunny
The Christmas roses (hellebores) are a delight against the old wooden door of one of our barns. Just below, the tiny sunny primroses bring a contrast in colour and form.
Hellebores or Christmas roses
The jonquils are right next to where we sit for our morning tea, in the sunshine. Their scent is heavenly, almost as good as my cakes!!
Tarta de Santiago and jonquils. A heady mix. Spring is blooming (below)
My winter flowering honeysuckle is a mass of bees. It’s semi-deciduous and so has lost most of its leaves, but the flowers are intoxicating and the bees love it. I must remember to take some more cuttings this year. They grow easily.
We have three bushes now; the original was itself a cutting from a shrub I had in the UK almost twenty years ago. It’s had quite a journey for a plant. I’m sure the bees won’t object to a few more scattered about.
winter-flowering honeysuckle smells divine
I may pop one down in our second field, Kingswell. That has mainly chestnut trees around it with a few apples and peaches in the centre. It would be nice to have more colour in there over winter and the bees might just stick around to pollinate the fruit trees.
Kingswell
I’ve tried to refrain from planting too much too early as the warm days are deceptive and there is often a nip of frost in the air overnight. My broad beans have popped up under their fleecy blanket and if the weather continues as dry as it has, I’ll be watering them before long.
Indoors my early pea pods or mange tout are growing well in the sunroom. They’ll be in the polytunnel in the next week or so.
I’ve sown some okra and chilli seeds in the propagator too. Once they are up, I shall sow this year’s tomatoes in there. I always keep seeds from the best of the previous years tomatoes which means it’s always fun to find out what is going to come up (and how delicious the fruit will be). I rather like having random tomatoes instead of named varieties. Sometimes the seeds produce a duff plant, but often I end up with a delightful cross.
My new bee hotel needs a 'vacancies' sign.
Hubby has made me an insect hotel (which you can see in front of our well-house in the pic). We already have lots of solitary mason bees and carpenter bees using our stone walls and of course our wooden beams…oops! I’m hoping they’ll take a shine to this instead once I’ve filled it with wood and bamboo stalks.
The water mill can only be spotted in winter
I love this time of year with everything beginning to grow, but there are still far-reaching views before the trees leaf up. I can see the water mill below us and A Casa do Campo from the track with the sunroom windows glinting in the sunshine.
A Casa do Campo
The unusually dry start to the year is already causing people to predict a drought and water shortages. Galicia usually catches up with the rain somewhere along the line though, so I expect I’ll be stomping through mud this time next month. In the meantime, we’ll continue to enjoy our sunny morning cuppas, I’ll carry on pruning and planting judiciously, and of course writing about this beautiful area we call home.
May your stone steps always lead upwards and your rainbows sparkle!
