Sausages!!!

The weather has been fine and warm in this part of Spain. Yesterday was a national holiday - a fiesta day, and many people in the Barranco had family visiting, to help them with the seasonal work of preparing for winter.

The hum of chain saws cutting logs for the fire echoes around the valley. 

Juana- Marie has prepared her small fields with small earth walls to receive irrigation in the spring and then spread hay over them to protect seedlings and keep the soil warm. 

It is also the time of the olive harvest. This year has given a very good crop - unlike the almonds and apricots - and everyone is helping to pick them. Excited family groups on trailers pulled by tractors, head down to the olive groves. Nets are spread on the ground around the trees, and then the branches are knocked with sticks to dislodge the fruit. This will be taken to the local mill and pressed for its oil. 

Once the harvest is done, Andre takes the opportunity to cut leafy branches and carry them home piled high on the roof of his old red Renault 4, to feed to his goats.

At the lower fuenta  (spring) I saw Isobel and some of the other local women, working at something in a variety of plastic bowls. They had cut oranges and lemons, and they had packets of salt and buckets of water and were busily rinsing with plenty of water changes, that were sometimes aimed at 'Blanca', Katalina's dog who was also very interested in proceedings! The something turned out to be intestine of pig, and the oranges and salt were good cleaning agents, so that they could be filled to make chorizo sausages. The 'annual' pig raised on the little farm, had just been killed, and nothing would be wasted. Jamons, morcilla (black pudding), and sausages - to last throughout the year.