Living With Medicinal Herbs

Diary Entry 24-05-2013

2013-05-25T01:12:00.001+02:00

Another sunny day in Paradise, but a bit cooler, so towards the evening I lit a fire. Full moon again, so according the the moon calendar this is the ideal time to put out manure or fertilizer. But seeing that there is a lot of manure out already and everything is growing nicely, I will not even use any home made foliar spray as it doesn't seem necessary. Maybe next month.

It's already getting harder to find fresh, good herbs for the rabbits, so I started cutting some grass to make hay. At the moment I'm just pulling the grass out, but if the soil dries up a bit more, I will cut more grass with the scythe.

As it was so nice outdoors, I prepared another circle garden with 5 polystyrene rings one on top of the other, taped together with gaffa tape. That works great! It took 10 minutes to fill it and as soon as I know what to plant into them, I will add some topsoil, water it all in and start planting. I simply love this circle gardening which cuts out the sweat of digging over the soil completely! It's so easy to do! I also added one of those black tubes I prepared with a cork on one end and a few holes towards the bottom of the tube. Watering through those tubes is so easy and needs so little water, I'm so happy I discovered this "circle garden" system!

Lunch time I made another soup just like yesterday, but today I collected various herbs from the garden and from the wild, boiled them up with a stock cube and that was nice already. I still added the rest of the soy sauce I had and thickened the soup with a bit of cornmeal. It was delicious again!

In the afternoon I switched on the netbook and did a few hours of research. Took a little while again to get to the bottom and to the truth of the various subjects I had in mind, but eventually it all comes to light, even on the internet. I'm really grateful to those people who don't just write for the sake of writing and copying hearsay and confusion. It also seems that there are more and more people that will stand up for the truth. About time!

Late afternoon Montse and Eduardo came along to bring the shopping, so we had a beer and a chat to put the world "right" again. Yes, I guess, here in Las Jubeas it's easy to put the world in order! ;)

Then I fed the animals again, went for a walk with Twinkly doggy and made a lot of photos, some of which I will post here within the next few days and some I will upload to Redgage.com.

Here is one of the big circle garden in the evening sun:

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Diary Entry 23-05-2013

2013-05-24T15:24:00.002+02:00

Sunny again with a few little clouds and light wind, very agreeable weather, temperatures between 20 and 25 degrees C during the day.

I think I mentioned that I do gardening by the moon calendar and I use
http://www.moontracks.com/moon2013.html?Month=5 (for May 2013 etc.) as a guide.

Today the moon is in Scorpio, so I know it's time to water the plants. "Water" or "leaf" days occur every week, so after the seedlings have grown a bit, I only need to water them on one of the water days which are Scorpio, Cancer and Pisces once a week. It seems that plants only "drink" on those days and if one waters on different days, one may invite a lot of bugs. In my experience that is correct, but if I see a plant wilting away on other days, I still give it some water and very often they recover. Common sense really.

After feeding the animals and pottering about a bit weeding and planting yet a few more seedlings and lugging quite a big already planted earthenware pot (very heavy!) into the big circle garden, it was already getting quite warm, so I went in to cook some lunch. As I have too many cabbages, I picked one to make room for the others, gave the outer greens to the rabbits and chopped up the inner leaves. I cooked them with a bit of water and a stock cube, added some soy sauce and finally a bit of water with cornmeal (Maizena) to bind the soup a bit. It was totally delicious! So simple, so good!

A bit of "siesta" and then I started the watering. I use watering cans and not a hose. This may seem a bit more work, but to me it feels better to use watering cans.

Then Eduardo and Montse came for a short visit and when they had left, I resumed the watering.

What I didn't mention so far is that the first peas are ripe now and as I go along I look if there are any ready to "pick & eat". They are just so delicious, opening the pod, picking out those sweet peas - lovely! And the rabbits eat the pods. I had forgotten to sow out sweet peas this spring, but a couple of weeks ago I got another packet and now the first ones came up already. The sweet peas I eat as "mange touts" or the even sweeter peas later, but from normal peas, I only eat the young peas raw and the tougher pods are for the bunnies.

I also "pick & eat" the young lettuce leaves and young cabbage leaves I had sown out lately. This is fun and they taste so good! Somewhere I read: "Sow something every two weeks - eat every day!" It is true.

In the last 2 weeks those cabbages have grown to

more than double the size, time to eat a few!

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Diary Entry 22-05-2013

2013-05-23T01:23:00.000+02:00

Finally the sun came out again. Lovely day with blue skies and wispy clouds and a very pleasant 25 degrees C. That's how it should be in Spain in May.

After feeding the animals I got ready to visit my neighbors. They live about 2 km away from me around the mountains, down a bit abd they live right next to a natural spring/well. The views from their place across the "Barranco del Infierno" to "La Vall de Laguar" is simply spectacular.

They are called Montse and Eduardo and they live in Denia. But they take every opportunity to come up to see to their quite extensive vegetable garden. Eduardo is tending to the vegetables and Montse looks after her big flower garden. There is something flowering all year round. So beautiful!

We had lunch on the terrace and talked about the new laws they have passed in Europe with regards to seeds. It seems they had wanted to make it illegal for all people to save their own seeds, but didn't get away with it. The hobby gardeners stood up and made a point, so now it seems that we can save our own seeds for our own use, but not for sale.

Years ago they did the same with the medicinal herbs. The really good healing herbs are not available in seed catalogues or in shops. If you are lucky you can get them in an adulterated form from the pharmacy. I tried the Echinacea from the pharmacy, it was useless.

Quite frankly, I do not care anymore. I work my fields, I grow my vegetables from my own organic seeds and I grow the medicinal herbs that are potent enough to deal with all illnesses and pains and I shall grow them until somebody dares to stop me. It is between me and the Creator what I do which means that I respect and proactively care for nature and I treat my body with respect, natural diet and medicinal herbs. I do as I see fit as long as I don't do any harm to nature or to other humans or animals. Whatever laws "they" make, I am not interested anymore. If "their" laws include spreading poisons and adulterated seeds, I'm sure they will make their money with millions of people who are either ignorant or don't care. The politicians ignore us, so we ignore them. Yes, there is a "common law" that we all need to abide by, but meddling with our private lives, what we can do or cannot do with regards to our health, food or garden, that is really going to far.

It's also bad enough that some ignorants out their are still fighting for GMO labeling! But let me tell you what happens if GMO labeling is the law:

Yes, in Europe all human and animal foods that contain GMO products ARE labelled. The strange thing is though, that in very many cases there is NO ALTERNATIVE here in Spain!!! So what is the good of all the labeling? We have to stop buying GMO products and grow our own if we want to be healthy in future. Period.

Well, in essence that was what we discussed this afternoon and we also seem to agree about religion in general and in particular. I.e. religion is humbug and the various churches beggars and scroungers that got to become the richest institution/company by suppressing people and lying to them over the centuries.

I think that one has to go one's spiritual path oneself, one cannot "pay" for it. And for all the "good" that the churches do, well, a perfect propaganda machine in place is always a good wheeze.

I was baptized roman-catholic in Germany, but as soon as I was of age, I went to the town hall and "de-registered" from the church. Yes, I had to do that because in Germany they pay "church tax" extra on top of income tax etc. This was many years ago, I was just 19 years old, but even then it was known that pastors and priests were raping and abusing children and I knew even at that young age that I did not want to be part of an organization that sanctions child abuse and wars.

So I went my own spiritual way. I don't need an interpreter to talk to my Creator, I can do that directly in any of the languages I speak or even just in my thoughts. It makes for a happy life.

Strangely enough, I never spoke much about religion in the past, but with my friends today, we talked about it, they told me their views and I told them mine and again and again we agreed. Nice.

Then it was time for a late "siesta", so I walked home and had a quick snooze in the chair. When I woke up again, I prepared a couple of flowerpots with Comfrey plants for my friends and they will come and collect them tomorrow. We always exchange seeds and plants.

Then it was time to feed the animals again and to make bread and some dinner and yes, it was a good, even perfect day today in every sense of the word! :)

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Diary Entry 21-05-2013

2013-05-21T23:46:00.001+02:00

After feeding the animals it started pouring down with rain and I knew my friends Ramona and Markus had to leave at 11 a.m. to drive to the airport as they were flying home again today. They hadn't been lucky with the weather for their 10 day vacation! Normally, May and June are the nicest month here at the Costa Blanca, nice weather but not quite so hot as in summer. Oh well, nothing one can do, but I felt sad that they had to leave!

I knew I had to go out to make yet more firewood as the hut was getting damp and at 10 degrees C it is simply cold even though I was sitting there with my duvee wrapped round me reading my book about gardening with the moon and waiting for the rain to stop.

Finally the rain did stop and I went for a walk with Twinkly. Then I made some firewood, but didn't light the fire until later as I was out and about all afternoon. Behind the big circle garden there are two trees overgrown with brambles, so I made a start today to clear all this undergrowth. I need to have access to the trees to be able to put up some netting to shade the circle garden in summer. One of the trees is a fig tree with nice dark fruits, so it's well worth the effort to free it to be able to harvest the figs.

The rain made the alfalfa grow to an enormous size, so it's no effort these days to cut enough for the bunnies in about 10 minutes. Even the ducks love alfalfa, so each animal got a nice big bunch of it. The ducks also get a grain mixture. The water for myself and the animals is rain water which we collect in a 12.000 litre cistern and another 1000 litre plastic container. That generally is enough, even for the plants, but I have to ration it towards the end of August. And if I run out of water completely, I can get more water with my e-bike and trailer from a nearby natural well.

As there was still some daylight, I also freed a very nice bush called "cornicabra". It was rather overgrown with long trails of Spanish jasmine, but it didn't take long to cut all the undergrowth and then I cut the bush into a nice shape. Another one of my neighbors, Jose, told me that one can use the "cornicabra" bush and prop it with a twig of pistachio nuts as it's from the same plant family. I will try that.

It's called "cornicabra" because the fruit look a bit like horns of a goat (with some imagination!). Actually the fruit is a balloon and inside there are about 20 little lentil like seeds. My neighbors say they are not edible, but I did eat them and very nice they were, too! As the fruit gets older, the seeds become black and then the fruit pops open to release them. A very interesting plant, indeed!

"Cornicabra" bush in one of my fields nearby

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Diary Entry 20-05-2013

2013-05-20T22:09:00.002+02:00

Another cloudy, rainy day yesterday, so I decided to design a splash page for a client. All went well, but then it started raining again, so I had to stop and hide my netbook, the roof is leaking here and there ... But there was an hour of sunshine and so the filming got done and the video clips are now off to be edited properly. I'm told the finished video will be available on Vimeo.com, so I will add the link here as soon as it's available.

Today all grey - boring. I fed the animals, made more bread and then I got so bored. I'm all motivated to work in the circle garden and there is lots to do, but it started pouring with rain for a couple of hours and I felt so cold. Towards the evening it cleared up a bit and I made more firewood for the evening.

Then Ramona and Markus came along and took an old kitchen sink with them. I don't know what to do with it and so I had offered it to them for their newly bought house. Well, one way or another this old Spanish kitchen sink will travel to Germany soon.

I'm still bored today, so I won't bore you any longer and go and read a good book! I tend to download them from Smashwords.com these days and I read them on my netbook. I like ebooks very much! No need for paper, no need for bookshelves anymore and they are, of course, a lot cheaper!

I also think I've become a real nerd! I've written my PayPal details on the kitchen wall with a big felt tip pen and other passwords next to the wall by my desk. I'm sure nobody can make sense of all those weird words and numbers, but I know and that's all that counts! But it is sad, very sad ...

This is another group of plants, flowering aloe vera, geranium and oregano,

just somewhere in a quiet corner by some rocks where they do

rather nicely by themselves as it's semi-shade there.

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Diary Entry 18-05-2013

2013-05-19T00:16:00.001+02:00

Still sunny, cloudy, rainy and cold although the barometer is finally moving up. Had to make more firewood and I'm glad I did, it's rather chilly during the night.

Finished planting all the carnations and also planted more herbs in the circle garden, cooked lunch and made bread. It's been a quiet day today, so feeding the animals was rather the highlight! The little baby bunnies have opened their eyes and are hopping around a bit.

I still haven't got a name for the new buck that the young men brought along. I didn't know what to do with him at such short notice, so I put him in with Alinka and the babies. The cage is rather big. The buck is about 4 months old only, so they circled for a while and Alinka wasn't pleased at all with him, but suddenly he pretended to be a baby again and sat with the little ones. After another while, Alinka started scratching and doing and when I looked what it was all about, she had made the nest bigger to accommodate them all! I didn't really know what would happen, but I had rabbits for 15 years and I have never ever had any bunnies fighting. Somehow they are quite sociable and do get on although many people say that they are solitary animals and are not sociable. Well, maybe here everything is different!

Amazingly, there are still no slugs and snails as one would expect with all this rain. Mr. Toad must have done a superb job last year!

But, at the moment the crows are around. First I saw about 20 and a few hours later definitely over 100. They are big birds here and they homed in on the cherry trees in one of my neighbor's fields. That'll be ex-cherries then! Learned another lesson! If I ever have a cherry tree, I will have to put a net over it in spring!

That was my circle garden at the beginning of May,

I'm rather behind with making pictures, but will make more tomorrow!

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Diary Entry 17-05-2013

2013-05-17T23:40:00.000+02:00

No change in the weather today. Cool, sunshine, clouds, light rain all day long. Quite ideal for planting and having a rest when it's raining. Not bad.

I had just planted a few herbs into my big circle garden when a couple of young men from the next village came to bring me a rabbit. A few weeks ago I had given them an old beehive as one of them wanted to start keeping bees. I like those two blokes. They have family, but no work. There is no work. So they have taken it upon themselves to "make" work and it seems as if it works out for all of us. We DO and CONTRIBUTE one way or another and life goes on.

Seeing that they are serious about beekeeping, I gave them another 2 spare beehives and my beekeeping outfit and tools, so they can get started properly. In return they will bring me wax and honey and help me with the remaining beehive I have. Beekeeping is hard work and I'm simply not up to it, so I quite welcome the help.

I also want to state here that my bees are absolutely organic. I.e. they don't get any medication. They live and multiply and maybe make a bit less honey as I leave them enough for the winter, so there is no excuse to exploit them, give them glucose water in the winter and then varroa medication. We depend on the bees 100% and only total ignorance and greed can extinguish them. The problem of whole bee populations dying is avoidable, my bees are living proof of this.

Then I went over for lunch to my neighbors Alfredo and Pepa and their best friends, Carmen and Moreno, were there, too, so we had a nice meal and a good laugh as well. After lunch we sat in front of the fireplace, it was really nice. Unusual for May to light a fire here, but Alfredo and Pepa love a warm fire with big flames and I'm certainly enjoying it, too.

At around 5 p.m. I went home to feed the animals and to plant 3 more carnations and another 5 tomato seedlings. The circle garden is definitely getting "full" now!

The first beetroot were ready to be harvested, so I ate a few beetroot greens and shared a few with the ducks and rabbits. We all love beetroot leaves! I also harvested a small cabbage and I still had a few small potatoes, so I thought a nice "winter" soup would be quite in order today. It just finished cooking and so I will have a late dinner today when the soup has cooled down a bit.

There is quite a wind blowing out there now and more light rain and the barometer is still low. Oh well, I hope it will be a bit warmer tomorrow!

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Diary Entry 16-05-2013

2013-05-17T00:12:00.001+02:00

Seems as if all Europe is under the spell of rain and more rain and it's rather cold, too.

Actually it started off quite nicely in the morning. Lots of sunshine and quite warm, so I put some finishing touches to the circle garden. I added 5 of those old Spanish wine bottles that everybody seems to like so much and I will fill them with water which should give a nice micro climate for the summer.

Then I put out the amphora and the flowerpot we bought on Tuesday and I also found a big earthenware oil lamp, so I thought that looked nice too. At the moment there will be water in the oil lamp, but maybe ... if we get a hot summer, I might light the oil lamp and then we can sit by the circle garden and enjoy a warm summer night with a nice glass of "sangria".

When we were out shopping on Tuesday, I had so wanted to buy a little fountain with a pump run by a solar panel. We couldn't fine one and I was much disappointed. And then I remembered! We have a small 12V pump from the old caravan! We have a small solar panel which we brought from England! We have another old battery! We have cables! So with a bit of artistic ingenuity, maybe I could build a little fountain with local rocks and the equipment available? But where did I put the pump?

As it started raining lunch time, I thought there won't be much filming going on today, so I might just as well turn over the hut and search for the pump. It did take a while until I found it, but I also found an old rat's nest, so my quest for the pump ended in a major cleaning operation. Fair enough, it was still raining ...

Then it stopped for a little while and since it was still cold, I made a bit of firewood to make the hut cosy for later as my friends Ramona and Markus would be coming for dinner.

We spent a lovely evening together and shared a bottle of organic red wine.

Just now it stopped raining and the owl came out hunting. I can hear her very close to the house today! This is a big owl, but sometimes a small owl comes along as well and sits on a tree next to the hut and she always tells me a long story. Funny birds they are!

Well, I'm off to bed now dreaming/designing the new fountain for the circle garden ... ;)

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Diary Entry 15-05-2013

2013-05-15T22:06:00.001+02:00

After a sunny start of the day, a thunderstorm suddenly approached, yes, the barometer had fallen really low. So we went through a couple of hours of lightning, thunder, quite heavy rain and a bit of hail. One might call this weather unusual for May in Spain, but in 11 years of living here, I don't think I've seen 2 years the same with regards to the weather. We are now prepared for all weather here including snow.

I was itching to get more of the carnations planted and maybe a few tomato seedlings, so I took the opportunity to plant more as soon as the rain had stopped. Just got 3 more carnations out, it was easy as the soil was quite soft again and then it started raining once more. I made a hot soup as I felt a bit chilly and wet and after I finished eating the rain stopped again and I got 5 tomato seedlings out together with a trellis made of the bamboo I had planted here years ago.

Speaking of bamboo! I had brought the first bamboo plant from England. I hadn't wanted to leave it behind and it grew very well here, too. Then I divided the plant and started a new patch of bamboo. It also grows well and yes, most bamboo is spreading quite quickly. I often cut the bigger stalks to make a trellis or a small fence.

To my surprise (probably because of all the rain we had this winter), both bamboo plants had a lot of sprouts. One of those sprouts had broken off, so I wondered if one could eat it! Maybe in a soup? I had read somewhere that one can eat bamboo sprouts, but had no idea how! So I peeled off the leaves that surround the sprout (this one was about 10 cm long) and found a soft, green, juicy bit of stalk which was lovely to eat even raw! So this will be a nice addition to future salads and soups. And it's supposed to be super healthy, too! And as to bamboo spreading too much and too fast! By all means, go, go, go! I love the taste of those young bamboo shoots!

Around 4 p.m. it started raining again, so I simply had a little snooze in the chair. At 6 p.m. the rain stopped again, I fed the animals and had a last look at the circle garden. Yes, I like it. I love planting vegetables with flowers and all the energies that the circle and the plants give. Not sure if I could describe it any better, but fact is, as I walk through the high grass towards the circle garden, I start feeling some really nice, positive vibrations. Not sure if I'm imagining it, but it sure feels nice.

The barometer is still very low, maybe there will be a bit more rain during the night, but I hope tomorrow we'll have sunshine again to do some filming!

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Diary Entry 14-05-2013

2013-05-14T23:59:00.001+02:00

My friends from Germany, Ramona and Markus, had arrived for a short holiday last Saturday and today they took me shopping. I don't have a car, so we bought grains for the animals and went to a garden center where I bought 20 carnations for my big circle garden. After shopping I invited them to a bar in Vall d'Ebo for lunch. Vall d'Ebo is about 8 km from where I live and I've got nice friends there. So it was nice to see them, too.

Yes, "going shopping" is quite a rare thing to do for me these days. I generally save up some money for a month or two and then I get what I really, really need. According to the list I made in that time. It's really amazing how many things I write on this list and then I cross them out again as I might have found a home-made alternative.

In the evening I fed the animals again and had a bit of a rest as I didn't want to expose my skin to the sun too much, because of the allergy. I'm a lot better today and it seems that especially the almond paste made it all better.

So just after the sun had gone down, I ventured out again to plant 12 carnations, the rest tomorrow then. The soil was quite hard already, but eventually I got it done. Not a lot of moon today for moonshine gardening, but with my headlamp it was easy.

I had also bought an amphora and a nice earthenware flowerpot made up of three little pots and I already have one of those attractive old green glass bottles, all to make it looking nice for the filming.

The filming of the circle garden and the other bits and pieces I planted is scheduled for Thursday, so I think we'll be in for a nice video soon!

Sorry, didn't have time or occasion to make a photo today, but I guess I can make a nice one tomorrow with the ring of red carnations around the outer circle.

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Diary Entry 13-05-2013

2013-05-13T18:39:00.001+02:00

Spent the morning feeding the animals and doing something about my allergy. My face looks horrible, seemingly a combination of sun allergy and an allergy caused by the herbicides that my neighbors have sprayed. There is really nothing one can do except wait it out and apply aloe vera gel which I make from aloe vera plant leaves that grow in my garden and almond flour paste as a mask or peeling. It only needs grating 3 or 4 sweet almonds to make a paste with a few drops of water and it's so soothing! So that's what I did and afterwards I put some castor oil onto the skin to alleviate the itching.

Fact is, probably due to some temperature I'm running, I feel active and absolutely fine! It's just the skin of my face and neck that needs looking after a bit now, but I wouldn't go to the pharmacy or doctor. It's really not necessary. I've had this sort of allergy before and I know I can handle it.

Having to stay out of the sun for a bit, I started sorting out my seed box. This took a little while, but it's good to know what seeds are there. I noticed that I don't have any flower seeds. None at all! So tomorrow I shall go shopping and there will be a few packets of flower seeds to bring home, maybe even a few already flowering plants from the garden center. Would be nice! And I absolutely must get a small fountain with solar panel for my circle. Water features also give tremendous energies and positive vibrations! I'm quite looking forward to decorating my circle garden!

I've also already prepared a patch where I want to plant the "Three Sisters". The Hopi Indians have done this sort of companion planting successfully for centuries it seems, so anything that might be successfully growing on dry land and in hot summers, is for me to try out. The beans are out there already and today I've planted a couple of pumpkin seedlings with them and I've put 30 corn seeds in as well. Cross fingers that everything will grow together nicely!

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Diary Entry 12-05-2013

2013-05-12T17:54:00.000+02:00

**********************************************

No one can deny you or grant you anything.

It all comes to you by virtue of your vibration.

-- Esther Hicks

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As is understood, Life - God - in its essence is Vibration.

Reading 281-4

-- Edgar Cayce

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The sacred sound OM, thoughts, illusions, feelings, crystals, colors, music, paintings, art, prayers, desires, flapping of birds' wings, the humming of the bees, the wind, plants, animals and even voodoo and witch's spells are no more than vibrations. And yes, even our computers have a crystal inside to make it work.

I personally felt a sudden emotion of clarity and freedom on realizing that everything is vibration and surely, if I consistently change the vibration, I change the outcome of whatever I have in mind.

In my little world, my thoughts are revolving mostly around our land, living with nature and growing vegetables, fruits, medicinal herbs and keeping small animals for manure. I also write this diary, try to keep up all my blogs and I write an ebook at the moment. This wasn't always so. I used to have jobs and a busy life in our society. Comparing the vibrations of those two different lifestyles certainly shows a great difference! Back then my vibrations were focused on fears, feeling inadequate, pressure from all sides and generally negative vibes and emotions.

Now, my life is quite different. I can sit and enjoy a sun rise or sun set or the stars at night, I can go out and do gardening in the sun (or the moon!), I can walk in the rain, I can build something, I can meet nice people I really want to meet, I have time to write and study. I have time to explore which vibrations would be best for my plants and animals and myself for that matter. I can now say: "Is this the right attitude, am I sending out the right vibrations, am I doing ..... right?"

And I know that positive vibrations, if only I can conjure them up mentally, somehow get transferred at lightning speed. But I also know that I need more practice with that. It's not so easy to sort of automatically raise the right vibrations! But I guess it's the same with all things in life. Realize it, focus on it, practice it - the eternal recipe of success. So I will.

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Diary Entry 11-05-2013

2013-05-11T23:29:00.002+02:00

Cloudy, but a very agreeable 20 degrees C, so I planted out a few tobacco seedlings and watered the circle garden. More weeding and mulching and then suddenly it was lunch time.

My neighbors Juanjo and Mireille had invited me for lunch, we had lovely chips, meat and a fried egg and spring onions to munch with it.

After lunch the 3 of us went down to Juanjo's fields to plant tomatoes, a few melons and pumpkins. Then we watered it all in and went to another field to losen up the soil between the onions and the garlic and watered that in as well. The sun came out a bit, it was really a nice afternoon.

Yes, working in the fields is physically hard work. Not the same as my circle garden where I can do a bit every day. If one wants to plant and tend to 50 tomatoes, 300 onions and 100 garlic plants, it's backbreaking work. I agreed that I will water the plants when Juanjo and Mireille can't come over and for that I get half the harvest. I'm really glad about that, because now I simply know I have enough food over the coming winter.

After reading the book about Monsanto (which I mentioned in an earlier blog post), I feel that we simply have to get self-sufficent in order to survive Monsanto and the other companies that want to have the monopoly on food and poison our planet. Enough people have tried to stop them, but they have the lobby and there is not a lot we can do if even the courts are on their side. Really the way they are carrying on is quite incredible. Makes me wonder if they, too, have sickly kids and want to leave a poisoned world to them or if they have their secret organic or biodynamic food supply for themselves.

Many people like me are not waiting to find out. Meddling with nature always has gone wrong and always will go wrong. So what makes them think that they can play God? Of course, it will end in tears, people will simply be starving in the sense that the GMO plants don't have the nutrition required and are poisoned on top of it. And unless somebody learns about saving their own seeds and farming now, then it will be too late shortly. A weak, sickly person can't do physically hard work and much less if people simply don't know how to raise crops and how much of everything. And don't have seeds!

I think the message is out and if people don't want to listen and act, then they will bear the consequeces. Not a nice thought, but there is no alternative.

Right, folks, I've done my bit speaking out against Monsanto. It won't change anything, I know that. I'm just wondering if Europe and the US is still a democracy. It doesn't look like it. On one hand we have "corporate rule" and on the other hand we have "mob rule". Both are 100% wrong.

Not nice for me to have to live in a world of lies and ignorance. Never mind, my own little world is ok and maybe that's the only thing that really, really matters anyway.

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Diary Entry 10-05-2013

2013-05-11T00:30:00.000+02:00

Temperatures fell again today to a very agreeable 25 degrees C during the day and now we are down to 15 degrees. Blue skies and a few clouds every so often, another ideal day for gardening.

Bearing in mind that there are people coming for filming, I thought to really clear the big circle garden of all weeds which is not something I normally do. I like some ground covering weeds, every little helps to protect the soil from the sun. But I guess, people want to see a nice garden!

Lunch time I had a flower smoothie. I'm really sold on those smoothies or green drinks! I collected some salad greens, a cabbage leaf, some parsley, a lemon leaf and marsh mallow leaves and then I added some calendula petals, rock rose petals, borage flowers and the petals of one big red rose. I had cut it all up and then mixed it for a while with my hand-mixer. Not only was the smoothie delicious, I felt a real surge in energy and something that felt like somebody taking a cloud or a weight off my head. Really nice feeling!

In the afternoon I researched a bit about lemon leaves. Somewhere somebody had mentioned that there is caffeine in lemon leaves. On http://www.botanical-online.com I found a full entry and it confirmed that Spanish lemon leaves and flowers as well as orange leaves and flowers contain a substantial amount of caffeine. I will try out over the next few days if chewing lemon leaves or making them into a smoothie really has the same or similar effect as drinking coffee. Maybe in future I can drink that instead of coffee. Would be nice.

As it got cooler in the afternoon, I carried 6 buckets of small stones to the circle garden to finish 3 little paths that still needed doing. I'm rather pleased with the layout now, green light to plant more and more and more ...!

Feeding animals again and going for a walk with Twinkly was nice today as the sun went down. We do have rather spectacular sunsets almost every day here and I love watching them.

As the flatbreads had turned out so nice yesterday, I thought to make some more today as I'm expecting visitors tomorrow. Where has the day gone?

It was late already when I mixed some grated almonds and a sun tea of lemon slices, parsley and rosemary. This makes a lovely peeling and mask at the same time and my skin feels nice and soft now.

After midnight already! I don't think I'll make the 1000 words for my ebook today. I'm too tired.

Those small young mange tout are just so lovely!

I harvested about 10 of them today and just ate them raw.

Good night and thanks for calling in!

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Diary Entry 09-05-2013

2013-05-09T23:36:00.001+02:00

Started to get hot quite early again although it wasn't as hot as yesterday, about 28 degrees C, blue skies and a few small fluffy clouds.

Ideal to make some photographs, I thought, especially since there are a lot of flowers out there, even my roses started blooming. The hot afternoon hours I then spent reducing the size of the photos and giving them meaningful names. It just takes quite a lot of time to do it properly.

I knew I had to bake some bread today, so I started making the dough. Making a fire in the wood-stove at those temperatures? I think not. The dough rose nicely and after kneading it a second time, I cut it into 6 equal sized balls and formed them into flatbread. They rose again a bit and then I used the gas stove to heat a frying pan with a bit of olive oil and fried/baked them for about 10 minutes each on the smallest flame possible, turning them a few times to make sure they got golden brown on both sides.

Hmmmm, the smell of fried bread wafting through the cottage, I love it! And after I had a salad for lunch from things that grow in my garden including a few rose petals, some borage flowers and some calendula petals, I've been eating fresh flatbread and butter. I just can't leave it alone, it's so delicious!

Walkies with Twinkly, watering the most delicate seedlings again, feeding the animals ... and suddenly it was dark again. Where did the time go? I felt I hadn't done a lot today! Yes, I also prepared another big flower pot to take some cuttings from my red rose bush, but that's not exactly a lot of work. Well, maybe it was just another day in Paradise then.

Here's a selection of photos I made today:

Group of geraniums, aloe vera and oregano

Newly planted: Opuntia and two aloe vera in front of a young rose bush

Anis is blooming!

The blue grapes are doing particularly well this year!

Still very small - the bushy beans!

Cabbages are doing well! I'm so pleased!

Peas are my favorites! I've eaten this mange tout already!

First little roses this year!

Must harvest the lemon balm soon! What a lovely scent!

This plant is invasive! It's called "mil amores" (thousand loves) in Spanish.

It belongs to the family of valerians and the root is used to make calming tea or tincture.

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Diary Entry 08-05-2013

2013-05-08T19:07:00.003+02:00

Just a normal Wednesday ... The temperature has risen to 30 degrees C today. It seems it takes me less time to adjust to those sudden rises in temperatures these days, so I'm grateful.

Made a wild herbs smoothie for lunch with raisins and curry. Yes, I prefer slightly salty and spicy smoothies. I was rather surprised that it turned out that well as I'm not a smoothie person. I had just read the book: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/313260?ref=antjecobbett

Must remember to write a good review for it. The book is really good, no fluff, just the essentials and that's how I like it!

And while reading it, I thought, well, that actually is the way to make a decent meal out of wild herbs and anything that grows around me as long as it's edible. And surprisingly, there is always something growing, summers and winters. But it's just never enough to make a meal! So making a smoothie with all the edibles I can find is really the solution and it's super healthy and no cost.

I wasn't sure if it would work just with a hand mixer, but it does work very well, I just had to add a bit more water and use a narrow/high glass jar and then it mixed it just fine.

Being so warm today, the nests of the baby bunnies were open and I could observe them. I don't like touching them as it signals to them that mom is coming to feed and I don't want them to be disappointed. Ahhhh, but they are cute. A few more weeks and they'll be out and running.

As I was just contemplating of what to plant next in my circle garden, I saw that one of my aloe veras is not only flowering, but also had at least 10 "babies". So I cut them all out, put them into a bowl of water and then I planted them in a symmetric fashion into the remaining circle beds. In the middle I put another few opuntia leaves. That's easy enough. One cuts a leave and plants it straight into the soil or simply puts a rock on top. They will grow roots.

So that mixture of aloe vera and opuntia will give the other plants more shade over the years which means less watering for me.

I'm not exactly in a hurry to finish my 30 ft circle garden, but there is a small camera team coming from Germany next week and they want to film here. So I want the circle garden look its best.

So more weeding for the bunnies and more mulch to bring in and then I call it a day.

It seems that a lot of people like to know these days about the blogger's thoughts and stuff one generally doesn't put into a blog post. Well, why not? I think I consider myself quite different to other people anyway, so I might just as well refer to my thoughts as I have a lot of time thinking here in the wilderness.

One thing I could finally put to rest. I was never much a religious person although I do believe in a Creator. I've also read the Bible and the Bhagavad-Gita and drew a lot of inspiration from the latter. And finally I found this article by Steve Pavlina on:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/05/10-reasons-you-should-never-have-a-religion/

You know when you read something and it totally speaks to you and you think: "I could have written that, too!" And that is how I felt when reading Steve's blog post. But he wrote it and that saves me a lot of work! ;)

It's late already and I must write another 1000 words or so for my ebook, so see you tomorrow! :)

That's a pretty flower I found in my neighbors garden.

What a vibrant orange and all the different shades!

We don't know what it's called, but I got 2 shoots

to take home and I'm sure they will grow here, too!

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Diary Entry 07-05-2013

2013-05-07T15:56:00.001+02:00

Nice morning, just a few clouds, some sunshine and a very pleasant 20 degrees C.

As I'm weeding my circle garden, I was thinking about the book I had read last night:

Deconstructing Monsanto $0.99
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/313295?ref=antjecobbett

Yes, it was worth every one of the $0.99, some of the information in there is out already, some issues relating Monsanto were new to me. How can we stop this company?

I had hoped, yes, hoped, that here in the mountains of Spain, Monsanto will not reach me. It did. Here in Spain Round-up is distributed free to the farmers and my neighbor uses it. I could scream, but can't. Mob rules. I'm the odd one out, so I'm wrong and after all we are in a democracy. No we are not. Nobody is allowed to do me physical harm, but the Monsanto products do, yet I have to put up with it. I get ignored! It does not make me feel good.

There I was eating healthy food all my life, year after year I grew as much vegetables and fruit as I could, decade after decade I spent my money for good products in the health food shops. I'm a healthy 58 year old, never had an operation and I'm not on any tablets. So why am I being ridiculed? - Mob rule again, I guess.

But what's more. I've given up a middle class lifestyle to live out here in Spain, dry land on terraces, thinking that Monsanto will surely not come here. They won't, of course, as we cannot use machinery here on the terraces, but they can give Spanish farmers who are struggling their rotten products for free to make sure every unspoilt region on this earth will be contaminated.

I guess, all I can do now is talk to my neighbor and offer him to weed the two fields that join to mine manually so that he doesn't have to use the newest of the new, safe, biodegradable Monsanto products which in a few years time will be proven to be unhealthy and will be taken off the market when they've made their billions.

I'm glad my husband and I opted out of having kids. I would be ashamed to have to admit that I was too weak to fight Monsanto and mob rule. And I would be ashamed to leave a world to them where they have no chance, absolutely no chance to be happy and healthy.

But I will carry on living, what else can I do? I will watch my Petrushka, who had her bunnies today to see if she and her babies are healthy, I will continue my circle gardening to produce my own healthy food and since last week I don't shop in supermarkets anymore - EVER. It's over for me. And I will also not buy the grains at my animal food supplier anymore. They are all labelled GMO and there is no alternative. And doubtless, those crops are sprayed with one or the other Monsanto and/or one of their competitor's products. Oh, no, Monsanto is not alone! Hiding in their shadow are more companies that want to compete with them.

It's not too late this year to plant more spelt grains, chickpeas, wheat, peas and greens that my animals can eat and I will go to the trouble and forage wild plants for them and for myself as well. Help myself, nobody else will. I found that out not so long ago, too.

And pray and hope that I will make it into old age being healthy and not being a burden to society. That's all I ask.

That's Petrushka and Sir William, my outdoor rabbits.

They are just protected by a fence against dogs and foxes

and the rain. The nest with the babies is under the flower

pot where I had cut an opening in. Very practical!

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Diary Entry 06-05-2013

2013-05-06T23:57:00.001+02:00

Was glad to wake up early again and well, Spain today lives up to its reputation. Nice and warm, sunny and a few clouds, very pleasant indeed.

Went out to my big circle garden to do some weeding. The grass I threw into the compost and the good herbs I put into the basket for the rabbits. It's not that easy anymore to feed rabbits just any fresh grass or herbs as one could do in the olden days. So called scientists had invented some virus (so they tell me the locals) and that virus sits on grass only. If a rabbit eats that grass, it gets sick and dies. So this is why I sort out the weeds, the good medicinal weeds/herbs into the basket for the rabbits and the grass on the compost.

The ducks should in theory eat everything as long as it's cut small enough to fit their beaks, but that can be a lot of work. They love dandelions and soft big leaved herbs, so that's what I bring for them and they somehow munch it all up. They also get some grains and a big bowl of fresh water every morning.

It is incorrect that ducks need a lake or river to live there to be happy. Especially Muskovy ducks just want a big bowl of water to wash and eat. My other 3 little ducklings would have drowned, had I given them a big bowl. If ducklings are not taught by their mum how to wash and swim, they they just rush to the water and drown. I hope one day when they have learned to swim (I've provided them with a little swimming pool already, but it's not filled to the top yet), they'll breed and teach their offspring immediately. I think that's a problem really if one has to buy young animals in a shop. They don't get taught naturally by their mum and so we have to replace mum to a certain extend. At least there is 3 of them and so they'll have a proper "social life".

The "siesta" hours I spent writing on my new ebook. I wrote up the table of contents and pre-formatted all the chapters and was even able to write a few paragraphs for the first chapter. I felt real good about it. There is something about writing, some people say that writing liberates, yes, I feel the same, but most of all I like sharing the things I've experienced.

And while I was writing and Twinkly doggy was snoozing on the bed, Alinka bunny had her babies. Quietly. I only noticed it when I heard a baby squeaking. I had a look, there were already a few in the nest, two outside the nest and two were born dead. So I put the live ones back into the nest otherwise they wouldn't survive. The two dead ones I took outside and soon Twinkly had found them and ate them up. Let's see if Alinka is feeding her bunnies, first time mums don't always get the idea right away.

As the sun was going down, I went for a walk with Twinkly and then weeded the circle garden again and planted some cucumber seedlings and some courgette seedlings. I guess they'll be find now, the temperature rose to 20 degrees C during the night - very pleasant.

For lunch I had garlic soup with parsley and lovage and very nice it was too. Morning and evening I had two slices of home-made bread with butter and honey and in the evening I made myself a salad with lettuce, spring onions, garlic greens, a bit of salt, some grated almonds and mayonnaise. Then I fried up 3 small potatoes in big wedges and I think that's called Irish potatoes. With another dollop of mayonnaise it was very nice indeed.

I had grated a few more almonds and mixed them with a few drops of water, so before I go to bed I shall spoil myself with an almond peeling. I was rather surprised that this almond paste even cleans up very dirty hands. I tried it after cleaning out the stove and the pipes which invariably gets soot on my hands which never seems to want to come off. Well, household tip: Almond paste cleans dirty hands and leaves them soft and feeling very nice.

It's almost impossible to make a good photo of our stone

cottage as it's hidden behind so many pine trees and

general shrubbery. In the background (top right) is the

white house of our neighbors, Pepa and Alfredo,

about 500 meters away from us.

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Diary Entry 05-05-2013

2013-05-06T00:02:00.001+02:00

Socializing was a bit hard on me yesterday. Yes, we had fun and good food, it was very nice indeed. But even if it was only a little bit of alcohol I had, alcohol and I don't go well together. No, I wasn't drunk or anything, but all that food and a very late night, I just couldn't do very much during the day - too tired. So I had a good, long "siesta" and even slept for a little while, then a strong coffee and now I'm almost my old self again.

I did do a lot of watering late in the evening. It's daylight here until 9.30 p.m., and it was cooler again. During the day we had almost summer temperatures, so I guess I didn't miss anything in the afternoon. And yes, I'm watering everything using two 5 L watering cans. I used to have a pump running on solar power, but it simply uses too much water and it's difficult to control. I also only water on days when the moon is either in Pisces or in Cancer or in Scorpion, the water days which come round approximately every 7 days. That works well once the seedlings are established and saves a lot of water. I'm using this moon calendar: http://www.moontracks.com/moon2013.html?Month=5

Counting the hours now with my new bunnies. I brought the girls a lot of very dry grass today as they were starting to build their nests.

The ducks haven't laid any eggs so far. Not sure if they are still very young or whether they are simply waiting for warmer weather.

Without reading the label in the shop (I should never do that!!!), I had bought 5 kg of my favourite spelt flour - a new offer. Last week I made the first bread from it and it didn't turn out that well. I had read the label by now, it said that yeast and salt was already mixed in. A few days ago, I made a loaf again and again it rose simply too much! I thought it was my fault for having put it on a pot with warm water to help it along which I always do. Then today, I tried yet another method. I let the dough rise twice and second time round it was even bigger! I'm at my wits end with that because I make my bread over the stove with a big pot as "oven" on top of it and if the dough rises too high, then that's a recipe for disaster. Well, I guess today's bread turned out edible, but it's not perfect.

About half an hour ago, I had put another log into the stove, so all in all I had baked the bread 1 1/2 hours instead of the normal 40 minutes and as nice as such fluffy bread it, it's not easy to cut and tastes somehow "yeasty". Well, another trial next week, I will add some other wholemeal flour to it, that should give the yeast something to think about! :)

That's Alinka (grey) and Petrushka (brown). Alinka is the "nice" one and

Petrushka is a bit boisterous, but doesn't bite.

I hope we'll have baby bunnies within the next few hours.

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Diary Entry 03-05-2013

2013-05-03T23:50:00.000+02:00

Looks as if all 3 of my favourite neighbours came up for a long weekend. So there'll be a lot of socializing! Today I had lunch with Alfredo and Pepa which is always good fun and tomorrow I'll have lunch with Eduardo and Montse, our recycling "competitors" and after that we'll see.

Spanish people are not exactly quiet people, so there is a lot of to-ing and fro-ing as they visit each other even uninvited. That's normal here. You can always just come in for a drink and should you be hungry, there is more than enough food. Crisis? Maybe in the rest of Spain there is, but not here and not today! ;)

How can that be done? Well, everybody brings something. Today I brought the first roses for the vase and a few eggs. Carmen and El Moreno, best friends of Pepa and Alfredo brought wine and aperitifs and if there are more people, then each person brings something and soon there is a big "fiesta" going. Another Spanish friend of mine said the other day: "If you are broke, invite people for a fiesta!" First I didn't understand, but then I smiled. Of course! If everybody brings something ...!

Obviously I didn't do very much on the land today. I fed the animals, morning and evening, cut up more tobacco leaves and they are drying nicely now next to me on the stove and later I will dry more parsley. Lots of parsley these days. Then I cut up more firewood and that is unusual. Beginning of May there is no need to start a fire usually, but it is still very chilly. Even Pepa and Alfredo had a really big fire going in their open fireplace, so it actually felt more like winter than spring today. But the summer and the heat will come, there is no doubt about it!

Feeding the rabbits seems to work out quite nicely. I simply weed the big circle garden for about 10 minutes every day and that keeps the rabbits in food and the cabbages, beetroot and onions free of weeds. I like it when a plan works out well! ;)

Ducks are easy to feed, they eat simply everything as long as it's cut into mount bite sizes. If it fits into the beak and is vaguely edible, they will eat it. The chickens are more fussy, but then they are the divas that lay the eggs every day. So they get their grains and their favourite greens.

No, no mulching today and at the weekend not either, I'm busy socializing. Monday we start again with the "normal" work in the fields. I really like that every day is quite different here, there is no 9 to 5, Mo to Fri. I mostly think about what is the most urgent thing to do every morning and that is on top of the to-do list. Then there are extras like continuing to make yet more circles or cutting away undergrowth to clear spaces I had planned for cultivating this year. Basically that means cutting brambles and gorse and grass. Yes, it would be easier with a strimmer, but ours broke down years ago, so I just put on some gloves and cut with secateurs and big pruning shears. Bit by bit, step by step, it all gets done, no need to worry or get into stress!

That's it for today, must upload this text and check my emails and then I will write a few more pages for my new ebook.

Here's a video I made in Pepa and Alfredo's garden. Enjoy! :)

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Diary Entry 02-05-2013

2013-05-03T01:00:00.000+02:00

Last night I decided to start writing an ebook. I got the subject, the title and the structure and after a friend recommended smashwords.com, I will use this company to publish my ebook. But before I start writing, I thought to read their most important help document - the Style Guide. It took me until 4 a.m. to condense this help document to what I will really, really need and so I wrote it up in my free Jarte word processor which is seemingly very good. All the formatting suggested by Smashwords are available in Jarte and one can easily do a "Save As" to convert it to a .doc or .rtf document.

The thing is, I like doing things right from the beginning if at all possible. I would really hate writing the book only to find out that I then had to spend hours and days to re-format it for publishing it as an ebook. So I'm rather pleased with myself already today, I got the structure of the book, the formatting all set up, so I'm ready to go.

That'll be a lot of words to write each day. I know I can do about 2000 per day, so we'll see. Writing the diary AND writing the book - I will be busy! Most likely I will work in the fields in the morning, then have lunch, write 1000 words or more during siesta hours as it's really too hot to be out between 2 and 5. Then out into the fields again, yes, mulching and more mulching these days and in the evening writing another 1000 words or more.

Why would I want to do all that? - Well, living in Spain there are no jobs these days and even world-wide there are not many jobs to be had. I did could work on the internet writing for a few years, that's ok, but in the long run I have to look into what they call nowadays "passive income". That means blogging on Blogger with Adsense for me, writing articles on Wikinut and contributing to Redgage. Pennies here and there and everywhere, it soon adds up. And, of course, one needs to write an ebook. I think almost everybody has some expertise on one subject or the other and well, learning how to write is not that difficult really. Years ago I had seen an offer for a free course on how to write children's books. I didn't want to write children's books, but I reckoned that I could learn the basics there. I did and never looked back!

Another thing to take into account might be that if one lives quite far from civilization, i.e. jobs, then things can get a bit difficult without money. Obviously I don't need a lot of money, but some is certainly needed. There are no jobs where we live. Period. I also can't afford an office with computers and printers and cameras etc. as we had in England. It's not the money, I could buy the equipment, but then running the lot with a bigger solar installation and/or a small generator, well, is it worth it? I thought, not. So I decided to only write articles and/or ebooks on the internet. I like writing.

Maybe I should explain why it takes so long to feed a few animals here. It would be perfectly possible to feed them with some bought food mix and water in 10 minutes. But the thing is that in Europe we have GMO labelling. That's fine, but what if you don't get any other choice? That is exactly what happened here. You can only buy GMO corn now, it's labelled, but there is no organic corn or anything else organic alternative. I complained to no avail. Fine, I thought, you watch me, I can feed the animals from our land or I can let them out foraging for themselves. The latter is difficult as there are foxes and dogs from the walkers here and I have lost some chickens to dogs and some geese to the foxes, so I'm not chancing it anymore. The animals have roomy cages or are in our 25 square meter stable and I go out to forage for them. I have planted alfalfa, so that's there almost all year round and there are lots of medicinal herbs. I collect a big basket full of those herbs and distribute them to the animals morning and evening all fresh and they are all healthy animals.

Take my "Bunnyman" for example. He's a white angora rabbit, 9 years old and healthy. Yes, he's probably blind by now, red eyed rabbits don't see a lot at the best of times, but he loves to eat his herbs and some wholemeal bread.

Actually I just finished lunch. I had boiled a big pot of rice, some for the animals, too, and so I thought to make some fried rice with eggs and herbs. That's quick and easy and tasty. What do we have these days out there? Lots really. I collected a few parsley leaves, a few red rose petals, some borage flowers and some calendula petals. I didn't even cut them up, I just added everything to the egg-fried rice and smiled. Yes, it did look nice, green/blue/red/orange and it tasted delicious.

And what about dinner? Borage, borage everywhere! Until now I had only eaten the little blue flowers, so I looked on the internet and sure enough I found a recipe for "borage fritters". Now we are talking, so I made borage fritters for dinner! If you want to make some, too, here's the link: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/mario-batali/borage-fritters-frittelle-di-borragine-recipe/index.html

No watering to do today, so I dedicated the afternoon/evening to bring in mulch and reading the marketing guide from smashwords.com

That's where we live. To take the photo, I was standing next to my hut

under a flowering almond tree. Just behind it you might recognize a

building about 500 m away and that's the house of Pepa and Alfredo.

We are lucky to have such lovely neighbors and friends.

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Diary Entry 01-05-2013

2013-05-01T23:07:00.001+02:00

1st of May, also a holiday in Spain. There will probably be a lot of demos in towns and cities, but here it will be nice and quiet. I can't participate in all those demos and people shouting what they want. I'm really too busy doing already what I want. I think that is the choice we have.

Feeding animals again and getting more bags full of mulch and spreading it around the young plants. I know it's not an endless task, it just seems like it, but then again, it could be an endless task as there can never be enough mulch around vegetables, flowers and fruit trees.

Had run out of tobacco. I remembered that there was a couple of plants growing under a lean-to we have. I will never know how they managed to get water there, but they are big, stately plants and I keep harvesting again and again from them. This time I got about 20 big leaves. On a wooden board, I cut out the middle rib, it's really too big. Then I put the leaves one on top of the other and cut them as thinly as possible with a big sharp knife. As it was still quite cold, I lit the stove and dried the cut leaves in a drying tray stirring them with a fork every so often. It doesn't take long. A couple of hours approx. Then the leaves are dry, but still green. I thought one couldn't smoke them like that, but one can and I do and very nice they are indeed!

And suddenly - I needed a haircut. Yes, I've always cut my own hair, I learned it with my mum as a teenager. So out came the scissors and the combs ... It takes me about 20 minutes to do a proper short haircut, less if I do it for other people. It just takes time to "feel" how to cut at the back since I only got one mirror. Well, I'm feeling a lot better for it! :)

Then I mashed up a few handful of the chickpeas I had cooked, added an egg, some flour and spices and stirred it well. Then I dropped a bit of butter into the frying pan and when it was hot, I fried a few chickpea burgers. I think that is the only way I like chickpeas. Even Twinkly doggy wanted some and actually ate almost a whole one! Oh well, probably better for her than dry dogfood.

Then I mulched the apple trees and planted some calendula flowers next to them. More on healthy companion planting in a later post.

I also brought one bag of fairly dry leaf mulch for the chickens. It doesn't take long to clean out their cage and it's marvellous stuff that comes out of there. Mulch mixed with some green plants they had left over, some left over grains and lots of chicken manure nicely mixed in. Actually it was a soggy mess after the rain although the chickens are well covered. Never mind, I got 3 buckets of lovely mulch-manure as I call it and the chickens have a clean cage again with fresh leaf mulch doubtless with some lovely fat bugs in them which they like scratching for. The buckets went straight into another circle which will be ready for planting soon. Easy.

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Diary Entry 30-04-2013

2013-04-30T22:57:00.000+02:00

Tuesday already! Time really flies when you are having fun! Made another bread for myself and the rabbits and I cooked a big pot of chickpeas for the chickens and the ducks. They like them.

It was still cold in the morning, but sunny and just a few clouds. In the afternoon it clouded in and we got a thunderstorm and just a bit of rain. Then it cleared up again, but still only around 12 degrees Celsius, so the stove was going almost all day.

Maybe I started writing the diary on the wrong day. Not sure. This diary should be about gardening with vibrations, but well, I also work with the moon and now the moon is waning, so it's time for cleaning, washing, mulching, weeding, general maintenance and I wouldn't say it's boring, but it's not exciting either!

Here in Spain the farmers mainly plant during the waxing moon with a few exceptions like potatoes, for example. They get planted as close to New Moon as possible, but moon calendars says differently. Well, I try to follow the general trend with the moon. I've tried to ignore it and things didn't work out well at all.

So yesterday it was washing up day, cleaning the stove etc. and today more mulching and mulching again. I always go out with two big bags to fetch this mulch. To find it is the biggest problem really. I look for big pine trees and big oak trees that grow around here and have a look if there is already a lot of undergrowth. If there isn't, then there's a fair chance that I can rake up enough mulch, i.e. leaves and general stuff that's on the ground easily, fill it into the bags and bring it back to my circles, heap it around the growing plants as best as can and go again and again to fill the bags etc.

The thing is that the work is totally boring. I much prefer to plant, but when I lovingly place the mulch around the cabbages and see then how well they are growing with hardly any water at all, then I know it's all worth doing.

I know gardening and planting isn't for everybody. One just has to find out how many green fingers one's got. I know I've got at least 12! ;) Then take my husband, for example. He's a brilliant technician. He makes things, he fixes things, he invents things and that's when he's happy. He doesn't particularly like gardening, but wielding a chainsaw or a strimmer or a heavy cultivator, that's different, he likes that, because it's technical. And strangely enough he grows the best runner beans. And I mean: THE BEST. So maybe he's got a couple of green fingers to grow the best runner beans. Who knows? What I want to say is that we are all different, we all have a vocation and that's the main thing we should do really, but nobody says we can't have an outing every so often. So my technician husband grows brilliant runner beans and I can quite easily learn about solar installations, 12V electricity applications and conversions and I enjoy that as well with my 12 green fingers!

The result of our technical/green partnership has its advantages. We get technical things done to make life easier here in the wilderness and we both get the best food to eat which is important as we totally love eating! Again, our idea about what to eat can at times differ considerably. Really, my husband's idea of a good meal is a big grilled steak with salad for dinner and another steak for desert, all washed down with a few glasses of red wine. And he can take it! He's a healthy and fit 60 year old. I probably would fall ill immediately on such a diet. I don't like steak and I don't like alcohol!

Maybe I'm partly a raw foodie. Yes, I like raw foods and I like them prepared at their best. I love to eat them as fresh as they get, just pick and eat or I also love to make them into delicious raw dishes using spices and fresh herbs. Do I ever eat cooked food? Oh yes. Beans, potatoes I eat cooked and in winter I also cook soups with meat. I also make bread. And since we have laying chickens I also eat raw egg yolk or cooked eggs. Fish? Only if I'm invited at the neighbours. I'm not sure if fish is such a healthy option these days with all the pollution, so I keep fish to a minimum. I don't like legumes much, so I avoid them and if I cook them, I soon push them over to hubby who loves them.

What we don't eat: cakes, cookies, digestives, in short: We don't eat combinations of white flour, white sugar and dubious fat baked into something with a fancy name. It's not a great hardship for us not to eat that stuff, we never liked it anway, not even as kids.

We also don't do "labeling". He's a "raw fooder", she's a "foodie", etc. I don't know why people need those labels and want to stay exclusively within this label even if the body might tell them to eat something different. Yes, produce or buy the food with the most nutrition and the least petro-chemicals in them. That's either home-grown properly or buying it from bio-dynamic gardeners and farmers - fresh. I know, both is difficult and quite expensive, but we believe that we save money in the long run as we have no medical bills to pay.

And last not least: Joy! Why eat something we don't like? We love to eat and it is certainly joyful to eat good food without feeling bloated, heartburn, tired etc. after the meal is finished. We want to feel joyful and energetic after having eaten. That's all we ask.

Ahhh, lots of young cabbage leaves around. Ok, some I will let grow into big cabbages to make Sauerkraut (after all I'm German!), but today I shall make a Chinese dish from some of the young leaves. It was difficult again to choose! I so love to just go out and pick/eat young succulent cabbage leaves. Did you know that raw, young cabbage leaves have a "happy hormone" in them? Try to eat a few when you feel depressed!

So I ate a few young cabbage leaves and picked some more to make Chinese "Algae". That's what they call this dish in the restaurants. But really it is either salad leaves or cabbage leaves cut into very thin strips and fried in oil (not a recipe for beginners!!!). When done, I strain the oil off and sprinkle a bit of salt over the "algae". In the restaurants they put some fish powder over it which is very nice, too, but I don't know where to buy this fish powder here in Spain, so I eat it with salt with a piece of bread. Lovely!

Ok, must tell the story! When we were "just married", I didn't know that this Chinese dish called "algae" was made from either lettuce or cabbage leaves. But I liked it so very much. So I asked my husband if we couldn't do an outing to the seaside (back then we still lived in England) to collect some seaweed to make this dish. I had even bought some of this powdered fish in some Chinese supermarket. So off we went to collect algae. Gosh! 2 bags full! Then we watered them in fresh water in the bathtub! I DID dry them off before I put a handful into the frying pan where the fat was far too hot already! And no, we don't like green kitchen walls, so I had a lot of cleaning to do afterwards and I was lucky I hadn't burnt myself badly. So don't do that at home kids! It's all done by professional stunt men and women! ;(

I can use those bags from the supermarket

to bring in leave mulch from the woods ...

... or I can directly plant into them and then carry them

into the shade or into the sun - as necessary

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Diary Entry 29-04-2013

2013-04-30T01:26:00.001+02:00

Yesterday, Sunday, I couldn't use the computer/internet as it was still raining and the solar panels didn't load the battery enough. It's ok for light in the evening, but no more. It's quite unusual in Spain to not have enough sunshine, but well, it can happen.

Today I woke up again to grey skies, the barometer is still low and there were a few spits of rain, but later a bit of sunshine and blue skies again. So I fed the animals, made a bit more firewood which seems to be an ongoing thing still. Then I did some washing up and cleaned the stove. Not my favorite jobs, but it needs to be done, so I do it.

And with all this rain - no snails. How come? I checked again and again, but all the salad, the cabbages and all the new greens are ok - really no snails. Then I remembered. Last year I had two toads in the garden. They ate all the snails and the eggs as well it seems. Toads are funny creatures! In the summer they dig themselves into the soil during the day to keep cool and in the night they come out and eat all the snails. I think they can hear the little sounds that snails make even better than I can. Not sure if the toads will come back this year. We'll see. I always have a bowl of water out for them, they do like a bath. Really, toads are terribly ugly, but they can get quite tame and even friendly. Still, it's best not to touch them.

Today I had a salad with boiled eggs, mayonnaise and lots and lots of salad, spring onions, garlic and yarrow leaves as well as parsley leaves. That's real powerful stuff! I could only eat half of it with a piece of bread, the rest I had for dinner.

Again and again I read that medicinal herbs are best eaten fresh. Yes, I do have many medicinal herbs growing here, some cultivated, some wild and I always use some for lunch and dinner. Just like one would sprinkle chives or parsley over the dish when it's ready, I also add some medicinal herbs. Only very little is necessary as some of them are quite bitter. But yarrow isn't bitter, it's quite nice to eat, so I chopped up a few more leaves.

Bit more about vibration. Some Japanese scientist found out that if one writes "Love" and "Gratitude" on the watering can, the water gets better within 3 minutes. It's all got to do with the surface tension and the crystals in the water and I find it quite difficult to understand and to write about it, but I don't find it difficult to write "Love" and "Gratitude" on my watering cans with a magic marker! So I did. I also wrote "Joy" on them. So every time I pass them I read "Love", "Gratitude" and "Joy".

Does it DO anything? - I don't know. All I know is that I'm happy and my plants seemingly as well as they even did a lot of growing during the rain, especially the cabbages. Actually, I think it's all got to "play together" nicely. Good soil, good water, good seeds, good vibrations ... Plants and animals and humans can sense vibration, but humans often try to ignore it. But plants and animals don't ignore it. They simply thrive on positive vibrations and perish on negative vibrations.

Hm, it's a strange night out here today. As I'm writing, the owl came. She's hunting no doubt and my Twinkly raced out. She always does when she hears the owl. And then, suddenly I heard a cat screaming. Twice! But there are no cats here, the owl was on the other side of the valley and Twinkly was back with me again. Very odd.

People often ask me how come that I'm not afraid to live here alone. I don't always live alone here. I'm married, but Bill is working in Germany these days to keep us afloat. The crisis hit us quite hard, but I think we are resourceful enough to somehow pull through. But it means that we can't be together right now and it means that I'm alone in the wilderness here most of the time.

Yes, I do have neighbours, but they live between 500 m and 2 km away from here. We all know each other and meet, but mostly only at the weekend when they come up. They all got jobs at the coast and/or don't want to live so far away from civilization, but enjoy a weekend here.

So am I afraid to live here alone most of the time? No. I'm not afraid. In fact, I would probably be afraid if I had to live near the coast. The crime rate is steadily rising, people are out of work and don't get unemployment benefit and there are a lot of drugs. So that all adds to the political problems, but I don't notice anything here. And no, there are no evil spirits here (as my brother was curious enough to ask) although I live about 200 m away from the "Devil's Gorge".

I really think it's all in the mind. I even get asked about what I do if there is an emergency. What emergency? I live here for 11 years and never had an emergency. Well, I personally didn't because I always watch where I'm going and take good care of myself in every way. Others have emergencies and then the ambulance, the police and the helicopters come here to rescue them. Who is "them"? Well, they are people that come from towns and cities and walk around here in sandals and don't bring adequate food, drink and clothing with them and then they lose their way and accidents happen. Often they come to my hut and ask if there is a bus (which used to make us laugh quite a lot in the early days here. There is NO bus into the wilderness, no!) or if I can call them a taxi which is very difficult. And I don't have a car to take them back to civilzation.

The way I see it is that if I go to the city, I do have to watch out for cars and observe traffic lights and all the other things that one needs to watch out for in a city to not come to grief and it's the same the other way round. City folks can't just come into some really dangerous part in some mountains without preparing themselves. The tourist information leaflets are out!

And how did I learn? Not sure, I was raised in Bavaria and there are the Alps and we went skiing in the winter and hiking in the summer always with some adult person to watch over us and teach us and that's how I know to move in the mountains. But, admittedly it's quite another thing to live here always than just being here for a little weekend outing.

I do have to be my own doctor/dentist/vet here, the hospital is 40 km away. I knew this beforehand and studied to become a herbalist under Dr. Christopher, i.e the School of Natural Healing. They offered a correspondence course and it was so good and effective that I can now deal with all the big and small emergencies here on our farm. And in fact, it's not difficult to learn and it gives me peace of mind to have this knowledge. It really does.

What else did I do today. Not much really. I just finished writing a long email to Bill and now the blog post and no, I didn't do an awful lot today as the weather was still a bit iffy. It's way past midnight, but I don't seem to need a lot of sleep these days and so I'm browsing the net to see if there are any interesting sites. At the moment I'm reading http://www.stevepavlina.com/, that's the sort of thing I like to read about here in the wilderness.

Meet my husband Bill.

He's not really as serious as it looks here on the photo! ;)

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Diary Entry 27-04-2013

2013-04-28T00:13:00.003+02:00

Seems to be a buzz word or sentence these days that many people want to create or co-create and share. I certainly feel the same. I always had a fairly easy and interesting life, many adventures and sharing, caring and creating seems to be the bottom line for me. Yet, I didn't know what my real purpose in life might be and although I even enjoyed the various jobs I had, it didn't seem to be "it".

I also always had a vegetable garden or patch and even when I lived in a bedsit I did have flowers and herbs, so plants were the companions in my life where ever I went. But I didn't realize until just a few months ago that touching, feeling and working with good soil "is" apparently my purpose. How do I know? I did a bit of soul searching and thinking about the past and the future and about happiness. When exactly am I happiest? What do I do at the time when I'm happiest? And finally I realized that my real purpose in life is working with the soil and co-creating with nature. Doing this puts me in the happiest of mood and in the best frame of mind.

No, I'm not a farmer and not a hobby gardener. I proactively work with the soil to make it better and more fruitful year after year and basically that's all I have to do. Planting in perfect or near perfect soil is easy! Put in seed or seedling, water it in and watch it grow all by itself. No more water needed, no pests to deal with. Only the joy of watching the young plants grow and grow and grow.

The soil shares the produce with me and I can share the produce with other people, happy win-win situations all around, yes, that makes me happiest.

Is it easy to produce perfect soil? Well, at least it's not difficult or extremely hard work. It's slow work, step by step, bit by bit, every day adding to the process goes a long way. That is what I do and enjoy most, so it must be my purpose in life.

Today was another cloudy day with some rain, so my solar installation didn't produce enough electricity to write the article and upload it, but hopefully I can do it tomorrow although there is more rainy weather on the way.

Instead of working outdoors, I spent a very pleasant afternoon at my neighbor's. We had lunch together and were sitting in front of the fireplace and chatted.

Back home again I checked the tomato seedlings I had planted out just before the rain, well, they seem to do fine, so I talk to them and encourage them to be real strong, so we can have tomatoes really early this year. I'm so looking forward to the first ones! Can't wait!

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