Saturday, August 19, 2017

August 2017 — Digger Dreams Do Come True



Yup -- Rory's digger dreams have come true! The project now has a digger on site, which has expedited all the progress made over the last few weeks. It’s old and a little rickity but digs like no other and was crucial in laying some foundations and clearing the pathways and roads around the site. 
With the new foundations laid and plans and drawings finished, we’ll be submitting for planning permission to renovate and extend the two existing structures as well as submit planning for an ellipse shaped yoga studio. 

We have lots of designs done for the cabins as well; but since they'll be built using specific methods they're mostly “planning exempt”. 
We’ve enjoyed and appreciated all the fabulous help we’ve had from family and friends lately. It was wonderful having Rory’s nephew, Dylan, here. Dylan helped Rory with wood stacking and some clearing. He enjoyed Portuguese culture; learning some of the lingo, eating goat for the first time, and even seeing Xutos live — a Portuguese rock band.


When we brought Dylan to Porto, we picked up Carla, a friend of mine from San Francisco. Carla’s been adventuring around Europe "volunteering"/working on farms for the last few months in exchange for food and accomodation. It was fun hearing all of her stories of working on a goat farm in Montenegro and a bee farm in Ireland among many other things. 
Carla stayed with us for the last couple of weeks to "volunteer" on our project. Besides having Carla on site helping, we've also had a brown dog stray intruder making visits to the site lately. He sneaks up to steal trash, dog food, and even hid my yoga mat behind the stone ruin one of the days. As Hank's bark matures he's been more and more successful at scaring brown dog away, but meanwhile Carla and I had many laughs plotting how to keep brown dog away. Besides brown dog plots we had a great time setting up an area for the chickens, stripping wood for posts and building a second Hugle bed for more planting. 
Hugle bed number 2
stripping wood for posts
On our time off from working on the project we showed Carla our favorite spots in the area -- river beaches, Torre, and a few of the wineries. We also took a fun road trip to Salamanca, Spain. It's only about 2.5 hours from the property and well worth the drive for it’s beautiful plaza and incredible dance nightlife. 
River beach break

Plaza Mayor - Salamanca

Dancing the night away in Salamanca
I also had the opportunity to break the ice in teaching my first "real" yoga class since recently becoming a certified yoga instructor. There was a 3 day mini festival nearby, and I was asked to come hold morning yoga. It went really well and I'm looking forward to organizing regular classes in the village until we have a studio built on site. Rory and Carla have also been getting private yoga lessons.
Just after teaching my first "real" yoga class
Since one of my best friends was traveling in Spain with her new baby, we couldn't resist the quick and afforable flights to go meet them in Mallorca for a little mediterranean break from the project. I loved seeing how natural parenthood has come to both Samantha and Aaron and getting to know the extremely loveable Naia Rose. Carla came too and is continuing her euro adventure from there. We enjoyed every minute of spending time with them!

Meanwhile on the site, two college kids from Porto came to "volunteer" to dog sit and look after our garden in exchange for a break from the city. Hank and Harvey enjoyed taking adventure walks with them, and Hugo finally warmed up to them by the end of their stay. We have exciting weeks ahead. We'll be getting chickens, submitting for planning permission, and are extra excited about Rory's son Rafa visiting from Scotland this week.