The Evergreen trees of Navasola and the Evergreen short story anthology.

My story recently published in the anthology Evergreen is partly from within the consciousness of a fir tree grown only for Christmas. But it survives beyond the festive season and connects and inspires a variety of local children until …..The story is called Until We are Ever Green. It contains quite a few ‘untils’!

A variety of christmassy trees in the Fir and Spruce section in Kew Gardens. We were in search of Abies alba but found so many other different kinds of fir.

It is late January and we are finally back at Navasola after dull but changeable temperatures for the UK in the winter. It was a rather frustrating time with so much illness from bad coughs/ colds/ sinus and the worst I have had since leaving the classroom. Here at Navasola it is very cold but the sun is high and bright with andalucian blue skies. We also have our supply of wood from when so many branches of trees came down in the bad storm of 2020.

So thanks to the trees we can keep warm at night when at present the temperatures are falling below zero.

There is also so much green thanks to our own evergreen trees in stark contrast to the denuded old chestnuts. However without the leaves there is much sunshine on the woodland floor. Their leaves will come back later than most in May.

Pollarded old chestnuts supply lots of fallen branches.

View walking down the hill from the gate. Chestnuts and pines on other side of the valley.

Many branches fell from these millennial chestnuts in ‘tormenta Barbara’.

Navasola’s Ever Greens

Olea europaea, Olive Olivo.

The olive trees’ grey green leaves keep dancing in the chilly skies. All the olives need to be picked by end of December but any left will make good food for birds or other animals when fallen to the ground.

Black olives high in tree against Andalusian blue sky

There should be some olives later

Quercus suber, alcornoques, cork oak

The cork oak leaves show different shades of pale grey green. The tree trunks are well insulated and fire resistent. Cork trees can only have their cork cut every 8 years or more.

Cork trees still green in Autumn near Castaño.

Newly corked cork tree on Galaroza path

Two cork trees growing by our house. The bigger one was like the thin one 15 years ago. Both self seeded!

The Holm oak, encina, Quercus ilex or known as the evergreen oak.

encinas or holm oaks are stretching higher to the sky in their self seeded grove. These are the trees of pasture land or dehesa and can be found across vast swathes of Spain evenly spaced out to provide shade for grazing animals. These trees are also excellent for wood burning too.

The common ivy or Hedera helix dresses up many a trunk and keeps its green even when the frost bites. The Mirbeck oak also hangs onto its glorious display of red orange leaves until the new arrive.

Winter trees by the ivy perimeter wall.
Quercus canariensis, mirbeck oak

Pyrenean oak now fully covered in ivy so green in winter and a haven for birds and other insects.

Arbutus unedo, madroño, strawberry tree.

The madroño tree or strawberry tree is very hardy in the frost or heat. And home to the caterpillar of the Two tailed Pasha.

Madrono flowers and fruit

Bullfinch on madrono through kitchen window

Arbutus unedo, madroño, strawberry tree.

Two tailed pasha hatches in July or August

Wild viburnum tinus does not grow into a tree but can grow very tall around the trees. It is usually in flower by the end of January as the bees wake up. But at the moment it is rather frost bitten with the colder icier winter we are having here.

There are many wild pines too. Mainly Pinus nigra or black pine. These grow very tall very quickly and thrive here on sandy soils. These are different to the cultivated umbrella pines found a bit further south towards Huelva. Stone pine, Pinus pinea.

wild viburnum tinus

Blue skies and tall pine for blue sky thinking!

I think many readers of my blog will enjoy the stories under the theme of Evergreen in this Bridge House Publishing anthology. Apologies that it is only easily available on Amazon but we would love you to read, review and share the stories.

Bridge House Publishing’s launch of Evergreen and other Cafe Lit short stories. I finally meet my writing mentor too, author Debz Hobbs Wyatt.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Evergreen-Multiple-ebook/dp/B0BMW5K6GJ/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=2JXZC9KIQI2SY&keywords=evergreen+anthology&qid=1674852585&sprefix=evergreen+anthology%2Caps%2C142&sr=8-1

https://www.bridgehousepublishing.co.uk/

https://debzhobbs-wyatt.co.uk/

April Showers and Walks around Navasola West

Our splendid isolation has included not having any internet connections for long sessions throughout April. It now seems a bit better so  am hoping this is an opportunity to post and also catch up with you all across the world in these strange and difficult times. I hope and pray all is well and will be well  but know that we all may be affected in some way at some point by knowing someone whose life is deeply affected and changed by this pandemic. Much support and care is going to be needed for each other and the natural world we do depend on.

The rain here is blessing us with water if not wifi. The mobile phone company call the problems ‘atmospheric’ meaning I guess, it is again those powers beyond human control.

Here are some photos of our walks around Navasola.

peoni broteri

wild peony garden

orebanche

We have taken this time as an opportunity to rediscover some of the wilder parts of the finca. It has often seemed like an adventure and I have been to areas I have never seen before. We tried to follow some of the boundary stone walls too and found ourself clambering over some of the stones the wild boar have knocked down. Boars know no borders too. Last week we saw a small group, yearlings probably, going about like a teenage gang, from my sanctuary window. At first it was interesting to watch them, scratching backs against the rocks, snouting around by the path. Then one crossed the patch by some of my roses and some wild gum cistus and lupins I have been nurturing. I opened the window and hollered before even thinking of picking up the camera! They shot off so I hope they know to steer clear of ‘my’ rock garden. To be fair till now this area has always been left unploughed by the boar. Too much human smell.

Walking anywhere at the moment there are some lovely wild peonies. These are not bothered by boar activitity and as we do not plough or clean the fields intensively there are more and more peonies each year. They are known as the queen of herbs and do make a fantastic and natural display. The insects also love them. Another of my favourites is the yellow palmate Anenome and again there are often pollinators within and other insects that seem to half eat the petals into ragged shapes. I have never seen one completely destroyed and they are very delicate looking flowers. It is hard to get    a good photo of all the flowers in a patch. The yellows are winning out at the moment with the yellow rock rose or cistus,halimium trifolium, the Spanish broom, gorse and another yellow plant that likes the drier ground by the studio hill.

 

Palmate Anenome

 

The studio is an old container that the previous owner installed for her sculpture work. It is on the south west side of the valley and is a warm and light place to work in in the winter. The old house used to be very dark and gloomy. However, the studio, as it is metal, is a hot box for when the temperatures rise. This area has lots of different wild flowers, some tiny white ones, tall asphodels and there is always a lot of bramble, sarsaparilla and some stunted fig trees.  Last year we discovered the orebanche and a very tall but pale type of orchid.

 

 

Spanish broom

Halimium trifolium

Orange brown fungi

 

Along this stretch of the valley side are lots of rocks and tall pines. It is not an easy to cultivate area and is now how we like it. Quite wild. There is a badgers den within the rocks and a dangerous drop and caves here where possibly other creatures live too. Above this rocky recess are the pines that have grown very tall but there is also a lot of madroño, viburnum and the tough wiry and thorny sarsaparilla. Some of it is like a jungle with hanging vines of vicious thorny strands. There are also some stands of oak. At Navasola there are several types of oak; mirbeck, faginea, and pyreneus. There are also cork oak and holm oak. This stand is the quercus faginea or lusitania, Portuguese oak.

I have also been clearing some paths on the other side of the valley, Navasola East. Here I can now walk above the old era, the place for threshing grain, and through a very rocky olive grove. Here the olives have been planted many years ago but are very majestic and mossy, with amazing trunks. And hiding holes. We have just discovered a wild bee hive at the base of one. It is all very green and mossy on the rocks and the stone walls have lots of different ferns.

olive leaves dancing

olive tree and moss

Ferns

Solomon’s seal around the chestnut trees

Further down towards a Navasola East there is the pond we worked hard on restoring last year. The wild boar had managed to wallow too hard in it and put their tusks into the lining. Now they aren’t allowed in! There are plenty of other places for them to find water and wallow. Our prize animals at the moment are the two Iberian water frogs we have spotted. More on these in a later post as I will devote a poem to them. It’s there in the picture, camouflaged with its thin green,reed like stripe down its back.

I am going to try and complete a challenge for one of the wildlife charities. In the U.K. This is called the 2.6 challenge instead of the London Marathon which usually raises a lot of money for many different charities.It was supposed to take place on April 26th and of course couldn’t. Charities are suffering from lack of funding now and not able to undertake some of the work needed. 26 or 2.6 is the magic number. So instead of running round our finca, which is difficult anyway I am going to try and write 26 poems on the different species that live around Navasola. There will be a Just Giving link to sponsor me if anyone wishes for the RSPB and Birdlife International. So hopefully my internet will work well as I will post 26 lines or words for each poem!
Just setting myself up so I have to get this done!

Olivia and the Olive Trees of Navasola

I am back at Navasola and involved in the chestnut harvest and looking for any olives I can find that have not fallen. So I will post about the wonders of the Mediterranean olive tree and my first granddaughter Olivia. Thank you for all the kind comments on my previous post as we awaited the birth and particularly Eliza Waters for the interesting expression about birth ‘ may it unfold with ease! Well, as with most births there is some drama but it was with ‘relative ease’ that Olivia Jane arrived into this world. The name Olivia was chosen by her father and the name Jane is a family name. Unknown to this little Olivia the name seems to derive from Italian and Oliva after the significance of olive trees in Mediterranean and biblical culture. However, it seems to be William Shakespeare who made a slight addition of the ‘i’ to create the character Olivia in 12 th Night.
So here at Navasola I have plenty of olive trees for Olivia to one day get to know. I’ve included a photo from Wikipedia to show the development of the flowers. These can be so small and easily missed. On my botanical illustration course I drew some olives from a photo but could not remember ever seeing the flowers. As that was when I was working I thought I just missed the season they bloomed. I am also aware that I am missing some of the small changes as Olivia grows but thanks to video and Skype I can follow the progress of a small human too!

View from era to house, through olive grove of 21 trees

The beauty of the olive tree may be in its evergreen silvery grey dancing leaves, its light bark and of course its fruit, the bitter olive that the birds still peck at in Autumn. Olive cultivation is very old but seems to have originated from the region around Italy. We are not sure how this bitter fruit was first discovered to be so useful as there are certain processes needed to remove the bitter phenols in it. However, with crushing the bitter phenols break down. Therichness of the oil became sacred and well known for its healthiness and healing properties. The Olive branch has become a symbol of peace, purity and wisdom in ancient times used in wreaths to recognise achievements. 

I decided to plant an olive seed or two for Olivia but on looking this up encountered a few surprising facts about cultivated Olive trees. It seems to be that by just planting  a seed it will only produce a wild olive. This will produce smaller fruit.  Cultivated Olives are engendered mainly through grafting. This might explain why I do not find many new olive trees growing on the finca unlike the productivity of the chestnut seeds. These and plums seem to grow up anywhere possible!

Black olives high in tree against Andalusian blue sky

However, the Olive is a long lived tree and it’s roots can withstand fires and will send out sucklings. Here at Navasola the trees have become too tall to harvest commercially but I will set out today to see what olives I can find for our own use. It has been such a dry, long hot summer and this has affected the size of the chestnuts and seems to have dried out a lot of olives. Many have fallen to the ground early and in a wizened state. But there are some and I will finally do a count of the olive trees, mostly situated on rocky slopes, where they can survive with much less water than the chestnuts. How much less is not yet known. I hope we can help all learn to be more resilient to climate changes and its effect on our own landscape, flora and flora here and globally help prevent more rises in temperature.  This has been our hottest and driest year yet.

With thanks to all my readers and followers and I hope to have more of a routine set up to write to and follow all your posts in the coming year.

Below, the growth of Olivia Jane, week by week. From newborn to 4 weeks and many subtle  changes. And the growth of flowers on an Olive tree!

 

 

The growth of Olive flowers by J Oteros on wikipedia