Ah – the return of the dark and stormy North Atlantic. As beautiful as the sea and sky were in the summer, that brief season has passed and the great grayness of winter is now upon us. When the undistinguishable sea/sky is broken only by distant white caps and occasional breaks of blue. When the thunderous sound of waves crashing resonates in our house and yard. The reality is that this moody scene was so common over the past year that its return feels like a homecoming. Summer is for tourists…this is the real Terceira!

Chestnut Season

What a difference from last year! Since clearing the undergrowth from around the three chestnut trees, the shiny brown nuts are much easier to find. We have been gathering upwards of a pound of chestnuts every day.

Photos, L to R: the first harvest (mid-October), a single day’s large haul, boiled nuts being peeled, Raymond and I and a pile of shells. Below: Raymond made a contraption to pull off mature spiny-husked clusters from the trees (before rats can get them overnight).

So…what do we do with the finished peeled nuts? We’ve tried cooking them all kinds of ways. A favorite is simply sautéed with some olive oil and salt, but we also made a French cream of chestnut soup (gray and kind of bland), sautéed them with butter and brown sugar, and have tried candying in sugar syrup. At this point, we’re starting to freeze the peeled nuts due to gathering more than we can consume.

Kitchen Upgrade

After more than a year using the camper-style butane gas stove in our kitchen (and dealing with the corresponding fumes…) we are happy to share that we’ve joined the 21st century and replaced it with an induction stove top. We are absolutely loving it! So fast…so evenly heated…so precise in its levels of heating…why didn’t we replace the old stove sooner!

Boulder Breaking: The Finale

After much drilling and hammering, we finished the boulder project! Well, we removed enough that we were able to cover the remaining rock and considerable excavation hole with dirt. What a relief it is to be able to walk behind the house without stepping over a giant boulder.

Before and after: Oct. 2023, April 2024, Oct. 2024

Whitewashing

After stuccoing the stone wall of the driveway, Raymond suggested applying whitewash instead of paint. He did some research and realized that now, while the cement is fresh, would be the perfect time to try this traditional method. So for 1/20 the cost of a big bucket of paint, he bought a 50 pound sack of lime. Just mix with water and apply the whitewash thinly (and again, and again…). Raymond has so far applied 5 coats and the wall keeps getting brighter and brighter. Aside from the price savings, lime is also non-polluting, anti-mildew (to hopefully keep the moss and lichen at bay), and actually soaks into cement further hardening it.

The back garden between the chestnut trees freshly planted with fava beans.