Flowers from the mountain

My neighbours (vecinos) are always up to something in the campo. Country folk do different things to  ‘townies’ like me, and because it’s Spain and my vecinos are Spanish, the things they do in the ‘campo’ are even more different!

They always know the season and the place to be out collecting from the campo – wild asparagus; herbs; mushrooms; scented plants and capers, to name just a few: The other evening I saw Francesca and Anna on the mountain side collecting something into plastic bags, and I wanted to know what was going on. My vecinos are very patient with me when it comes to my curiosity and ignorance. They explained that in Oria tomorrow there would be a Mass and procession for Corpus Christi (Ascension Day). They were collecting flower petals to scatter around the village.

Anna and Franchesca

A little later Isobel came past our Casa with her grandson Jose. They had been up to the fuente (spring) to light candles. I asked her if she would be going to Oria in the morning. She replied, “Of course, the village will be very beautiful with all the flower petals in the streets”, so we decided to go as well and take some photos.

Possibly, “The best little potato patch in the whole world!”

Right at the start of this Blog, I said that it was about a place, where hardly anything ever happened, and that’s as true today, as it was when I wrote it. That’s perhaps why I haven’t been as prolific about writing about the place as I’d hoped to be.

However, something has happened this week, and I’ve got the ‘fotos’ to prove it.

It all started with the trundling of a JCB down the camino! Its’ hopper was filled with well rotted goat manure, and it was headed towards Andre’s huerta (vegetable garden); but not before Heth had bravely stood there to halt it, so that she could shovel out some, to feed our roses.

Next day I took the dogs for their afternoon walk, down the same camino. We went past the huerta, where Andre and Isobel had been joined by Antonia and Antonio for some 'team' potato planting.  Their mattocks were being skilfully wheeled to start the creation of the ridges that the emerging potato shoots needed, and the furrows, that would collect the water, from the balsa,  to swell the tubers.

We went on by the balsa (a water tank fed by natural spring) and up into the closest almond grove. The almond blossom has all but disappeared now, but the emerging spring flora in the alpine meadow more than compensates.

Once there; I just sat on a rock in the spring sunshine, to peruse the valley below and watch the activity in the potato field. Everything was coming together according to experience and craft, learned and passed down over centuries.

Meanwhile, the dogs did their usual things.

Holly raced up the mountain to chase rabbits, real and imagined, returning wild eyed and breathless.

Millie just mooched around, fascinated by the lizards starting to emerge from hibernation, that scurried between the clumps of esparto grass.

And all the while, down below, probably  the most perfect little potato patch in the world was emerging.