The year 2020 started really great, we could have breakfast outside in the sun on New Year’s morning – what a pleasure :-). !
In the first days of the year our shredder was used again. It is simply a real pleasure to work with it and to process the chippings afterwards.
The big rain at the end of last year caused a lake, which is not bad in itself. But this time there was a little more work in the consequence. The 2nd tank of the Lumbricera was completely compressed and had to be displaced. Shortly after that was done we were “happy” about an even bigger rain which made everything overflow – and now the water avoided the 2nd tank.
So far we have had good experience with the Lumbricera. Everything works as planned and so we can use almost all our water 3 times: first for washing-up or showering, then for the toilet and thanks to our Lumbricera (compost toilet) finally for watering the trees.
At a gong concert we met a lovely woman who also lives in the mountains next to us. She was a little bit in need and was looking for a good place for her 14 chickens, because she had to fly to Germany more often. We wanted to enlarge our group of chickens anyway and so we moved 12 chickens and 2 roosters to us on February 8th.
But before that there was still a lot of work to do. We had exactly 2 weeks time to build the “chicken castle”
, to prepare and fence in the chicken run, to get the material etc. – and we made it 🙂 . Now we have two groups of hens, which give us 7 – 9 eggs a day (organic eggs are a very good exchange-medium. 😉 )
In mid-February we received a visit from our Spanish couple, who were volunteers with us in October last year. We enjoyed the few days with them very much, went hiking, cooked delicious meals and drank good wine.
At the end of February the first volunteer of this year came and 4 days later the second one. Our “girls” from Denmark and USA were a very big help for us, because there was a lot to do in the garden, because we seed and plant according to the moon calendar. The weather was with us and so we could already start at the beginning of March.
We also again had unwanted nightly visits from the wild boars, which destroyed all our straw beds. It was enough to make us cry. Fortunately they left the fruit trees untouched.
In the first attempt we wanted to restore everything, but then we discovered the good side of destruction – the chance to redesign this area 🙂 . We restored a few raised beds 
(this time without straw) and created a bigger place for sitting or other reunions, with the avocado tree in the middle.
It has become my favourite place simply to be, to enjoy the silence or to dream.
We had planned so well for this year: always 2 volunteers could be present until the end of June. And then Corona came and destroyed all our plans 🙁 . Our girls had to make sure that they could fly home and so we are alone again since March 24th. Well, maybe things will get better in the second half of the year.
Since we have a pretty strict time of confinement here in Spain, we can enjoy “our paradise” the more and are soooooo grateful for it. Let’s see what else we will have to face this year.