May '13

Finca Workings

After PG's parents had visited us, it was time to get on working in the olive groves. We finished pruning the tops of the trees and then I spent a week on the tractor grass cutting and ploughing it all in. By the first week of the month we had a wonderful "Mostra" i.e. the new olive buds and flowers, which promised to give us a record harvest. Unfortunately by the end of the month the cold windy weather had totally wrecked it and practically all of it had been destroyed and fallen from the trees. This year looks like it is going to be a lean year for us and all the other farmers in the area

Dog Days

The dogs love the spring. It is cool enough to enjoy having a good run, but the sun is still warm on their backs and there are lots of tasty young rabbits to catch. Then when the finca time is done, house likes to have his tummy tickled while he lies on the sofa. This cat likes to sleep in the tree next to Restaurant Mario.

Floating Away

The festes in Mas ended with the floats parade through the village. This year there was a noticable political bent to a few of the floats as they decried the austerity measures introduced by the EU and the problems caused by the banking sector. This didn't seem to be reflected on the floats with the kids

Goat to go

The Rasquerra goat festival is always worth a visit (especially if you like goats). this year the goats looked splendid as did all the stalls through the town

Low Flying

Someone must have chucked a dead pig out from one of the farms below the village because we looked out the window one morning to one of the biggest flocks of vultures we had seen so far. They must have finished their meal, because we could see them lumbering up onto the air before thermalling up in front of our house to get the height needed for their flight back up into the mountains behind us

Cloudy Evening

It is not often that we get good sunsets as we are facing east and the mountains behind us block out the low sun needed to light up the clouds from below. PG managed to get this quite spectacular picture of the coulds over the village