The oldest olive trees are now pretty large and winged with a splurge of green leaves drenched in white blooms. The trees have fully flowered this year and hopefully this means there will be lots of fruits to follow.
This is the first time we have cultivated our own fields of barley and we can’t wait to taste our first crop!
The roof construction continues now Spring is here and the rains have stopped. This is no ordinary roof as the building has quite a few rounded walls, so the roof takes on a very interesting shape. You can see the frame for one of the rounded corners in this photo.
This Winter we had very heavy rainfall so the grass is greener than ever and the new buds are bursting out from every branch possible.
Last week brought the first proper rain since September, it was greeted with hundreds of birds swooping and flurrying around in the olive groves. The red-breasted, Loica likes to perch on top of the stakes. No possibility of camouflage amidst the endless green grass and leaves of early Spring. We also came across another friendly red-breasted animal lurking about…
Andrew came to Chile for a few weeks in September. He spent some time in Santiago, then a few weeks working on a farm in the Andes further North and then 7 days at Fundo Meza. We wanted to give him a good experience of the life here so he helped prune the olives, walked up to Tabontinaja – the highest point around – and gained some knowledge of the wine-making process over at the neighbouring Gillmore winery. Thanks for all your help Andrew!
Spring is here once again, the grass is green and the olive trees have started sending out new shoots. We are doing some basic pruning to tailor the growth upwards and then outwards. Andrew is here helping the team and getting some experience out in the field.
Katherine was bread-maker supreme whilst she was here. We have had the sourdough going for over a year now and it gets better and better with every loaf. Thanks again for your great work on this Katherine!
A week ago we harvested our first batch of homegrown apricots, we collected 24 in total and they are so delicious!
We are into the last few days of Spring and for the first year ever the vines completely cover the parrón – providing invaluable shade for the vegetable garden (and those of us working in the vegetable garden) during the long summer.
