Moonrise Kingdom

In AbbyVille we are blessed with the most fantastic guests! To meet people from all over the world, who enjoy the place we created, is the best reward of our work.

 

Last night we where invited for a beautiful meal, Italian Risotto and a summer salad. We are thankful be a guest in our own kitchen.

 

And, of course, the last course is best enjoyed around a campfire while the full moon lights up the place with her mystic silver glow.

 

Want to join us for dinner? Might as well sleep over! Stay with us.

Our first vegetable harvest

First harvest form our organic vegetable garden

Dear friends, it must be said, there are a few things in life as rewarding as your first harvest from your own food garden. Since last year we have started our preparations to convert our rocky soil to a fruitful bedding. We have applied perma culture techniques like the hugel kultur beds we dug and the classical chicken tractor has done an amazing job fertilizing the soil. The growth of our zucchini plants is stunning and the fruits have the size of my underarm!

So far we have had the occasional radish and we have made nastrum salad with beautiful edible flowers, but today we have made our first proper harvest. Proud to pronounce we have sweet pees (OMG the are really sweet when you eat them directly from the plant (raw even!)), French beans, zucchini, turnib and a root cabbage of which I don’t know the name.

Beet roots going strong

French beans on there way

Zucchini doing great!

Nastrum makes a great companion plant and a delicious salad

In the meanwhile our tomato plants are standing strong and we should think fast of what to seed in the empty spaces before summer kicks in.

Our hugel kultur with mainly pees and French beens, accompanied by nastrum and calendula.

 

 

From storage to bathroom

It always was a fantasy of us to have a garden bathroom so we decided to convert an storage of old wine vessels and presses which once formed the production facilities of this winery, into a bathroom. With a good cleaning and a new floor we formed a solid base for the rest of the project in January.

Filling the blanks

Winery storage

Smooth operator Abby

Old wine vessels from biscoitos

A decade of dust

King of the hill

Always sharp

 

April: Up to now we have done all the work ourselves, so if you need help with tour water system, we are PPR experts as we speak -seriously, it’s a brilliant and simple system, like lego. The summer is approaching so we really want to have our shower ready next month. The bath is one of the treasures we found in ‘the museum’  a storage of 4 generations where we can borrow nice old stuff from. Thanks landlords!

PPR plumbing in our bathroom

Diggin it!

 

And the result:

Adding colour to our life

Living in a 40m2 house with a family of three is not bad. Not to be considered a ‘tiny house’, but über cosy; yes. It must be said that we are no handy(wo)men by nature nor nurture. But we do like to make things a bit nicer. Fix the roof? Replace the front door? Upgrade the kitchen? No, let’s make it cheerful and the rest will follow.

 

Living room – before

Living room – after 🙂

Living room – after 🙂

We drove around Terceira to find left over tiles and samples. We thankfully got some batches from friends, but we had to hawk around stores to buy their rests. Still an ecological and economic way to funk up your ballroom. Smash the pile in desirable sizes and glue them like regular tiles. They make a wonderful material to create any shape, as long as you have the patience and don’t mind to look puzzled.

Mozaik at work

Mozaik master at work

Spiral mozaik on the floor of the living room

Be warned, grouting is a terrible terrible job, especially when you have tiles that vary a millimetre or two.

 

Stunning Rocha do Chambre

Yes, this is why we are living on the Azores! My brothers, Annemarie and I went for a hike and were thrilled by the variety of landscapes, views and natural beauty. Although the trail already excised this summer it became a marked route, so now the majestic glory is visible to all who want to go out there.

I had seen straight rock formations a few times from a distance and was very excited to see then now close-up, literally from up close because it is a bit of climb to get there. As the most trails we have done so far they ask some of your fitness, but are definitely doable without hiking experiences. My brother walked it out on sandals -have to say the talking was subsequently less in the last kilometres.

Like the hike Mysterious Negros you will find here the typical Azorean flora; ancient wobbely pine plants, ferns and beautiful moss formation. If you give yourself the time you will discover multiple layer of small growing forest friends.

After the forest part that starts with the hanging pine trees we found an empty river bedding, where the rocks where covered with moss. Annemarie was too curious so us man couldn’t stay behind. If you are up for a bit more climbing, don’t miss out on this eerie detour. After 100 or 200 meter we crawled out on the steep ridge on the right side to find the path we took to the left to continue the trail. No 127 hours of blair whiches for us.

Spooky sidetrack trough empty rivers

This wonderful hike covers a great variety of the natural beauty the Azores and Terceira in particular have to offer. The starting point of the hike is just 5 minutes away from Abbyville.

More details about the trail you will find on the website of Visitazores.com

Team expedition