Tuesday afternoon

just another day renovating in Beautiful

I like the song Tuesday Afternoon by the Moody Blues, they were fun to listen to in concert backed by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra a million years ago when I worked for the company that makes Budweiser and got to go to all the concerts they sponsored for free. When I’m running long distances I always have the song I Know You’re Out There Somewhere on my playlist - it has an excellent cadence for keeping a good pace. Their videos are super dumb though.

I also like Tuesday afternoon because Mondays are super busy, and waking up on Tuesday is always a little sigh of relief. Today is an especially nice Tuesday - the kind of October day that just begs you to write a poem about it. I once had a friend that I invited over for pizza. After dinner we were having coffee and chatting when suddenly he, meaning the guest (NOT the h) stood up and whipped out a little square of paper from his wallet which he carefully unfolded to reveal a poem, which he proceeded to read, which I thought was kinda cool that he trusted us so much (he’s a rather shy man) but the h found a little much as the poem was truthfully only average. Still I remain in awe. More people should suddenly read poems after dinner.

The air has a bit of a chill in it but the sun is quite warm, enough for Jake to pant on his walk.

The work crew is back, the house is surrounded by tall yellow scaffolding, the windows sealed off in plastic. The new paint on the quinta went up Monday, we looked at it from every angle - from across the street and up the hill - debating and adjusting the colors and when Joao put up a coat of the new color we all agreed it is a go, even Alberto stopped by and gave it a thumbs up. It’s the kind of color that changes personality a lot as it goes from light to shade to dark.

Sette

Yesterday I couldn’t find Sierra at feeding time and was so worried. It’s not like her not to show up for lunch and of course it’s heavy on my mind that she is one of two hens that have thus far survived the local fox that has wiped out about ten of her sisters. This morning when we let the henlets out in the courtyard garden for a romp, I heard a slight rustling in the pampas grass. Sette, one of the rare blonde roosters and a very nurturing sort, having raised six orphans himself just last year, kept lingering nearby which was strange because he didn’t seem *that* interested in the little henlets.

Sierra Nevada

We let Alphonse peck around the garden with the girls. He stood right up in I Dream of Jeannie’s personal space, staring at her with one eye while she pecked away at a seam of ants she’d uncovered with her chicken scratching. He kept bending over and staring at her, and she just totally ignored him, as if he didn’t exist, so absorbed was she. It really got his attention, this being ignored.

My sweet Alphonse

I heard the rustling again, saw Sette hiding on the other side of the pampas grass and realized that it was not Sette making that sound, that there was Something In The Pampas Grass. To my joy it was just Sierra, adjusting grasses around herself to make a little nest. Later that day when lunch was served I checked and there in Sierra’s little nest in the pampas grass were two eggs!

When she didn’t show up for breakfast again this morning I checked the grass and sure enough there she was, blending so nicely I almost touched her without seeing her until she gave me a warning cluck and I backed off.

The h is putting finishing touches on the coop. The girls are more than ready to make the transition, though of course I’ll be worried sick. Yesterday we sat for an hour in the palaceta, then the henlets wouldn’t let us leave, getting all snuggly and roosting on our chests and arms and shoulders. When that happens of course you have to let them nap as the temperature of their little dinosaur feet goes from freezing cold to burning hot.

I’m hoping to be able to persuade the feral hens, Berry White and Sierra Nevada, to join the henlet quad in the coop, where it will be much safer than the trees where they currently roost.

this is a pic from a year ago - they still roost in this tree, but none of the hens shown here survived the fox

We harvested a final basket of red peppers from the horta.

The trumpet bushes are blooming again! That’s three times in 12 months.

from knee high to higher than my head in one year

Flooring for the cottage and the upstairs quinta apartment has arrived but will not be installed until after the quinta exterior is painted. Here’s hoping the good weather holds for two coats.

Windows are now being manufactured for the cottage. The new hallway connecting the bathroom to the room at the back of the cottage is going to look amazing with the custom window cut into the elegant cement wall. I’m gonna hang the chandelier of chandeliers there, something cool and funky.

The h tried to visit the police to file the requested police report for the missing electrical control box for the cottage. Only after the report is filed can a new box be issued and electricity routed to the cottage. Seeing that little cottage on top of the hill all lit up is going to be a great day.

There was no one at the station that day who could speak English. Try the police in Lisbon, they told the h. Always an English speaker there. But when the h went to Lisbon for a meeting and stopped by the station it turns out to be in chaos, under renovations. Who can I talk to, the h asks an officer. He directed the h to some weird place that was definitely not where the h needed to be.

The h decided to visit the station in Cascais sometime next week, where he not too long ago had to visit the police station there to file a report on his passport which was stolen in our first week here (and returned in our second month here). The silver lining on this fool’s errand was the box of pasteis de nata the h brought home from Lisbon. I felt very much like country mouse wife, happily greeting her mouse husband returned from the big city, immediately having a fresh pastel de nata with a bica.

Now we’re headed to the store, a welcome break from the terrible experience my job has been today, the kind of terrible experience you can see coming, it is 100% predictable, and you can prepare for it but not avoid it at all, you just have to go right through the center of it. To cheer myself up I will fantasize we will bring the yellow chair home.