November 30 marks a momentous milestone for us – the end of our resident visa validity! From this point onward, we are here solely on our temporary residency IDs. This also marks the longest we’ve ever been continuously in Portugal (the previous limit had been the 90-day “visa free” summer trip in 2022).

One of the ‘perks’ of the residency ID is the discounted airfare on Azores Airlines, which we have used to book tickets to the mainland for January. Raymond will be taking the A1 level intensive Portuguese course at the University of Coimbra and Lukus will be taking his second course. We are both excited to return to Coimbra – such an amazing place! Here are some photos of the university and old city:

In a bureaucratic win, we are happy to announce that we now have Portuguese social security numbers! These will allow us to work locally and to sign up for the national health service. For the time being we still have private health insurance, which is very reasonably priced, but we plan to sign up for the free national health service soon.

Heavy Rains

Ilha Terceira received some heavy rains over the weekend and it was a little unnerving to see how high the stream grew (above: flowing over our street). Thankfully there was no damage to our retaining wall nor garden, save for two big rocks that tumbled down from the neighbor’s hillside near the anona tree.

By Monday, the stream was back to its normal, placid flow. But the torrent of rain had washed away the concrete blocks that Raymond has been making. Lukus climbed down to the lower level of the stream to retrieve them from the thigh-high water trough.

Yard Work

L to R: The recently-pruned apple tree leafing out; the orchard partially cleared of invasive ginger back in October; recent removal of large clusters of taro near the bananas. Below: close-up of the taro removal project and reconstruction of the rock wall that forms the property line with our neighbor above the hillside (plus transplanting of canna and lilies).

A Momentous Millstone

To better utilize space in our laundry room, we decided to remove the millstone today. Using a crowbar, we were able to pry the upper stone from the lower stone (still secured in the floor). We were then able to very carefully stand it up and awkwardly roll it out of the basement. The plan at this point is to use the millstone as a paver heading out to the orchard.