Farming – The Casa Halcon Diary

AGRICULTURAL DISCOVERIES – Rice and Cotton Growing in Andalucia

On one of our discovery trips we went towards Sevilla through the countryside which brings you to the wetlands and river delta of the Rio Guadalquivir and the Brazo de la Torre. There we found to our delight and amazement, considering the drought conditions around our area, extensive cotton and rice fields. And also a lot of the bird life, that we normally find in the Doñana National Park, when the water table rises again in the winter. In the paddy fields were any amount of storks and ibises looking for juicy snails and frogs. Also crabs are plentiful as the netting traps show that are submerged in the drains of the rice paddies.

We headed from Almonte to Villamanrique, then towards Isla Mayor. Just outside Villamanrique we came across this white stuff along the side of the road and soon found the reason; a cotton factory. Huge bales of white fluff were stored there and more lorries came to unload.

Earlier in the year we saw the still young cotton plants and had to guess what they were. They belong to the Malvaceae (mallow family) family and I had never seen them before.

A little further on the rice fields started and we could observe the system of dams and canals to flood the fields when planting was done. This time the harvest was in full swing with big harvesting machines on tracks, so they don’t sink in the wet muddy soil. As you can observe from the photos some farmers burn the stubble and others may plough it in.

According to https://www.culinarycollective.com/the-world-of-paella-rice/ it were the moors, the Arab invaders, that brought rice, Oryza sativa, to Europe and the Spanish word ‘arroz’ originates from the Arabic word arruzz.

Any article I read says that the rice is sown and then flooded and after growing the bushels of rice plants are pulled out and planted by hand in rows. We would like to see that happening, it seems an extraordinary amount of labour. But then here in Spain are still a lot of traditional methods being kept alive and labour is imported from Northern Africa and Romania.

I bought some guide books for our bird loving guests and the ‘Birdwatching Guide to Doñana’written by John Butler has a chapter on ‘Rice Production In The Doñana Region’.

It tells us that when rice was introduced to the Doñana Region environmentalists and conservationists were concerned about the negative impact on the wildlife and bird population. The opposite occurred, as the rice fields are submerged in shallow water and create more habitats for molluscs, amphibians, worms and insects. In turn, this increased the population of birds. Even when the waters in the Doñana National Park have receded and dried up the extensive rice growing fields of Isla Mayor, which extent to over 55,000 ha retain a water level to feed many hundred thousands of Storks, Ibises, Egrets, Herons, Gulls, Terns and even Marsh Harriers and in turn raptors.

Another import is the Red Swamp Crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) from America, which competes with the native crayfish species and is used as ingredient for the famous Paella.

The Cotton plant has a totally different growing habit than the rice, which is a grain, whereas the cotton plant is related to the hibiscus family, Malvaceae and will need some irrigation as well.

The plant itself is a bushy green shrub and grows to about 1.2 m in height with a tap root of 1.5 m deep. The flowers are a pretty yellow-cream to pink colour and develop into seed pods called cotton bolls after pollination occurs. When these bolls spring open, the fluffy, soft, white fibres appear. Within these rest up to 45 seeds, which are pressed for oil and the seed cake is used as animal feed. Nearly all parts of the cotton plant are used, even the stalks as mulch and organic matter for soil improvement.

The European Union’s 2020 information leaflet on cotton production lists Greece as the main cotton grower, with 80% of European cotton area, followed by Spain (mainly the region of Andalucía) with a share of 20%. Bulgaria produces cotton on less than 1,000 ha [https://ec.europa.eu/info/food-farming-fisheries/plants-and-plant-products/plant-products/cotton_en].

Other countries with cotton production are the USA, China, Paraguay, Mexico, Pakistan, Australia, former Russian States (now C.I.S), Turkey, Sudan and Egypt.

Most of the cotton produced here in Spain is exported to Morocco and other European countries, with Spain being a net exporter of cotton lint.

We witnessed the harvesting with big combines, which cut the upper parts of the plant, leaving stalks behind, which are ploughed into the soil later. The fluffy cotton is then transported for ginning to the factory, where the fibre is separated from the seeds.

Cotton lint makes up about 42% of the picked cotton by weight, and contributes about 85% of the total income from a cotton crop. The other 15% of income comes from cotton seed [source: https://cottonaustralia.com.au/the-cotton-plant ].

Start of Olive Harvest 2020

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We have moved up in the world of olive farming. In 2017 we started with a few donated bucket and crates, borrowed ladders and our trusty Toyota to convey our small harvest to the Co-Op in Almonte. We only managed to pick about 2-3 buckets a day, which is 40-60 kilograms, sometimes even less, because the olive trees were so bad; too high to reach, too overgrown to produce much fruit and too diseased, full of dead wood.

Three years later we have four people engaged to help picking, we have a jeep and trailer and a proper crate to transport our bounty to the agent, who collects the olives for the factory in Sevilla.

Thanks to our contractor, Antonio Sanchez, who also acts unofficially as our agricultural advisor, our olive trees look much healthier, greener and fuller. The constant pruning that Nigel does all year round is essential to achieve a good balance between too many or too few branches. We still have a long way to go when it comes to shaping and selecting the right branches to keep. And of course it takes time to let fresh regrowth mature to carry fruit.

This year we started harvesting on Wednesday, 9^th of September with 2 Spanish workers and Steffi, our all-round talented neighbour. The following Monday, 14^th of September, another Spanish worker joined us and now we are 6 persons picking olives every day.

This is necessary, as the sooner the olives are picked the more money we get. The longer they stay on the tree, the lower is their value as they will mature and turn black and our return on them sinks to 20 cent per kilo as opposed to 75 cent per kilo when they are green.

We are lucky in so far that we have bought an olive farm and not a vineyard. Because of the impact of the virus measures being taken to protect the population through restricting gatherings of people and cancellation of festivals the wine consumption is down 40%. Thus the price of grapes has nose-dived. In our region here grapes are being left on the vine, as it just does not pay to even harvest them.

Luckily, olives still seem to be a staple on every table and the price is good this year because the lack of rain, again, means less tonnage is being brought in.

On Friday, 18 September 2020 we had our first rain since the end of May with heavy downpours and stormy conditions. The day before I planted out my second batch of tomatoes this year, hoping to get some fruit, as the days are still hot well into October and November, we will see if it works. I also have four young courgette plants in the garden.

Hail the Archeress

After a hiatus of seven years I have finally dug out my flat bow and home-made arrows again. They are a sorry sight, maimed and broken most of them. But I have set up a target, a dart board, under an olive tree and surprisingly even manage to hit it, now and then. It’s a great, powerful feeling to release an arrow in absolute silence and see it fly, powered by simple force of resistance and leverage. I always have enjoyed this ancient craft of instinctive, traditional archery as it requires concentration and skill. Not for me the various implements like cords and pulleys, bow sights, cams and cables on a compound bow that measure the distance and set the exact force to hit home the arrow. In Ireland I had joined a mad-hatters club of archers in County Longford, the Warriors of Queen Maeve, which were more about the roaming of woods and cracking jokes than the seriousness of notching up points to be the best archer of them all. The attraction was the constant changing of targets, rubber animal shapes in all sizes, from a rat to a standing bear set up in various distances from the shooting positions in the wood, which resulted in contortions, kneeling, crouching, and sideways bending to get a clear view of the target through the trees and undergrowth, sometimes even climbing up on a fallen tree trunk or a platform to shoot up or down hills and valleys. To hit your target was real luck, or skill, or mostly a combination of both, just great fun to challenge yourself not to lose or break the arrow in the process, hence my only four remaining arrows.

So I will have to repair, maybe make some more arrows and practice, practice, practice until I can move up to my stronger bow and execute some serious archery.

Compost Toilet

We are advertising our finca for campers on various sites like pitch-up and areasauto-caravanas.com for people that like a quiet, rural place far from crowds and noise. Occasionally we do get somebody. Since we are not a dedicated camping site and do this only on a trial basis we do not have any services as yet.

In August a huge campervan drove up with seven people, three generations. They were the rather tiny granny and her grandchildren of 18 months and six years; also her three children, two sons and a daughter with her husband. Did you count? They all shared happily this one space, only Spanish are so family-loving. They had all they needed in this campervan and we only supplied water and two hours of generator connection. We don’t really earn anything out of it, it’s the novelty and giving people a choice, when in the high season all camping sites are stuffed full of holiday makers.

Another day one Renault arrived with four French lads and their tents. These were three brothers and a friend, they were really nice and we prepared breakfast for them. They also needed a shower and toilet, which was fine, as we had no guests in the downstairs bedroom. With the Covid-19 drama ongoing we cannot have guests, strangers, sharing a bathroom.

When we had Dodi and his tent here for a week, he definitely needed access to a bathroom, which was not possible when we had guests in the house.

Therefore I set upon Nigel with much nagging to build a compost toilet. And so he did, within four days he had constructed a solid building which will withstand any storm. Then the olive harvest started and we (or rather Nigel) have not got around to adding a roof, a proper door and a nice tiled floor, but it will happen.

I am all in favour of a dry toilet, which is by no means a new and radical thing. Compost toilets have been around for donkey’s years but nobody seems to want to invite them into their homes. I have come across them first in the 1990s in the Health Food Store in Berlin I worked. They sold upmarket types for garden sheds and holiday homes. In Ireland I used one in a converted outbuilding on a farm. Also German friends of ours that bought a finca have built a simple one and use it every time they are in the country, until they have modernised the house. A perfect solution for water preservation, no fussy plumbing required, and it provides the garden with manure. There is no smell, as liquids are soaked up by a layer of sawdust. They resulting human manure has to be composted for at least a year to be used in the garden. If you don’t believe me please read for yourself ‘The Humanure Handbook’ from Joseph Jenkins, available from Amazon or separate chapters are free to download.

The Egg Trick

Hens are clever; they hide their eggs in plain sight. We recently found a clutch of 19 eggs, right beside the door to the hen house, under the rose bush. We should have known because previously they hid the eggs around the corner in the rose bush. So without a date on the eggs, how would we know how old they were and if they were still ok to eat? It’s easy. Just put the eggs into a bowl of water and the fresh ones will stay below, see the egg marked ‘new egg’ in the photo, the old ones will float as the gases inside the shell develop. With the floating eggs I made a nice ‘dogs dinner’ scrambled egg. They were all good bar one that smelled like rotten eggs smell. The dogs anyway were delighted about their nice dinner.

Corona-Virus Quarantine Blog 2

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sign for the roadside

So what happens if you are in week five of the Corona-Virus lock-down?

Not much. Just some mundane things like your hair getting longer and greyer, your patience slowly running thin and you are trying to occupy yourself with keeping somewhat from shape-shifting into a doughnut with several methods. One of them is an iron-strong will not to snack after dinner; to cut out the chocolate bar after lunch; not to bake another delicious cake.

Although saying that, we are of course lucky as there is always some hard-core work do be done on a finca and in the garden.

Even painting the entrance can be counted as this, as holding a brush to painstakingly trace around and inside the lettering can be quiet strenuous.

We were just getting into the groove of cycling around the finca, Nigel even clocking up to 15 kms, when our first pony arrived on loan from our neighbour to eat the greenery.

Everything is now lush and quite overgrown, so cycling actually got a bit hairy. There is a riot of colour displayed, particularly after all the rain we have been getting.

best lawn ever

rain in Spain

more rain…

wildflower riot

The daily work-out for Nigel is either handling the chainsaw to prune the trees or now expanding on the width and length of the future swimming-pool, which involves only hand-digging and bringing buckets full of clay, which is as hard as concrete, to the surface and depositing them along the fence line as barrier for the dogs.

I do some weeding, light digging if needs be and have taken up the Figure8 dance fitness (see https://bodyfx.tv/jaana-rhythms/), an online course to get me sweating and rediscovering my waistline, some day. The daily 45 minute workout leaves me aching and tired, so it must be doing something. It’s based on mostly Latin dance moves, which I am familiar with, and some high-octane Jive or Charleston.

We also harvested our first potatoes. The stalks got hit by blight, a fungal disease and so Nigel dug them up to rescue the spuds underneath. They are nice, some very small but edible. He has planted some more now.

Nigel also built a rocket burner, an emergency stove for outside, and it works a treat. Within 20 minutes we had a lentil stew bubbling away on it.

the digger

potato blight

new spuds

rocket burner

How do we feel about the increasing length of this quarantine?

Nigel’s life really hasn’t changed that much, as he prefers to be at home on the finca and keeping himself busy. It has more an impact on me as so far I don’t have to handle phone calls and online inquiries from potential guests. It makes me feel a bit surplus to requirements even though I have no problem keeping occupied. There is always the blog, the website development, continuous Spanish learning, gardening, baking, cooking, etc.

And yet I object to the curtailment of the freedom of movement, I think it goes too far. By all means protect the vulnerable and make protective gear available to all that come in contact with the elderly and already sick persons. Maybe I underestimate the dangerousness of this virus, but since we are not given the comparative figures of ‘normal’ death rates and a correlation between real Corona victims and percentage of population, the reported figures are skewed. And any scientist or doctor who says so is not given credit or newsworthiness. I have heard of such physicians that have been bullied and threatened. We are as a populous governed by fear. Only fear will really keep us in check, this has always been the best method of controlling citizens. Look to any dictatorship, the third Reich under Hitler or the Mafia stranglehold on life in Italy and other countries. What happens now, in the whole world, without questions asked, is without precedence. It makes me wonder.

Anyway, we just have to get on with it and I say this again, we are one of the privileged, as we have an income and very few bills to pay. Like all owners of supermarkets, tobacconists, pharmacies, food stores, veterinarians, farmers and field workers our life keeps going on much as it was before, minus the guests and their money.

So this virus is selective in its impact on the livelihood of people. Some will receive government help; others will fall through the cracks. A lot of businesses will close for good and we don’t know the economic outfall of it all yet.

When all this overwhelms me I try to concentrate on the positive side, because every evil has some good, nothing is black & white. So the reporting of wild things coming out to play, like goats in a town in Wales, an Orca whale in the harbour in Mazagon (only 45 minutes from here), a wild boar in Barcelona, a panda in Hong Kong Zoo finally falling pregnant as a result of no Zoo visitors, and less traffic on the roads is good news for hedgehogs and badgers.

Not to forget that air pollution has reduced dramatically, for the first time people in China’s metropolis can see blue skies, even seismologists report lower vibrations from “cultural noise” than before the pandemic. And little or no airplanes in the skies, even Gretta Thunberg couldn’t foresee that her wish would come true so soon.

We added to our family, as our cat Shadow gave birth to five kittens, three of them male. She was originally given to me as a male, but when our Jack became interested in him/her, we realised it is a she. Life happens.

before

after: from 2 to 7…

5 kittens

On the olive pruning side of things, we tried the grafting method which our neighbours employ to rejuvenate a branch that was cut as it lost the vigour to produce olives. When an old arm is cut off, new growth will sprout as in photo 1. Too many sprigs and you have then to select which ones to keep. Instead you can take a sprig from a strong, vigorous olive tree, another type even, and slip the prepared sprig into the outer layer, where it will take root. To keep the site moist and prevent other suckers forming, damp clay is used to close off the cut and an old bag wrapped around the outside to keep it in place.

you don’t want this

you want this

three pointed sticks

wet clay

disease in trunk

I have been trying out more no-gluten recipes.

One of them from Glutenfree-on-a-shoestring is called Japanese Milk Bread and came out very well; so well in fact, that the yeast dough flowed all over the bed, where I had it sitting in the warm sunshine for an hour. I had so much dough that I also made a bap that was delicious eaten warm. It’s light, fluffy yellow bread, good for jam and sweet spreads. I added sesame seed to the recipe.

Japanese Milk bread dough

overexpanding dough

ready!

light & fluffy

See the recipe at:

https://glutenfreeonashoestring.com/gluten-free-japanese-milk-bread-the-softest-bread-ever/

I substituted the cream of tartar with more vinegar, the butter with sunflower oil and left out the xanthan gum. The flour mix was from a supermarket, it still worked well.

The other new item on the menu is a tortillita, made with equal amount of rice and chickpea flour mixed with cold water and any nice additions like onion, prawns or anchovies or anything you like, even parmesan or cauliflower.

Here is the basic recipe for 2 pers:

100g Rice flour

100 g Chickpea flour

½ cup of water, mix well until sticky, add salt to taste

½ finely chopped onion, ¼ cup chopped parsley

possible addition: 1 tin chopped anchovies, pinch of chili pepper.

tortillita

Glutenfree Apple Cake

juicy applecake

Birthday Applecake

The Apple Cake, also glutenfree, transformed into a Birthday cake for my daughter Elaine. Unfortunately we had to eat it ourselves as she could not be with us as planned thanks to the dam*!?x/&# virus.

Manzanillas, Gordals, Verdials, Picuals and Cornicabras

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I have broadcasted it probably already 4 times: we are now finished our olive harvest. But this time for real, the last load amounted to only 19 kgs, which are about six euros. We are really harvesting three times: first the green olives for eating, Manzanillas, Gordals and Verdials, but only if they are deemed big enough. Small ones stay on the trees. Then we collect the left over olives that have turned deep red and black or are blemished, have fallen to the ground, are small or have evidence of insect attack. So one olive tree can be visited 3-4 times, as some have a split personality, they can be half Manzanilla and Verdial or part Gordal, small and big olives.

Sometimes I feel like a truffle pig, crawling beneath the trees, picking up fallen olives, because to us, everyone is precious, as they are so few. We still have to do heavy pruning, correcting years of neglect.

After writing this paragraph in Mid November we still had another two days of olive harvesting going on in the first week of December, this time at our friend’s finca near Bollullos. They have four hectares of oil olives, mainly Picual and Cornicabra and one hectare of wine, the Zalema variety. A few trees were left after their son and Nigel did the main harvest and they offered us the remaining olives to make olive oil for our own consumption as payment in kind. So we went and worked another two half days and brought the olives to the Olionuba factory in Bollullos. This olive oil will be enough for us for year and would cost us about €300 to buy.

Gordal olives

oil olives from Bollullos

FOOD: AGONIES & JOYS

So at this stage I have figured out, that I cannot eat animal fats, including butter and cream. Also I am lactose intolerant, which is not so bad, considering all the lactose-free products on the supermarket shelves. Additionally I now have to exclude all wheat, barley, rye and mostly oat products thanks to the gluten in those cereals, which means ordinary cakes, biscuits, pizzas, pastas, crackers, bread, bread rolls are also off the menu. I am not moaning here, just being astonished about my body changing and reacting so badly to food, which I used to take for granted and loved. I can live without ice-cream and biscuits and cake, no problem, as I prefer the savoury taste anyway. Switching from butter to olive oil is quite acceptable in a country that produces the majority of the world’s olive oil. The lactose-intolerance happened suddenly about four years ago. The gluten thing has been brewing in the background as I always found too much bread would make me feel bloated and sluggish. This culminated finally in a lot of stomach cramps and rushed trips to the toilet.

Now that I have reached peri-menopause a lot of the symptoms that most women grapple with have to do with changing hormone levels and the body’s adjusting to that, so why should the digestive tract and the diet stay the same? Also being over fifty means the body starts showing that it has had enough of one or the other food or abuse and lets us know it needs a change or a break to stay vibrant and healthy.

Luckily I always like experimenting with food and rise to a challenge. Any guests with vegan, vegetarian or other food requests will receive a custom-made meal, no problem. Therefore on the menu are now gluten-free bread, wheat flour is replaced by rice and chickpea flour which in turn leads to new recipes. I now bake my own bread with a special no-gluten mix and add seeds to make it real yummy.

no-gluten bread No.1

no-gluten bread No.2

As long as I can eat potatoes in all its delicious reincarnations like chips, crisps, mash, baked and boiled, I am alright. Vegetables and salads are my other mainstay. And not to forget eggs, particular our own from our free-ranging happy hens. There is so much you can do with eggs; you’ll never run out of a good meal.

Sofie and Jack the cat

‘Large White’ (Pieris brassicae)butterfly on Rosemary

‘cabbage cage’

our neighbour’s pet pony

‘Large White’ (Pieris brassicae)butterfly on Rosemary

Sofie and Jack the cat

‘cabbage cage’

our neighbour’s pet pony

Little Owls in Olive Trees

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dav

After only being on booking.com for seven months, we already received their award for having achieved 9.2 out of 10 points on their review scale, which is nice. Nicer still is when our guests tell us ‘don’t change anything, you are doing everything right’.

The most elaborate and lovely review was posted by our Canadian ‘birders’ Janice and Art on google maps: “A stay at Casa Halcon is worth going out of your way. If you happen to be interested in nature, this is a great place to start your tour of Donana National Park. El Rocio is a mere 23 minute car trip. Casa Halcon is worth a stay even if the local history and nature aren’t your main interest. The owners of this Inn are dynamic, talented and experienced hosts. They run the Casa and the surrounding olive farm. If you are fortunate, you may be able to ask Angelika for a super delicious homemade dinner for a modest fee. The breakfast is unbeatable. The accommodation is both attractive and comfortable, which is a major achievement as Angelika and Nigel are “off the grid”, an ecological bonus. The dogs stay outside. If you are dog people, though, be sure to ask for an outdoor visit with Sophie and Drops. Both are adorable. Take an evening stroll down the road and say hi to the horses. As darkness falls listen to the calls of the Little Owls from amongst the Olive trees-magical!”

Said Owls are active night and day, and their call is like a bunch of kittens, but none of us has ever spotted them, as they are very small and secretive.

Our guest book is also full of praise and maybe we have now come to expect that everybody should love it here, which is not the case. Occasionally we do get people that book, but do not stay. This leaves us a bit floundered, because they do not say what made them cancel. Our location shows now up correctly as being in the countryside, 4 kms outside of Almonte. It shows you can’t please everyone and it serves to keep our feet on the floor and our heads a reasonable size.

three happy clients

the youngest of them all, and the oldest…

Janice’s Birthday Cake

Our Canadians hired a guide from Ronda, who spent two days with them, showing them the local wildlife around here. See http://www.wildandalucia.com/trip-reports/ http://www.wildandalucia.com/ :

Latest birding trip reports to southern Spain 11, 12-2-2019. Best of Doñana
Our classical 2-day best of Doñana Tour with Art and Janice, Canada. Seen remarkable sights such as Greater Spotted Cuckoo, Black-winged Kite, Spanish Imperial Eagle, Lesser Kestrel and Squacco Heron. Our first day was a magnificent introduction to Doñana along the whole north side of the park, i.e., José Antonio Valverde visitor centre, Dehesa de Abajo, etc. On our second day we visited El Rocío area and the Odiel’s marshes at low tide, giving us a nice bunch of waders. Great days in good company, enjoying great local fish and challenging bird sights . 9 raptor species among a rough 90 species. The season’s officially started!

garden extension

view from terrace

We have now also extended the back garden, this will be its final design. It is lovely to see the first seedlings coming up to herald spring: spinach, garlic, tomatoes, leeks and the potatoes that Nigel planted the 20^th of January. The peas are also doing very well. I also tried my hand on decorating a few flowerpots, cheering them up a bit.

sdr

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We had so many lemons, that I decided to make some lemon jelly and lemon chutney, which turned out nicely. The rest will go for lemonade – when I get around to it.

sdr — shop in Castlepollard, Co Westmeath

We had to make a quick Ireland visit end of February. This time Nigel’s sister Elaine and her husband Ian kindly agreed to mind our finca, house and animals. It makes for a nice warm break from frigid Ireland, where we arrived to sparkling sunshine and blue sky. We started out in Tipperary, spending a night at one of Nigel’s best friends Paddy and Joan outside of Clonmel. I also got to see my son Frank, who is working on a dairy farm nearby. Further north though, in Leitrim, the sky turned the usual colour grey and I never took off my winter coat while helping Nigel to spruce up his farm, which is being rented out.

We stayed with his neighbour Mick and Valinda and their kids in the very nice house beside the lake. On the first morning we ‘walked the dogs’ which involved kayaking on the lake while the dogs run along the lakeshore. It was bliss slowly gliding along the serene, calm and silent lake. The next day, after a day toiling away pulling weeds and cleaning drains, I immersed myself in their sumptuous outside Jacuzzi with a view over the said lake and surrounding mountains. Not a bad way to enjoy the Irish countryside! We were also kindly invited by friends of Nigel to dinner on both nights, so we had a nice time socialising.

ancient olive tree

old machine

What was this machine used for not so long ago?

It sits in the Donana National Park, the El Acebuche Visitor Centre site [see http://www.juntadeandalucia.es%5D, where we went one Sunday for a long walk. This side of the National park is open to visitors at no cost. They have extensive board-walks and bird-watching huts scattered about and a wetland, that greeted us with a frog- or toad-concert.

Answer; it is a pine-crusher, to expel the pine kernels from the cones. To this day you will see folks beating and climbing the pines to collect the pine cones to extract and sell the kernels.