found this picture
and I thought it was worthy of placing on the blog

Goodbye Grandma

Sept. 28, 1920 to Dec. 7, 2007

 

Swiss Construction! Hey Dave
What do you think?

One of my favorite videos ever. I really don´t know why, just a Euro moment. The cold air, the not understanding anything.....just a good old Euro moment.

I thought that Pumpkins
were American. But wouldn´t you know Germany
was full of them.

I just loved the way everyone stacked their wood. This is definately my kind of country. Everything all lined up in a row. 

Ok. So we went to Switzerland
and we came back with one good picture of the two of us together.

Look at all the grapes!
I can´t believe that wine is so expensive in Switzerland when
all the land around Lake Geneva was completely filled
with vineyards. It was amazing. And like always. Everything in perfect little rows.

More vinyards. Like I was saying.

Completely covered!

Oskar (German spelling) came with us to Germany and was a great sport. We loved having the little guy with us. 

Here is my corn, spaghetti squash, broccoli, artichokes and
cherry tomatoes. I like it when it is so full of plants I don´t really have to even think about weeding.

The garden now. Today it is actually snowing
It is hard to embrace the cold, when we really haven´t had any heat this year.
Last Sunday we picked around 30 lbs of tomatoes. I am in the process of making SALSA!!

So here is how the town festival usually starts. Pasacalles is the name of the game. Yes, that means "passing through the streets". Usually you start with dinner, then the "Charanga" walks past where you are having dinner and you join them until everyone for the village is dancing in the streets. I have found that women and children usually are found in the pasacalles and church a lot more than Spanish men. Let me know if anyone has also noticed this phenomenon.

On September 8th every year the people come to praise the Virgen de La Vega. They go to the church, mass and then walk the virgen around the village so that it blesses everything for the next coming year. Please take note of all the people (especially priests) There are only about 400 habitants in this village and look how many show up for the festivals. I guess we make up part of that crowd don´t we.

After a light picnic of about everything one could imagine people sit aroud the table, drink some "cupitos" and eat sweet desserts while being sung to. The man in the pick shirt is Angel´s dad. The type of song that is sun is usually a "Jota" and is sung only in Aragon. Angel´s dad is considered to sing very well. Enjoy

This video might be a little hard for some people to watch. So take care in clicking on the play button. In Aragon bull running with fire balls is a way of celebrating their holidays. It is quite the experience. It is hard to watch sometimes and I personally feel sorry for the bull except when he is too close and then I feel complete and utter panic.

Wild caged tomatoes

Spanish style Tomatoes
Here in Europe they tie the tomatoes instead of using tomatoe cages.
I think that it makes the plants look very small. I have used both methods this year.
So far neither of them are producing red tomatoes. They say that the European tomatoe tying
produces very big and ripe tomatoes sooner than cages, but
that caged tomatoes produce more quantity. We´ll see.

What we
started with two years ago. Slowly but surely things are working there way up. I
never thought we would be able to fit a dishwasher in the kitchen, but like they say, when there
is a will there is a way.

The following pictures are what I did last week between English classes, the garden, and Festivals in Vilach.


Next week I am hoping to get started on the attic, my new shoe compartment idea, or maybe
something for the balcony. (Tomorrow we are driving 3 hrs to go shopping and buy a circular saw, and perhaps a jig saw, Man am I a lucky woman or what, I can hardly wait) And it is next to the beach so Sunday we are going to have a day at the beach, Paella included.

The tools used during the project.
I realized while cutting the very last piece of wood that I could have bought mitre box.
I think will get one and just keep it with all my tools, so that I never forget about it again.

After picking at the concrete and tile
I was able to finally come up with this little area in which our dishwasher could fit just perfectly.

The end result

The Sunflowers bloomed,
Everything is growing like wildfire. The tomatoes are completely out of their cages, and
threatening to all turn red at once. We only have a few lettuce plants left, but believe me, the zucchini
just keep on coming. I have picked an average of 20 a week for the past 3 weeks.
What used to be a kind neighborly favor of receiving zucchini has now turned into people
running away from me when they see me approaching with my garden basket.

Becky becky, quite
contrary how does you garden grow?

So here is a quick
updated picture of the garden. Notice that we have had the
pleasure of being able to eat tons of fresh lettuce.
So far we have also eaten Zuchinni. Yum, Yum.

We went on
a little hike last weekend. It was wonderful. It was warm enough to wear
shorts, but didn´t end up raining on us,
like it usually does.