Christmas '11

Just can't believe how quickly Christmas has come round this year! Very lucky to have the family out with us this year- so preparations started early -making the Christmas Cake and mincemeat, and preparing for a pig to be dispatched and birds to be plucked! The boys were in charge of all the meat- they boned and prepared 7 birds - a pair of quails, inside a bantam cockerel, inside a duck, inside a guinea fowl, inside a goose, inside a turkey!

 The wild boar/ Iberian black pig has been a great success and made the best sausages and bacon ever!

 

 

 We've also had the underfloor heating installed and next layer of concrete poured so it has made for the warmest and most comfortable Christmas here yet- every year we progress a little bit more!

olives, dogs and the odd pig...

Olives '11

My blogs posts are like buses- you wait ages for one, and then three come along at once!!
I've been (quite rightly!) nagged by a few people to keep up with the blogging- so I promise to make more of an effort and post less erratically!!

Sooooooooo here we are again- with the olive harvest- its' just come around oh so quickly!!! The weather has been terrible recently- very stormy so we have lost a few on the floor but otherwise the harvest is looking fairly good!

 A break in the weather meant we could have a fantastic day picking in the autumn sunshine. These are the days we treasure- and what being here on this old quinta is all about.

We've had some help from Ish- as she is here at the moment- tempted her with a roast duck dinner and a couple of tankards full of black velvet- how could she refuse!!

PURO launch

Thanks to everyone who came along to our exhibition. It was a lovely opportunity to show our friends what all the soap fuss has been about!

We received lots of wonderful feedback and Ishbel and I were even asked for our autographs!!

We're all still buzzing from our fantastic evening!!

No rest for the wicked tho'- up the next morning wrapping soaps for a local shop and then straight into the olive harvest!

November 1st

We just had to go and have a look at the cemetary on November 1st- All Saints Day. all the locals put flowers and light candles on the gravestones of their lost love ones.

I thought it perhaps sounded a bit depressing but the sight of the beautiful cemetary all lit up was totally amazing.

sky, parties and lazy dogs

A couple of photos of the amazing sunsets we've had recently.

We've been partying as usual- this is a birthday cake we made for Cris who Paul builds swimming pools with- it's supposed to be a pool construction site!

Tose also had a birthday and i'm still trying to learn to dance but Gloria does have to watch her feet!

All too much for lazy dogs..

PURO SOAPS

Alot of you will now know what I've been busy on with Ishbel- a new Portuguese soap range- which will be officially launched in November. Check out Ishbel's blog to follow the progress:
http://naturallymadesoaps.blogspot.com/2011/09/portugal-soap-and-lots-more.html

SOAP STUFF!! winemaking and beeswax

Loads  of soap action going on currently! I'm afraid it's that time to start thinking about ranges for Christmas!

Those of you who have stayed with us will have sampled our lovely neighbours 'Vitamina' (our nickname for their home made wine as any hesitation to drink it and you are told it's good for you- vitamins!!). Well although it's pretty palatable- we are given quite alot of it and it's not always our first choice when reaching for an evening glass! AND! if you remember from last years blog- it's had my very own feet squishing the grapes!

 Anyway- a couple of people have been saying to me- what about a mulled wine soap for Christmas? and what a fantastic use of spare local red wine.
So I've been experimenting and researching (as adding lye to wine can cause it to explode apparently!) and I've come up with a superb Mulled Wine Soap! It smells of all those lovely Christmassy spices and is totally gorgeous on the skin- believe it or not! (lots of shea butter etc).

Ishbel of 'Naturally Made Soaps' and I have got some really exciting projects happening here- including the launch of a new Portuguese range. We've been playing with some fun stuff aswell,

- see our Fig and Brown Sugar bar here- its apsolutely fab!!

We have both been working really hard with the new project - coming up with our ultimate recipe, brand and  logos, and sourcing ingredients as close to home as possible (which isn't as easy as it sounds as the locals have a use for apsolutely everything!)

This week I have been filtering beeswax taken from the hives on our land boundary- which has been a really interesting little project- you really do learn something new every day!

So, watch this space- there will be loads of stuff happening in the soap department of Velagota in the next few weeks!

House

Some of you might remember the plea for an old toilet cistern? Our friends kindly dug an old one out from their old Victorian Farmhouse (thanks Jack!), and its been sandblasted and re-painted. The toilet and sink came from an old Portuguese barn (thanks Chris!)- and we have created quite a quirky room!

Summer!

Firstly apologies for being so slack on the blogging front! We have been busy doing all the usual stuff- gardening, watering, weeding, taking care (and taking out some) of the livestock, and soapmaking, cooking and working of course!


I have been away to Norway for a few days which was a refreshing break while Paul took some days out to do some jobs in the house. The vegetable garden has been a bit of a disaster this year due to the poultry (especially the geese) finding their way in again and destroying alot of the salads (eating even the chillis!). 9 geese are now in the freezer along with 3 white ducks and bags and bags of tomato ragout!
Pigs are happy- and very vocal! and doing a great job of clearing the paddock- now they have cleared all the scrub they are heading 'down' to dig over the soil.
The gardens around the house are settling in- although it's a bit of a struggle to keep everything watered, so we've started installing some irrigation.

Lots of exciting projects for the autumn- including a new Portuguese soap range! More to follow :-)

Pigwigs part 2!

Twiggy on the wrong side of the pigpen!

As you can see I've finally (with some help from Mark) worked out how to post videos- just need to improve my camera skills and we'll have cracked it!!
No alcohol was involved during the making of this film (well not much anyway!)

PIGGGGGSSSS!

The new piggly wigglies have arrived- they are half wild boar (father) and half iberian black pig (mother). They are apsolutely fantastic- quite small but already very feisty! They're in the small pen for a week or two to get used to their new home and grow a little bit more- then they'll be let out into the newly fenced field!

CRIKEY!

I hadn't realised that I haven't posted seen the geese started hatching- well it turns out there are 12 goslings- and they are growing fast! We need to move at least the new ones as 17 geese (and their mess!) is just too many to have around the house. We're currently eyeing up another nice grassy terrace for them but it will mean another house and more fencing need to be installed.

We've had a great time with family and friends here. We all went off to Redinha near to Pombal for some climbing- really interesting area. Obviously lots of eating- barby's, roasts, pizzas and fried eels (yes fried eels and they were delicious!!)

Lots of other things have been going on- we have four baby bunnies, and are preparing for three new piggies (wild boar mix!)

The neighbours have been helping us clear out and enlarge the old pig pen (full of rocks that the last pigs uprooted- in fact enough to build another wall!).

We've just about got all the vegies out now- and we've had plenty of rain over the last week to give them (and the weeds!) a good start.