Christmas at Velagota

Well it's been a bit of a 'porkfest'!

Christmas morning started with a soak in the hot-tub. Followed by our home-grown breakfast of fresh eggs, home-made sausages and bacon (and a bottle of bubbly!).

(the bacon has turned out a little saltier than we would have liked but it's all a learning curve!)

Pre-dinner drinks on the roof-terrace with pork-liver pate.

Then roast leg of pork, with all the trimmings, cooked in the new house!

Last night we had chinese style-pork ribs, with singapore-style noodles (with pork!).

Today we are having a sort of indoor barby with.... wait for it - satay style pork fillet.

You might be thinking we are getting sick of pork- but really we're not- it's totally fantastic!

Hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas- anyone fancy a cold pork sandwich let us know and we'll post you one ;-) xxx

newbies to Velagota

Terry and June

(P.s. our postbox has now been replaced- hope this one doesn't get pinched!)

kitchen

Paul has started work on the kitchen- so hopefully we will be cooking Christmas Day

Dinner in the house- woohooo! (no water connected, or heating or doors and only half the windows so far- but hey ho- you gotta start somewhere!!)

let it snow

just been for a 'marvellous' walk- the Serra is covered in snow- apsolutely breathtaking!

(again- look closely- you can see our house!)

frosted glass?

hello from a frosty Portugal brrrrrrr!

but.........guess what.......

the windows have arrived! woohooooo!

(shut the door will you its freezing in here! oh sorry- no doors yet)

chickabiddies

the
chickens

have just moved into their new 'pad'- Dave the cockerel was not happy when we caught him and stuck him in a box for moving house this morning- i think the whole valley heard him squarking! but he's happy now with his five girlies- scratching about in the soil for grubs (they are even getting on well with the young ducks!)

tomorrow the chickens should be ok to let out into the big area which Paul has been busy fencing this week- coo it's practically a poultry village!

azeitonas (olives!)

Yesterday we helped our neighbours with the olive harvest (hopefully it will be our olives next year!)

The village is buzzing with the harvest. Tractors taking olives to the press, families beating the olives out of the trees and stopping for picnic lunches, or a glass of wine and a snack.

sausages (and other stuff)

Yesterday we made the sausages from all the odd scrappy pork bits-

it was quite funny as the butcher assumed they would be for the dogs! Paul has just taken him up a couple of bags of fresh sausages to try (along with a jar of spiced pear chutney- don't know what he'll make of it all!)

We made two batches- one pork and apple (and thyme), and second a plain pork batch (with lots of black pepper, a little cumin and some sage and parsley). Supper last night was sausage baguettes with fried onions and home-made tomato ketchup, with a glass of home-brew bitter...what a life eh?!

The bacon is curing for four days (with salt, brown sugar, peppercorns, bay) then it will be hung up to air dry, and can be eaten after about ten days.

Can't wait for our first Velagota breakfast with our bacon, sausage and eggs!

Happy Days!

pig in a day (or two) with paul and shell

Well it's been a hard couple of days.

Saturday morning the piggies were dispatched- saturday lunchtime we were eating fresh pork on the barby- look away now if you're vegetarian!

Everyone worked quickly and efficiently and the slaughter was very quick with apsolutely no distress to the pigs (happily eating acorns!). Couldn't have asked for more.

Sunday was butchering day. With lots of help from our neighbours and butcher we have a freezer full of joints, chops and Christmas dinner is definately sorted!

The meat is incredible- nice and lean and wonderful quality- which is a credit to the outdoor reared, happy porcos.

Gloria, Graca and I made the blood sausages- with onion, parsley, cumin, ground pepper and chilli powder- apsolutely incredible aroma. We boiled one and then stuck it on the barby- wonderful.

(all too much for the dogs tho- notice a sleeping grunty weasel by the sausages!)

Still lots more work for us- today we are making sausages (good 'ole english bangers!) and bacon. Later in the week I will make liver pate and brawn- we are determined to use everything bar the oink!

Overall, it's been an amazing and positive experience. A steep learning curve- not only about the pig, the meat, but also the diplomacy and determination to get the job done the way we wanted it to.

Emotional, frantic, fun, rewarding, and bloody hard work!

photo update

just a few photos- our (nearly finished) terrace and our duckies happy in the new house Paul has been building

my pies

my pies

my pies

my lovely porky pies!

paul is brewing the beer- i have made the pickle- what more could a couple of smallholders wish for?!

Dad and Joy's trip

Have had a fantastic week with Dad and Joy.

A lovely time with some nice walks and lots of nice meals

sunday- roast lamb at home

monday- pizza in Lagares

tuesday- curry feast with Chris

wednesday- frango at local restaurant

thursday- posh meal at Chris's

friday- posh lunch at the museu do pao

saturday- turismos (sp.?- pork casserole) at the market

all washed down with plenty of vinho tinto!!

the builders came back for two days and did the final layer on the roof-top terrace (photo to follow later!). the first day it apsolutely poured down just after they'd smoothed over the first area, and had gone home. We ran out with sheets of plastic and tarps, up on the roof in the wind and rain trying to cover it up. The next day the concrete looks fine (phew!)

we have been struggling with colds this week- have consumed a few lemsips and a few whisky macs to try and knock it on the head ready for Dad and Joy's visit next week.

we have been brewing away ready for Christmas- i have been making ginger wine and paul- homebrew so the cabin is happily 'bubbling' along at the moment!

all to report for today-will put some more photos on soon xxx

poor little duckies

We had a little 'situation' with the ducklings yesterday Paul has been building a new house

for them, and they were due to move in yesterday. Unfortunately we had some rain the day before and didn't notice how wet and muddy they had got, until they started to keel over with the cold! We set about making a production line- sitting them in the kitchen sink in warm water and then blowdrying them with the hairdryer one by one! Luckily they all recovered well and now are happy in their new house-phew!

portugal solutions

Wahey- the website is up- a BIG thank-you to Mark!
if you want to check it out:
www.portugal-solutions.com

VINHO VINHO VINHO!!

some photos of last weekend's wine-making efforts!

- and in case you're wondering yes, we washed our feet first!!

having a 'grape' time!!

had a fab day picking and crushing grapes with tose, gloria and their family- really good fun- in the press, squishing the grapes through our toes !!
(Rob took the photos so will upload some when he gets the pictures to us.)

wine time!

Paul's been helping some friends press the grapes- think he might have had a couple of glasses of vitamina to help the process go smoothly :-)

the cheek of it!

i saw a car mucking about at the top of our drive this morning, and thought it was just turning round. I walked up to check the post box this afternoon only to find its been nicked! The cheek of it- in broad daylight! Very annoying. Anyway please dont send us any post until we have a new one up soon.

Wow- i'm just back from a lovely walk- got a bit lost on the way (!) but finally made it to the beacon to take a photo of the view. If you look carefully at the mountain photo (click on it to enlarge) you can just see our house in the middle of the trees!

The dogs got a bit overheated, so we took a detour via the river on the way home to let them cool off!

The weather has cooled down alot, but its still warm and sunny during the day. It's lovely time of year to be here as the leaves are just turning but we are still in shorts!

We have just seen the builder who will be back next week to do some more work.

Parabens Artur!

Sunday we invited some friends for lunch- roast chicken, roast potatoes, vegies from the garden and blackberry and apple crumble- washed down with a few bottles of coca-cola of course! It was Artur's birthday so lots of cake too! Artur's dad- (Artur Senior) actually grew up on this quinta so it was really interesting to have him with us to tell us how the farm used to be (less trees, more potatoes!).

rain finally (and a house photo!)

finally its raining- about time, as everything has been so dry and we have been struggling to get everything watered.

yesterday we went on an adventure around the valley with the tractor!- scrumping and blackberry picking- we also managed to to come back with a basket full of green beans and some HUGE pumpkins from Gloria- and managed a few glasses of wine on the way round as we passed the neighbours!!

duckies progress

they are growing so quickly......am thinking duck and tomato sauce?! (ahhh!)

MORE TOMATOES!

Running out of ideas now!!!- tomato sauce, tomato ketchup, tomato soup, sundried tomatoes, tomato chutney...

prize given to the best tomato recipe (guess what the prize is?!!!)

no more tomatoes!

whose idea was it to grow 100 tomato plants? all day in the kitchen making tomato chutney, tomato ketchup, tomato sauce etc etc

its enough to drive a dog mad