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the farm

February 2004
With the kind help of one of our friendly local estate agents, someone was located to pick our olives – we could not bear to see them go to waste – he is going to give us 15 litres of olive oil in exchange – probably not the best deal in the world, but the main aim was to prevent the crop going to waste. We have got to try to arrange to get the weeds treated and the trees sprayed and pruned so that we can ensure a decent harvest next year which we hope to get organized shortly (together with the million and one other things).

Where we once had a water boiler (it disappeared whilst we were back in the UK), we found that whoever took it did not bother to put end stops where they had disconnected it from the mains water – hence we could not turn the water on until we located the necessary parts and had fitted them. We also found that 22 sparrows had managed to come down the chimney, not got out and had made quite a mess on the white walls.

We spent a day up at the farm, had a picnic lunch and the dog had a whale of a time chasing sticks and exploring her new domain.

Steve pruned the fig tree (wearing protective gloves as we had read that the sap can burn) – he took them off for a couple of minutes and got a couple of wondrous blisters! He also pruned the 2 almond trees by the house – we walked round the land again and discovered we actually have 20 almond trees as well as our 273 olive trees and many holm oak trees. Most of the almonds seem to have been left to fall – I stuffed my pockets with some which filled a bowl when we got home.

We have had to make several trips to the Farm – getting quotes from builders, collecting firewood and of course, retrieving stuff which we stored at the Farm because we would not need it !!

We visited the local planning office in Algarinejo – here we discovered that any new building of any sort (extension or pool) must have technical drawings which will probably mean architects fees – this was definitely not in the budget.

April 2004
The mountainsides are in full flood of spring colour with great mats of flowers of yellow, purple and blue and alive with bees. Interspersed is the bright yellow of oilseed rape which some bright spark must have introduced years ago to try to fix nitrogen in the soil. It is now everywhere and if left to run riot, will provide a delightful fire hazard in the summer when it has dried and the seed pods are full of oil.

Spent Sunday at the farm and must have pulled up 200 or more of these damned plants to ensure that they don’t take over our little piece of Spain. Sore hands, sore feet and calf muscles like a mountain goat the next morning…

July 2004
Our first quote for building work was quite reasonable – the second quote was laughable and the third quote never materialized. After much thought, we decided we did not want to use the first builder, as we did not feel comfortable about the methods he was going to use to renovate the roofs. We managed to find someone to dig our septic tank, which is a major step forward. We can now commence with our plans for a bathroom and kitchen – the key to moving out there.

The digger came out on Friday evening and spent 5 and a half hours digging the hole and a channel to the house – we have boulders 2 feet across and we are amazed at how rocky the ground is – Saturday morning at 8:00, Steve was at the farm to give access to the water and electricity to mix cement. Our builder friend turned up at 8:30 with 3 plumbers – it seems the night before, the digger had gone through the mains. It was a bit like watching the 3 stooges – even though the mains pipe is flexible (the digger guy had tied a knot in it the night before) the plumbers did not have a clamp between them. Whilst adding the new section of pipe and connectors (which they also did not bring with them) they all got soaked. It took them 2 hours and cost us 40 euros (not bad for an emergency call out). The builder started laying bricks, etc. at 11am, whilst Steve handed down buckets of cement and the builder’s mate operated the cement mixer. By 2pm it was finished – only the filling in of what was left of the hole needed to be done. Steve spent the next 3 days doing this as we were told that it would be virtually impossible to get a digger for at least a week as they were all booked.

The olive trees have had their blossoms and the new olives are now forming – the fig tree is covered in figs but the almond trees do not look at all well.

We spent a whole day at the farm with strimmers cutting back weeds – me in the garden around the farmhouse and Steve around the olive trees. It was whilst we were doing this that the brother of the previous owner turned up and presented us with a bill for 470 euros for the work he said that he had done on the olives for us. We took this to our solicitor for translation and he was billing us for spraying the olives in November and December to protect the fruit and for spraying the ground with weed killer in December.

Well we have a problem with that – firstly why did he spray the trees to protect the olives that he told us should be left to drop this year and secondly, why was the ground covered with weeds when we arrived in early February. We told our solicitor that “we are English, not stupid” and we would not be paying. So far, we have heard nothing, the place is still standing and the bathroom contents have not been taken even though it is not locked.

April 2005
We spent at least 3 days in October getting our interest in the olives registered in Granada at the Junta de Andalucia to get our olive grant. After a couple of abortive visits (lack of Spanish language and the previous owner not rescinding his claim) one of our friends in Priego came along with us and translated and we at last got them registered. We could not know at the time that it was all in vain.

After the coldest winter here for 50 years – the frost and snow, combined with the lack of rain has destroyed our olive crop (they look all sad and wrinkled – know how they feel) – the chap who picked them last year said they were not worth the effort of harvesting them. We had enough work to do without picking olives so, if you don’t put any into the mill, you don’t get receipts; no receipts, no grant!

The snow also broke 2 large boughs out of the middle of our oak tree. One bough fell across the track and the other got hooked up in the tree. We bought ourselves a couple of bow saws and went back, cut up the bough across the track and then Steve went up a ladder which I footed and gradually cut chunks off the bough in the tree until he could swing it free. We then had to run for it as it came crashing to the ground!

The oak does not look too bad and we now have plenty of firewood for use in winter 2006.

To get our licence to reform the farm house, Steve spent many hours drawing out diagrams and sketches in readiness together with a list of works and materials that he translated into Spanish and our friend then checked and corrected (no doubt after he had picked himself up from the floor with laughter). The day arrived, the town planner (who is also an architect) asked if we planned to replace the tin roofs – we said yes eventually at a later date after completion of the initial work. He told us that if we commence any work, we must re-cover the roofs as the tin was only allowed as a temporary covering to protect the buildings and therefore any licence would only be granted if it included the roofs. He said we could do them in our own time but we should include them in our application.

He then asked what we planned to do with our sewage – we said ‘a cesspit’ – he said no. He pointed out that both our neighbours had wells which would be affected so we must either have a sealed tank which got emptied regularly or a fosa septica with a built in filtration unit and use the resulting water for irrigation. So the 900 euros we spent getting the cesspit dug and built was money down the drain (no pun intended). To say nothing of the 3 days Steve spent filling it in and our morning finishing it off! It does look like we should have our building licence for all the works with the next couple of weeks – a great relief as we had heard so many horror stories of licence refusals or the necessity of a full architects project being needed at vast expense and a delay of about 6 months or more.

The land at the farm is it’s usual productive self this year with 30,000 square metres of wild flowers (weeds ?) competing with the olive and almond trees. One of the benefits from our resolution not to have chemicals on the land has been an enormous increase in insect life which has resulted in a huge increase in birds. As well as all the usual sparrows, chaffinches and blackbirds, we have grouse, partridge, hoopoes, a cuckoo or two with eagles and buzzards overhead. We also have hare and rabbit and the lizard population is getting more diverse by the week. We have even started to get the sound of cicadas (one of the cricket family) during the day which is a sure sign that our land is returning to a natural balance. Cicadas make that continuous rasping sound that is always in the background of films set in South America. Some of us(!) find it quite romantic….

The buds are just coming out on the olive trees and the almond trees are covered in almonds this year – we have about 20 trees so we should get a good crop. The peach tree which had 2 peaches last year has the beginnings of about a dozen. Still cannot see what our plum crop is going to be, the blossom was spectacular but late this year so it is too soon to tell.

October 2005
Having got our Building Licence we have been working really hard at the Farm. To give us something to aim at, we set ourselves the target of giving some friends Christmas dinner in our "country kitchen". In any event we have to move to the farm quickly, so that we can offer Casa Luisa (the Rute house) for holiday lets from the beginning of 2006 so there is a certain urgency about everything that we are doing and we have made realistic, detailed plans to help us achieve our aim.

Mind you, we also had detailed plans for the work on Casa Luisa and that took 3 times a long as planned and cost twice as much but that is another story.....

We are working to simple principles

• create a useable and secure workshop and store out of the Barn

• get the basic sewage, plumbing and electrics installed

• build a larder and utility room from the Mule House

• build a kitchen, shower room and bedroom

• make and fit new doors and fit new windows

• tile floors, walls and decorate throughout before we move in

General
Steve dug out all the trenches and laid all the sewage pipes from 4 locations, our shower room, the guest bathroom, the cottage bathroom and the pool shower room. Throughout the utility, pantry, kitchen, dining, lobby, bathroom and bedroom, we have channeled out the walls and installed the electrical conduit and mounting boxes ready for the electrician to work his magic and give us power and light where we need it. All the old floor edge tiles have been removed and the bottom of the walls repaired. Outside we have cleared rubbish, started to lay the foundations of our car parking area and used all of the stone recovered from the house to make a dry stone wall that will be one boundary of the poolside garden and patio. We also discovered under years of rubbish, a perfect, cobbled floor in a shady, outside courtyard that will become our main entrance and a cool spot to avoid the extremes of the summer sun. We have bought all the replacement window frames and shutters and these have now all been stained and varnished ready for installation.

In the Barn, we have demolished an old stone pillar, created a new double doorway and installed sewage pipes from the proposed guest cottage. We made two new doors in "old Spanish" style and fitted them to give us a secure and spacious workshop for the rest of the refurbishing work and for the future running of the farm. The left hand portion of the barn will be enclosed to provide Wendy with a long awaited (30+ years) workroom, the rear will be a toilet and shower for the swimming pool and the remainder will be the workshop and tool store. The rubble that was on the floor has been leveled and we, together with some friends (both paid and unpaid) laid a concrete floor. We have made a hole for a window next to the existing door that eventually will be the entrance to Wendy's workshop.

The Mule House's excuse for a cobbled floor was taken up together with the underlying rocks and was leveled and concreted. We have demolished the stone feed troughs, knocked through from there to make an entrance from the kitchen, installed sewage from the kitchen sink and upstairs guest room, built platforms for fridge, freezer, water tank and pump and built new walls to create a separate pantry (despensa) and utility room for washing machine and dryer. The doorway through to what will be our shower room has been bricked up and a window has been cut from the pantry to the courtyard.

From the Kitchen we have knocked through into the old smoking room (cocina de leña) and will create steps up to what will be our sitting room and entrance hall. There is about a metre difference in floor levels, so we found ourselves tackling stones set in concrete that formed the foundation of the smoking room. Nothing that a lot of determination and a breaker drill couldn't handle! We have knocked through into the rear rooms that form our bedroom and bathroom and built the beginnings of the separating walls. During what was to be a small demolition in the kitchen, we discovered an old stone wall behind a newer brick wall that we demolished (i.e. it fell down when we leant on it) to expose the stone, add a bit of character to the room and create a good backdrop for the wood stove.

We have built our Shower walls from timber and plasterboard which will make internal tiling easier and can be disguised on the outside by our "rustic" plastering technique to create the rough and uneven surface of an old Spanish house....

In our Bedroom, we have knocked down the original dividing wall and bricked up the doorway into the cottage.

Shopping for supplies and services continues to test our patience but we have bought a new septic tank with biological filter (very "green" as it gives back 90% of all household water, clean enough to use for irrigation of our proposed vegetable patch and more importantly, new trees and shrubs that we will be planting). We also bought a cement mixer purely on the criteria that it would fit into the back of our Peugeot 206. Buying the new windows took a whole morning as the carpintero took us for a walk through the village so that he could show examples of the windows he supplies. After some research, we found a really good source for new internal doors and brought 4 back with us on the roof of the car. We also now have a water storage tank, 2 baths, 4 lavatories, 25 sheets of plasterboard and over 80 square metres of floor and wall tiles. The new barn is proving invaluable in having enough storage space to allow us to buy materials for the whole project at favourable prices. Our builder's merchant is an absolute gem; when we needed ready mixed concrete and his machine had broken down, he arranged for another supplier to fulfil the order and we paid for everything through him AND it was a competitive price!

Getting a sensible telephone and internet service is proving more difficult and we spent months waiting for one of the new, "whizzy" wireless internet installers to turn up to check if we can receive their service, only to give up in the end because they just didn't seem to care as we appear to be on the edge of their reception area. We are now awaiting Telefonica to turn up with one of their TRAC II phones that uses their mobile network to provide a service at standard land line charges. Broadband will elude us for another few years but even a connection at "slow" dial-up speeds is better than nothing. At least we have a Telefonica job number and await developments with anticipation.....

We need to fit the wood burner, find an electrician to install and upgrade the electrics, select our marble for the work tops so that we can arrange fitting and get a digger driver to re-excavate the cess pit so that we can install the new septic tank, etc. and finally have a proper flushing toilet....all before Christmas!

Our time tends to be spent working at the farm for a few days and then using the next couple for sourcing and buying materials in a never ending cycle of activity.

Perhaps the "mañana" lifestyle will come to us eventually and we can allow ourselves that "Shirley Valentine" moment.....

The Weather has been a bit kinder this October with some good rain that has mostly soaked in and is helping the olives to plump up. Although some of our trees are having a "quiet year" with no fruit at all, we should have enough of a crop to make it worthwhile actually picking and delivering to the mill in February. The small number of almond trees on our land has produced a good crop although they are not quite as tasty as shop bought and the plum tree only yielded about 10 kilos this year. A good pruning all round should help future crops and produce some firewood. The much anticipated peaches from the tree in the valley fell foul of birds who considerately left the stones still attached to the branches as evidence of their misdeeds. At least this stopped us looking darkly at our neighbours and we will net the tree next year....

Weeds always follow the rain but the weed type has changed again this year so we await developments as to whether we shall be overgrown or not. It is heartening that we have yet more grasses growing this year, which will eventually help to choke off some of the weaker weeds.

We have discovered through a friend, a scheme where the Junta de Andalucia encourage re-planting of indigenous plant species by giving them away. As we wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment and the word "free", we are applying for a huge order to help us create our new garden. The scheme includes a huge variety of shrubs and trees, most of which are drought tolerant and as we are told that we have fertile soil, we should be able to make considerable progress at re-foresting our small part of Andalucia.

So far the only injuries are as the result of Steve's continued efforts to bludgeon the house into submission with his head whenever he goes through a low doorway and the seeping realisation of both of us that we are not as young as we used to be and 50+ year old bodies need a degree of tender loving care if they are to get out of bed the next morning.