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We went into Miajades today so that Fergus could get a haircut. 2 hours dog free means we can do some serious perusing in our favourite places. This is a shop set up in a garage. They sell second hand items and stuff from house clearances. The locals have a funny idea of what constitutes an antique, most of it being just junk, but often it's junk with very high prices. Very old tatty books can command huge prices while other quite tasteful items can often be just a few euros. Mind you, finding tasteful items can be quite hard! Its the kind of place I like to rummage. There are some great finds if you take the time to search and have the imagination to use/repurpose them. I often think that one or two carefully selected vintage pieces will finish off the look of a room and give it character, even if all the rest of the items in the room are modern and commonplace. There is a lot of religious iconography. And even modern Spanish homes seem to have their fair share of

Farm life is full of ups and downs. We try to be philosophical about it all. Miss Black Speckle was not successful in her attempt to become a mother. One egg semi-hatched but the chick was dead. The rest did nothing. No peeps, no cracking, nothing. We are beyond sad. Although we maintained that we were not counting our chicks, I guess we were after all. On top of that Bippity somehow managed to roll both her eggs out of the broody coop, cracking them. She appeared not to notice and continued to sit on an empty nest until we turfed her off and closed it up. So there will be no chicks for the foreseeable. Deductions made from the look, feel and weight of the non hatching eggs, are that Mac (the cockerel) is doing a fair job - we had questions about his virility - but that other factors contributed to the deaths.  We did not crack open the non hatching eggs, that's just a little gruesome for us.  My best guess is that it is simply too hot at the moment and/or the hens

Remember my chicken worries, Boppity the slightly addled broody hen that fixated on the nest rather than the eggs? Well, we didn't eat her, I couldn't be bothered with the idea of killing and plucking (especially plucking) it's alot of work. So I continued to collect eggs armed with a ladle with which to fend off the hen and then... Another hen went broody so now I had TWO annoyed chickens cluttering up the nest box all day! We moved Black Speckle into the 'maternity' wing and gave her six eggs to sit on. And sit she did! The eggs are due to hatch on Thursday this week. Not counting my chicks beforehand but any that turn up are destined for the pot. But that's only two I hear you say. Yes, well, yesterday, Bippity (sister to aforementioned Boppity) went broody too. Thankfully she settled into the Broody coop! Hurrah! We put two hopefully fertile eggs underneath her and have left her be. 21 days incubation period for hens, though I'm never sure wh

I awoke early this morning to the sound of a strimmer droning away in the next door finca, it was barely light and then when I finally dragged myself out of bed I discovered we have a hung parliament.  But. On to more important stuff (to me) - my life this week. You may think that it's all this...  Followed by this... And it is true, there has been a certain amount of this, but also... 120 onions planted in a quest to 1. Grow what traditionally grows well here and 2. A small attempt at approaching self sufficiency (the girl at the garden centre said they would keep, we don't really have anywhere cool to store them but I'm going to try hanging them on the verandah). 12 globe artichokes planted, fiddly vegetable but delicious. 20 Padron peppers planted - eaten green by the Spanish when one in ten is spicy but if you leave them all to turn red they are all spicy! There has been harvesting. And the squash and courgettes are turning into triphyds and t

 There has been quite a bit of building work going on in our neighbours fincas.  This neat little white casita went up slowly over the past year and even before it was finished the owner installed a dog to guard it. Now, this is something I have strong views about and have shied away ​from mentioning it before because I felt I would end up with a long rant and perhaps give the totally wrong impression. But in a nutshell, a Mastine type  puppy was chained up outside with a makeshift kennel. It was fed and watered when the owner visited to work on the finca. This is fairly normal practice here in Spain. The owner would I am sure claim that the dog was well looked after.  We could see the dog from our bedroom window and from one spot on our drive. It barked and cried all night, every night. Recently the dog has disappeared. I hope the owner took it home because it has become too hot but I fear the worst. Anyway, the chap who bought this finca has done so much work, apart from b