I can see Autumn will be a busy time as the chestnuts need to be collected and wood too for the winter. The gallipierni or apagador of the macropiolete family was edible. It found its way to the frying pan and we survived. But the very rose shaped red mushrooms, possibly from Russula family , like all rather red ones are best avoided. Lots of smaller mushrooms and these possibly are hallucinogenic and hard on the stomach!
Back to work now for the final chestnuts of the season on a glorious sunny November day.
The Finca has so many of these beautiful blue berries and they glisten in the rain and mist.However, one of the bushes was discovered with one flower beginning to blossom. See picture below. So even,on the Finca we can find signs of Autumn,Winter and Spring together! We finally discovered the name of this shrub Viburnum Tinus or more commonly Laurustinus. Then in one of our old English newspapers we came across a lovely picture of the garden variety. It has been harder to discover the variety of mushroom but it does bear a resemblance to ones that are referred to as hallucinogenic and toxic in our Spanish Mushroom book! Very mixed weather patterns at present but not that cold.
Viburnum Tinus with the first flower seen January 28th:some berries can still be seen behind flower.
Our trip to the Algarve, 100 miles away but down from our 720 metres in the Sierra to sea level, showed that Spring is in the air. Very warm and even hot in the sun with the almond blossom, bees and birds all very busy. I will feature pictures of Portugal later as I will create a new page for our observations there and along the Ria Formosa. On the road down we did see evidence of Storks in nests and flying around. Possibly just arriving to nest. Apologies for no pics of the storks yet. Might need to update camera for that!
NavasolaNature 