In the middle of the night, when I was about to go for a pee - as that works wonders to fall asleep again - I managed to pull my mosquito net off the ceiling ( for the umptieth time ) and drop it on my bed.
So, after peeing and drinking some water, I probably spent about half an hour trying to set it up, again, while waving away some hungry mosquitoes.
As an effect of this - and a myriad of other reasons - I woke up tired, once again.
I felt like visiting my twin sister but wasn't sure whether I could handle the energy of her kids, my niece and nephew, who had spent two days at my place last weekend.
I decided to go, anyway and just stay for a couple of hours over lunch, as I could use some social time and the exercise and I felt they would enjoy my visit.
I drove my E-bike to her place - a 20 minute hilly ride through an amazing landscape - and had decided to not bring my phone for extra relaxation. For a change, I didn't tell my sister about my visit.
Although I usually tell people that I'm about to visit and when, she, on the other hand, is the kind of person at whose place you're always welcome. Their one hectare of land doesn't even have a gate, since a year or so. I feel it's a metaphor for my sister and brother-in-law's hospitality - two extremely social, extraverted people.
When I arrived, just before 11:00, it almost seemed like nobody was there, it was extra-ordinarily quiet.
Their labrador quietly welcomed me, I parked my bike, patted Mungo ( pronounce as Mango ) and walked up to my sister's little house.
She appeared to be at home and was pleasantly surprised to see me and told me the kids weren't around ( they are being homeschooled ) but on this Friday they were trying out some kind of forestry project hosted by friends/ acquaintances living in the area.
Perfect! I thought, as this is just what I needed. Peace and quiet with my twin sister.
She had just made coffee and I enjoyed my first cup of caffeine in 6 days ( more on that in my latest posts ). After the coffee, I walked to the nearest village, 15 minutes down hill and bought a bunch of baby veggies, as depicted on the photo, while my sister took a shower and enjoyed a bit of rare alone time.
The baby plants and veggies that I picked were green pepper, red pepper, carrot and courgette,as well as a piri piri plant and a strawberry plant.
In fact, I bought double the amount, and later gave half of the plants to my twin sister. She has way more space for veggies, a bunch of decent sized raised-beds, and we just love to gift each other things.
She told me that I can harvest from her place, in the future, and that she's interested to find out how different the growth will be in both our gardens.
She also showed me all her veggies and crops, from onions, to cabbage, to potatoes, to lettuce, to beetroot and so on and so forth, as well as all kinds of herbs.
If I would have brought my phone along, I could show you how great most of these plants were looking and I would probably have photographed her blossoming cherry tree too.
The weather has been pretty amazing here, lately. We've had an abundance of rain and sun, after an extremely dry Winter.
Although I hadn't posted a gardening update, in a while, that doesn't mean that I haven't done any gardening. In fact, I (re)moved loads of smallish cut down mimosa trees that I plan to turn into sawdust ( my neighbor has a machine for that ) soonish. The sawdust will then mainly go to him and his family, in exchange for using the machine and I might go for some kind of Hive deal too. I will probably gift him some Hive, in exchange for his help.
I also cut away a bunch of branches of two of my olive trees, so they will grow better, as well as to give more sunlight to the left side of my veggy patch / tea garden.
And, last weekend, I planted an orange tree, near the house.
I pee on my olive tree and apple tree on an almost daily basis, while humming or saying kind things to them.
It also seems like the favas ( garden beans ) and another type of bean ( that I like to call 'magic bean' ) are pretty happy, sprouting up out of the earth and almost visibly growing, day by day, as depicted here:
So, the snails might have eaten almost all my lettuce, the rest of the veggies seem to be pretty happy. This photo shows my beetroot and leek. The lettuce was growing here too. I also added compost, last weekend.
I feel as happy as my plants, right now. Today's little outing, consisting of 2x 20 minutes of cycling, 30 minutes of walking, two hours spent with my sister and buying, as well as gifting, plenty of edible natural medicine to look forward to, was the best thing I could do.
We should all listen to our intuition a lot more. Wake up, people. Our brains only now so much.
It's now almost 3PM and I feel energized enough to focus on finishing the second edition of my book. Awesome!
This is just what I needed!
Sending you much love and good vibes from rural Portugal :<)
Vincent aka Hypersensitivosaurus
P.S. I'll leave you with some pictures of my garden view, taken this afternoon, my strawberry and piri piri ( hot pepper ) plants, the view yesterday, photographed from a hill near my house, the strawberry plants that I planted in a dead tree trunk on my terrace, a while ago ( they are developing more flowers ), as well as my baby orange tree.