November is here and we are thoroughly enjoying nature’s bounty. First and foremost has been the long-awaited ripening of the custard apples (aka anona or cherimoya). We’ve been eating one or two a day for the last week or so (and have about a dozen more in a box ripening above the refrigerator). If you’ve never tried one, they are highly recommended! They have a creamy, soft pear-like consistency and a sweet flavor that is like banana-meets-pineapple. We have also been eating our bananas daily and have sampled the odd orange or two (kind of tart still – hoping they continue to ripen).

There is a Portuguese tradition we learned about that we wanted to follow. The saying goes that “every home should have an olive tree” so we purchased a little olive tree from the market. It’s just a small thing but we had just the pot for it and it’s already sprouting some new leaves!

Back Yard Clearing

We finally started to tackle the overgrown back yard / orchard of vines and invasive ginger. It has been a multi-week labor of love (Lukus has the scars to prove it) but we are delighted by the open space now! Upper left photo: banana trees and orange trees; Upper right photos: back of the property with three chestnut trees (a great place for a chicken coop or quail hutch); Lower photo: orange trees in foreground and big anona tree.

Native and Endemic Flora

For all the times we’ve written about ‘invasive this’ and ‘invasive that’, we wanted to point out a few native plants we discovered in the back. Above is one such beauty, first mistaken for a holly, called Myrsine africana or Tamujo in Portuguese. It has shown potential as a little hedge where we found it, growing at the base of a mandarin tree, so we put some stones around it and gave it a trim. The second native plant we were excited to find is the famous Laurus azorica or Azores Laurel (below) which is more commonly found in high altitude ‘cloud forests.’ We have two small specimens near the chestnut trees and a third that Lukus transplanted into a decorative pot near the house. The leaves smell lovely – like the closely related Laurus nobilis or bay leaf.

Kitchen Progress

The “chimney room” in March 2023….

In an effort to make the oven area of our kitchen more usable, we have been, bit by bit, cleaning, scrubbing, scraping, cementing, and painting. From removing the open-air double burner stove, to stuccoing over the leaky stone archway, to cementing up the oven opening and smaller floor opening, it is finally approaching the bright, clean Mediterranean look we desire.

Regarding the loss of the big bread oven, well, we were never going to use it anyway – its smokey, open-air chimney meant that smoke had to exit into the “chimney room” which itself was previously sealed off outside. Who knows, maybe someday we will open up the oven again and repurpose the space for a wine cave or a pantry (it was huge, about five feet deep and wide!).