Permaculturing in Portugal

As physicist Michio Kaku wrote yesterday, “Global warming is controversial, of course, but the controversy is mainly over whether human activity is driving it. There is almost uniform agreement from both sides of the debate that the Earth is heating up.”

More specifically, the controversy centres around whether the rise in global CO₂ levels is a direct result of mans’ activities or whether this is something the planet itself is responsible for. This is seen (somewhat linearly) as the engine behind the rise in temperatures. So can both sides be right if one says global warming is caused by human activity and the other says it isn’t?

They can if the rise in temperatures and CO₂ levels is the Earth’s response to mankind’s activities.

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Yesterday I did the laundry. I put the laundry in the washing machine, added laundry liquid, switched it on, and went away while it did its thing.

And was almost insanely pleased with myself.

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“To be is to do – Socrates
To do is to be – Sartre
Do Be Do Be Do – Sinatra”
Kurt Vonnegut

Somewhere in that quote above is all sorts of wisdom about Doing and Being, but the trouble is I’m so much in the Doing right now there’s no room in my head for reflections on the subject. So I’m sticking with Sinatra for the moment …

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Today’s progress on the roof … highlighting the asymmetry of the building. I’m very glad now I decided to stay with the original schist roof covering. Not only for the beauty of the natural stone, but because regular tiles would be a nightmare to lay and would end up looking pretty silly.

Entire roof now planked

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Ok, so yes, it took me about a year to realize it but this place is eventually starting to feel like home. Looking over our land a few weeks ago when driving on our track I realized that this place isn’t just any old place but is OUR place.. (well mums place.. but I still live on it ). I’m staring to grow fond of it here and I was even working today *dramatic intake of breath* stripping bark off a tree. Can’t wait to get electricity though.. It will be even more homely.. x

Or is it?

It depends on what you mean by ‘simple’. The trouble is that simple (leaving aside simple-minded for a minute) can mean both uncomplicated, and humble, lowly, basic. The two are not necessarily the same.

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If there’s one thing I’m quickly learning about life here, it’s that you just have to go with the flow. Looking around the quinta at everything that needs doing I scarcely even know where to start — some brambles here, some bracken there … but aching muscles too accustomed to shoving no more than a mouse around all day are forcing me to slow down, just be with the land, settle in, inch a few root hairs into the soil. The soil smells delicious. The taste of the water is wonderful and has an energy and vitality to it that only water that hasn’t been killed by chemicals has.

After 3 days of trying to cram an ever increasing number of bits and pieces into the tent, I woke up this morning and moved up to the house, cleaned the dust, maize stalks, olive pits and eucalyptus leaves off the old table and set up a kitchen. With coffee on the brew, fresh orange juice to hand, and this for my morning view, I’m seriously wondering what else I need.

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This is the second post coming from Quinta do Vale! To be precise, the middle terrace next to the waterfall from inside a £28.99 (Halfords sale) 2-person tent with one person (and a laptop) in it. (The children have gone to their paternal grandparents for a week, so I took this opportunity to come out and take delivery of our yurt plus all manner of tools and gardening equipment shipped out from the UK by the intrepid and very excellent Fred and Nancy Morris.)

Yesterday it rained quite a lot, which is when I discovered that you get what you pay for in terms of tents. Still, the leak wasn’t too bad. My sleeping bag only got a bit wet. The fact that I’d bought myself a bottle of vinho tinto to toast my first night on the quinta and failed to also buy a corkscrew didn’t really seem to matter. I had enough thermals, etc, to keep me warm enough through the night, so all is well and this morning I woke up to this.

Kind of says it all really.

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I just read about Pete and Cynthia Bampton’s new RAM pump which they’ve installed over at Quinta da Mizarela to bring water from their stream up to the houses and terraces. I can’t wait to get back to Benfeita to see this in operation for myself, but meanwhile it’s given me lots of food for thought.

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Creating this site has been an extraordinary process for a number of reasons. It’s not that I’ve finally taken the step of learning how to run WordPress blogging software on my own site, because that isn’t particularly extraordinary. Nor is it that I’m putting this site together before the formalities of the purchase have been completed, even if that is a bit extraordinary (and possibly more besides).

It’s this. To write something vaguely coherent about our experience, to boil it all down into a few (though doubtless still too many) paragraphs, I had to take a step back from it all.

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