November '08

Cutting and burning
This month, we have concentrated on pruning the lower growth on some of our olive trees and strimming the ground between them. As you can see from the photo's, this has involved quite a lot of work. So far we have cleared two of our larger terraces which have over two hundred trees on them. Overall, this means we have now pruned about four hundred of our nine hundred olive trees.

Where the trees have good growing sprouts (Chupones) they are left for future olive bearing growth, while the rest of the cut wood is trimmed up by Pondgirl for future firewood and the thin stuff and the leaves are burnt. Another couple of months work and we should have pruned out all the more accessible trees, just leaving the ones on the hard to get at terraces.

Another walk in Els Ports
Alex, Loz & I went walking in Els Ports again. This time we started lower down in the Barranc de Galera and walked up the north side until we overlooked the top of the Barranc de Lloret and over to Mt. Caro. It was a steep and winding walk which rose over 1,500 ft. The Trail was narrow and I was glad to have taken one of our telescopic walking poles which provided extra balance on the difficult parts. When we reached the top, we were only just below the height of the circling vultures and had views right across to the sea at Vinaros, Peniscola and beyond. On the way down we took a slightly different route and walked through the Forat de la Vella

Loves labours lost
Unfortunately Alex and his girlfriend split up this month. We hope they both keep happy memories of the good times they had together.

PondBoy