“Soils, like people, are transformed by the company they keep. They develop slowly, over time. Top soil, the upper, most productive layer of soil, takes over 500 years to form. That precious inch – and all remaining layers of soil – evolves in response to the climate, terrain and organisms with which it comes in […]
Tag Archives: life in Central Portugal
Spending Time in the Vegetable Garden
“When we eat good food, we smell and taste the earth, and thereby reconnect with it: that is what it means to eat with grace.” – Darra Goldstein I stood amazed this morning as I looked out over my veggie patch. The transformation from a piece of sloping earth into something filled with edibles brings […]
In Search of a Simple Life
“Do we have the strength within ourselves to slow down, to make the necessary changes personally, structurally, and institutionally…so the life around us can flourish?” – Terry Tempest Williams Michael and I, over the last couple of months, have had various discussions about what I’ve always termed as my quest for a simpler way of […]
A Busy Week on the Quinta
“It is not speed that matters, it’s persistence.”– Abhijit Naskar The past week was an exceptionally busy week on the quinta, and both Michael and I were exhausted yesterday. We told a friend on Saturday that no tool will be lifted on Sunday, as we were planning to make it a rest day, but nothing […]
Night Building
“Remember to look up at the stars, and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exists. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.”– […]
Pause, Stoop, Notice
“To know fully even one field or one land is a lifetime’s experience. In the world of poetic experience it is depth that counts, not width. A gap in a hedge, a smooth rock surfacing a narrow lane, a view of a woody meadow, the stream at the junction of four small fields – these […]
Spring
“You can’t have the light without the shade.”– Stephen Fabes After a long, cold winter here in Portugal, I was quite excited when the days started to warm up and the landscape around me was transformed in froth of white flowers breaking over the slope of the neighbour’s land like a giant wave. Spanish broom […]
Forging New Relationships
“. . . a relationship is a story you construct together and take up residence in . . .”– from A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit Relationships are an essential part of what it means to be human, and as Michael and I are learning how to live apart physically, we are […]
Battling Brambles
“A silence where you interact with your thoughts is also a sacred act, a way of owning your interior being. Sometimes you need to wade through your thoughts in order to let them settle.” – Heather McRae-Woolf Brambles, producing delicate flowers in spring and juicy fruit in summer, are mostly a web of thorns growing […]
A Working Heating System – At Last!
“All that came before us and all that surrounds us is continually leaving its imprint on what we are and how we are, on what we do and how we do it.” – Miguel Moore Monday morning dawned cold, which promted Michael to send an email to the company that installed the heating system. “Unfortunately […]
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