I am always reminded at this time of year why the Universe brought me to this part of the world where food grows all around us with or without the help of humans. The rich folk (who represent 85% of the people living here) are uninterested in acquiring their nutrition any other way than the one to which they are accustomed, from the shops. So this leaves plenty for the rest of us!
These sunflowers actually grew in the garden but I really wanted to show you how beautiful they looked. The one on right was attacked by my children after they discovered how to access the yummy seeds ;)
If anyone knows of an effective way to shell these seeds on mass I would be very interested to learn it!
A few weeks ago I picked the grapes from one of those rich people's courtyards. When it is late in the season like this the grapes are mega sweet.
These ones are seedless so they make perfect raisins (after one night in the dehydrator).
For the last two months I have been using these locally grown grapes as the sweetener for my daily beetroot, carrot, ginger & lemon juice. But now they are done we have switched to locally grown apples instead. Indeed, it doesn't matter what time of year it is, there is always some kind of fruit growing in abundance around us which can be used as the sweetener for our daily juice. Next month the pomegranates come into season.
More recently I have been harvesting persimmons, walnuts, sunflower seeds & neem leaf, all seen in the top image. The neem leaf will be dried and turned into a powder. I will take a spoon of this powder every day and it will help my teeth repair from the abuse of various dentists over the years. Many thanks to 
The mushroom hunt
For his seventh birthday Esteban received a little mushroom book which he was keen to try out so last week the children & I went on a mushroom hunt.
In truth I knew there wouldn't be too much in the way of edible mushrooms around us (not enough rain yet) but we keep spotting them popping up so thought we would give it a try anyway.
Look at these funky dudes!
We were able to identify most of them.
The little orange mushroom on the top left of the page tells us this one is not edible. Red means you can't even touch it. Green and you're good to go. Pick that baby and find its friends!
This guy looks so beautiful but like all the rest, not edible.
Are these things even mushrooms? Esteban put his gloves on just in case!
This guy is actually a cep I believe, which is edible. But he is all alone and looking too old to be yummy.
The fat stalk and spongy underside are good indicators.
Though if truth be told I am not 100% certain as am still very new to the mushroom game.
The Stone House
On our journey through the forrest we happened to pass the stone house I built two years ago.
For those of you who missed that particular adventure there is a post here and also a film:
I built it in the autumn and it was discovered in the spring by the owner of the land who seemed a bit stressed out by its presence. This was the first time Esteban had seen it like this.
The sign on the door (written in French & Catalan) loosely translates to this:
"By what right do you have permission to build a cabin on my land to make a smoker's den of iniquity. I have alerted the mayor and the police."
Don't you think that's a weird thing to say? Yes, this house is built creatively by a man who likes to smoke weed, but I don't see any evidence here to suggest it was a drug user's den.
This is what it looked like when he found it.
With a big heart on the blackboard! Crazy drug-fuelled madness ;)
I considered leaving him a note of response but in truth I am satisfied with this situation. My goal was to have a house in the woods we can run to in emergencies. The house must be hidden and able to keep us warm & dry.
Yes, he put a hole in the door, smashed the one glass window and also damaged the stove a little but these things can be repaired in a matter of hours. And now I know he only comes to his land in the Spring!
Really love my bottle windows.
When we leave this village I intend to take them with me.
The roof is still intact and it is interesting to see how those few tiles I had are still exactly where I laid them, despite using nothing at all to secure them down.
The structure of the building is 100% sound and my mud mortar looks to be holding up pretty good after two years.
So that was that. Esteban felt a bit sad but I assured him it wouldn't be long before we were taking on a much bigger and more exciting building project. The earthship we are going to live in!
Just at the right moment we bumped into one of my cats near the stone house. Fifi basically lives in this forest now, ever since the experience of watching me build a house there.
Chemtrails
We journeyed onward with Fifi and I noticed these chemtrails in the sky. Totally unrelated topic I know but we cannot very well walk around with our eyes closed.
There is a local airport in the direction of these lines and having checked I can tell you they are not commercial flights. No my friends, these flights are for something else. On days like this a plane goes over every five minutes and each one leaves a long white line which slowly expands and descends on us as a misty haze later in the day.
Hard to say with certainty what it is though easy to say with certainty it is part of the complex control mechanism designed to usher in the great reset. Could be weather modification? Certainly it is warmer than it should be at this time of year.
The Persimmons Tree
Moving on we ventured further up the mountain, still looking for mushrooms, but instead what we found was this most beautiful persimmons tree.
Glowing red amongst the green it was almost impossible not to be drawn towards it.
The fruit so yummy and ripe...
...we couldn't resist picking some.
Children are very useful for this job!
And so, at the end of the day we didn't have mushrooms, but we did have this :)
Even better, on our way home we found another stone house!
This one looks super old with no mortar at all between those stones.
I was interested to see how in the place of a chimney they have the fire off to one side underneath a small window and a large slab of stone suspended up high to channel the smoke out of the window. I wonder how effective this really is? Must still get a bit smokey in there.
I have since then visited a few other trees I know and this lovely looking bunch of permissions (also known as Sharon fruit) will be turned into wine when they are ripe.
The other kind of wine I will be trying this year is marrow wine. This guy in particular is too big and tough to be eaten in the usual way, so he is destined for something much greater!
I placed some of those raisins I mentioned earlier in sugar water a few days ago which is waking up the bacteria and creating the perfect 'yeast' for jump starting the fermentation process of my marrow wine.
Kefir grain fermentation
Last year I made cider with our abundance of apples but this year I am trying something different.
Every day I fill up one special bottle with fresh apple juice, at the bottom of which sit a bunch of kefir grains.
What this does is basically begin a vigorous fermentation process and after just 24h I have fizzy apple juice. I put this in the fridge for an hour in the morning and serve it up for breakfast. Look closely and you can see the bubbles.
It seems evident, now I understand the simplicity of this process, that the people of our great & forgotten past added fizz to their drinks in this natural & healthy way because it is quite simply the best way to do it! A few centuries ago this system was replaced however with carbonated drinks which according to google are not bad for our health. While I would say that's a load of rubbish and you only have to look at a food PH chart to see the truth. Carbonated water has a super acidic PH of 3, putting it right alongside red wine & energy drinks like RedBull.
PH is everything to a human body and while I don't know with any kind of certainty what is the PH of kefir fermented apple juice I would guess it to be more in the 8-9 alkaline region.
Having just described to you the two acidic alcoholic beverages I intend to make this winter I am evidently going to be lowering my PH, but life isn't about abstinence, it's about balance. The middle way!
So, I can drink my home made booze as long as I also drink my home made juices ;)
And by the way I can also smoke my organic home-grown weed!
We had some problems with spider mites this year but the plants still looked great at the end. And boy do they work!
Am feeling very relaxed at the moment. And a little bit forgetful ;)
Oh yes, one more thing!
I cooked my first Thai style lemongrass coconut soup.
We have this incredible lemongrass plant in the garden which won't survive the winter so I wanted to find a good way to use it in the kitchen during the next three months.
After reviewing some recipes I went with my own creation by infusing the lemongrass, ginger, garlic & chilli pepper into coconut milk and vegetable stock by simmering for 45 mins. Then I removed the bits and cooked a selection of vegetables in this juice for 15 mins.
Just before serving I added lime juice, Thai basil, coriander, salt, pepper & sugar. And man it was good!
Since then I have started experimenting with infusing this lemongrass flavour into olive oil so that I may expand on my range of creative pestos which this winter will be made from coriander, spinach, parsley, sorrel, hazel nuts & walnuts. All of which we have in abundance.
The children say it isn't cool to be vegetarian so we cooked up these two guys in a soup.
Not cool indeed.
Right, that's it for now!
I leave you with a proud Luna posing behind her first ever card castle.
Love & Light everyone 🌱
