From Lockdown to ? : Week 3 - Days 65 to 71

Onion flower in Phase 1: half in, half out.
Wasn't that what we were supposed to be doing?!

Our first week in 'Phase 1'  of deescalation is over and, so far, things are going well.  Preferably, like the onion flower, we'd be taking it slow and easing in gently but that's proved a little difficult in practice as friends have been eager to catch up, Scott's been receiving more calls, and me?: I'm back at the gym with my trainer and running a multitude of errands.  Week 2 isn't looking like it's easing in either!  We're sticking to the rules though: gatherings of no more than 10 are permitted and we're dutifully wearing our masks when out in public.  

Top and bottom: Feeling good to be back together with friends!

Last weekend's gatherings proved that nothing can compare to the feeling of being able to enjoy the company of friends and family once again.  That said, it's evident that the Lockdown has had the same affect on us all in that everyone has used the time to slow down and internally regroup so to speak. Scott and I have heard how others like us are altering their perspective and now changing their priorities.  There just might be a new social paradigm about to happen if people begin to practice what these last few weeks have forced us to stop and think about.  The main focus is a shift towards our preference to spend more time at home, whether that be in your own company or inviting friends for dinner and keeping everything else a little closer to home too.  Of course, many of our friends have a business to focus on and errands still need to be run.  We'll all do our bit to support local businesses as they hopefully recover too.  We're not about to become unsociable buggers, nothing could be further from the truth but just don't expect to see us every weekend!

Back at our favourite breakfast venue: Bar Mazza with their socially distant table plan
Scott made a pretty good effort at Lockdown Eggs and Garlic,
but I think he'd be happy to bow to the experts!

And when we go shopping:

Wear your masks ...

... form an orderly queue, and wait to be served

Back at Finca Tres Hermanos, there's more than enough work to be done to fill the remaining gaps in the day that normal business, errands and socialising haven't swallowed up.  The weather is warming up considerably and fairly soon one less job to worry about will be the mowing as the green stuff (that's turned imitating grass in to an art form) dies off.  It'll soon be time to strim the meadow and let the dry wildflower seeds scatter and sink back into the soil along with the 'green stuff' to wait it out until it rains again. 

Beyond our boundary fence, the animal feed has been cut taking the flowers with it and is being prepared for baling. This as well as the spring flowers also dying off means that food for our honeybees will soon become scarce.  We've already taken several steps to provide all the foraging we can by planting more lavender and provided that we keep this watered the bees should be fine.  In any event, we have invested in some hive feeders that will hold supplementary feed if that should be necessary later in the year.  For variety and colour, we're also on the constant search for other bee-friendly shrubs that we can plant down on the bee terraces.  While we expect very few (if any) visitors now this year, we nevertheless still want to tempt the bees to forage in an area away from the house, bar and pool.  

Fields around our house ready for baling

After only an hour of planting some nice new shrubs,
Scott was concerned that the bees hadn't found them yet!
Patience darling x
Squint and you might spot some colour now spreading around the trees

Around the vegetable patch we've allowed the odd plant or two to flower before going to seed so we have a variety of extra forage which the bees are loving so they're not going hungry yet.  Not all winter veg goes to seed this way; the broad beans for instance grow from the flowers the plants produce in spring and it's the pods that dry up and turn to seed.  We pull up most of the dead plants before they succeed in dropping their seed heads into the soil but we inevitably miss a few so if you take a walk around it's not uncommon to find winter peas growing up among the new tomatoes or last year's tomatoes self-seeding among the carrots!  

One of our honeybees gathering pollen while feeding from a beautiful onion bloom
(regrettably, this delicate and pretty white flower still smells much like an onion!)

A wild bush that grows all over our campo in Spring: Ratama - known
for its medicinal properties.  Our bees are sure to be foraging from these and 
the list of health benefits are endless!

Top: The planned and the interlopers growing side by side
Bottom: The stages of tomatoes to give us bags of freshness right into autumn

Sweetcorn, french beans,

courgettes and cherry tomatoes

 

From plot to plate:
chicken and vegetable curry

I'd better wrap up this update now. I had intended to bake a cake but I appear to have wasted an entire afternoon typing very little at this keyboard!  I'm not sure I'm ready for the disappointment on Mr Forbes' face when he gets home.  I should have also seen to some mowing or pool maintenance but I'm under strict instructions from my trainer to take it easy (more disappointment for Mr Forbes!)  I've had a few issues with my back so if I only manage to crawl out of bed tomorrow morning, it'll be important to narrow it down to today's deadlift training and not because I then came home and tugged a stubborn three-legged mower over 4,000sq m of grass!  It's unlikely I'll be any more sore than expected tomorrow though, my trainer knows what she's doing and she kept me just knocking under a 40kg lift; we don't want to be rushing back into training do we?  (Well, I was up for it, but she said "No!")

See you soon!

Fudge is not prepared to let Rafa in without his mask!