May '09

More Puppies
We had to give three of the puppies away to a dog rescue centre so they could be rehomed. It was a hard choice, but in the end we kept Dozer and Trotski, while Buffy, Willow and Theo went to find new owners. Life is a lot less mad with only the two boys to look after, but they still manage to get up to their share of mischief.

Life beyond puppies
Surprisingly, given the number of puppy pictures we have posted in the last couple of months, we have been doing things other than playing with the new family members. The village festes started at the end of April and ran into early May. As usual, the focus of the village was to keep everything going in one big week long party. We managed a few meals with the "Colla" in our landlords garage, one night at the dancing and Alex and Los saw semi-naked men chasing a soaped pig around the bull ring at 5am one morning.

Finca
We have been frantically pruning the olive groves to get burning done to get rid of the unusable stuff. Despite this we still end up with a heck of a lot of wood for winter fires. At the end of the month, we did a quick count and we think we have now pruned around 450-500 trees top and bottom. Another 100 odd and we will have done all the olives on the easily accessible terraces.

The dog pen and water tank are proving their worth. It rained with minutes of us finishing the work. Unfortunately it hasn't rained since. The puppies like the dog pen, but it didn't stop the digging a metre long tunnel out under the stones at the back of the hunters hide shelter that is in the pen. Luckily there were no cave-ins and after blocking the tunnel with more stones, the puppies have taken to trying to dig up the olive tree that is in the pen.

Having fun
We drove up the coast just above the delta and visited a nice beach where I managed to get the piccy of Alex while the boats passed by. Later that week we watched Barca win the triple crown. The crowd up the bar went wild when they scored the second goal.

The delta paddy fields are all planted and flooded. It is difficult to get a decent picture with the haze and the morning light without a tripod. I'll get up earlier and try harder next time.

PondBoy