Category: Our Area & Community

  • Stay at home!

    With the Covid-19 pandemic going on, guidance from the Portuguese government is “Fique em casa” – stay at home! Not so difficult when the world looks like this …

  • Don’t Miss August Permaculture Design Course

    It’s less than a month until our final Permaculture Design Course of 2018 begins. Please don’t miss out! Our lead teacher for this course will be Michel Thill of Social Landscapes, supported by Jeroen and myself (Andrea). Participants will receive an internationally recognised certificate from the UK Permaculture Association. Full details here.   Take a more »

  • Permaculture Design Course photos June 2018

    It’s taken me rather a long time to get these uploaded, but here are my favourite photos from our May/June Permaculture Design Course, with many thanks to the photographers Andy, Josh and David. If you missed this course, we’ve another beginning on 17th August. Please join us then. Details here.

  • Sheep Shearing

    Today I’m feeling rather as if I’ve been run over by a horse, but perhaps it would be more accurate to say a sheep. Yesterday our neighbour and local Super Hero, Carlos, came round to help us shear the sheep. I say help, but he did all the shearing of course, and our job was more »

  • Monster Broom

    Wikipedia tells me ”Plants of Cytisus scoparius (broom / giesta) typically grow to 1–3 m tall, rarely to 4 m.” We’ve been cutting down specimens easily 6m today. We’re so happy to see these go. Broom is incredibly flammable, and having a giant impenetrable thicket of them (belonging to our neighbour) so close to the more »

  • Join us! Permaculture Design Courses

    We’re really excited that our first Permaculture Design Course of the year begins in just a couple of weeks. We’re looking forward to welcoming back Joshua Gomez who has worked with us here so many times before. There are still spaces, so please join us!     But if May doesn’t work for you, we’ve more »

  • Big Boys Toys!

    I am indulging my inner 6 year old by getting excited about the machine! Hired locally, it’s doing the groundwork for a ferrocement tank build project that we’ll complete during the summer.      

  • Can’t Beat It!

      You really couldn’t beat the view from yesterday’s work spot. We were doing a spot of work exchange with a friend. Tough work, cutting and hauling these burnt pines, but followed by a picnic on the walk back which couldn’t be beaten.

  • Land Clearance

    Land clearance is the project of the moment, with the deadline for clearing land next to the road fast approaching. Today’s area to tidy up – the hugel edge next to the road We’d allowed these pines to grow as a privacy screen, but most need to go. Many of the trees are infested with more »

  • With thanks

    With huge thanks to the generous hearted person who anonymously gifted us food for the dogs and cats. We (and they) are so grateful. Com enorme agradecimento à pessoa de coração generoso que anonimamente nos doou comida para cães e gatos. Nós (e eles) estamos tão agradecidos.