News from our farmstead #10

The hardest weeks

Hello and welcome back to our monthly-ish newsletter from our little farm on the east coast of Spain!

It’s officially spring here, apparently, although it doesn’t feel like it! I’m glad I planted some spring bulbs back in the winter, as they’re about the only thing around here reminding me that warmer, brighter days are on the way.

In the veg garden

Most of March has been a complete wash-out. I don’t want to complain about the rain, because we desperately needed it after a shockingly dry winter (we were officially in a drought), yet here I am, complaining about the rain. The thing is, when you live off-grid and rely on solar, a couple of dull, cloudy days in a row can really be a pain. Relying fully on the sun for our power, we’ve spent all winter being vigilant of the energy stored in our batteries, and if it looks like a bleak forecast for more than a day or so, we turn off our fridge and start using candles in the evenings.

We’ve managed to get through the whole winter this way, but the last few weeks put an end to that. After a solid week of rain, of constantly being wet, cold, and living in the dark, we bit the bullet and purchased a backup generator. Generators come in different sizes and some can be enormous, designed to power construction sites and huge power tools, but ours is a fairly manageable size (a metal box about the size of a bedside table, weighing about 40 kilos). It can be wheeled around our land if need be, to power tools in locations that are far away from the house, but most of the time it’ll be living in our shed, next to our solar equipment, ready to be turned on as an emergency power source when we’re not collecting enough sunlight.

A view of the local town from a rainy walk. Spot the cat in the picture too!

Getting the generator working wasn’t plain sailing, as it turns out there are a whole host of factors which can affect how generators work with solar setups, and it was a week-long process (another week in the dark!) of trying various things, eliminating possibilities, and talking to anyone and everyone we know, trying to get advice. Of course, everyone else we know locally who lives off-grid like us was in the same pickle that we were in, because none of us were prepared for 2 weeks (and counting) without sunlight. Between us, we managed to play a quite hilarious game of musical generators until everyone had, miraculously, a generator which worked with their solar setup, and finally we were all able to turn our fridges back on and breathe a sigh of relief!

It would be nice to be able to curl up inside with a book and a nice fire blazing for the duration of these rainy days, but alas, work still needs to be done. We recently made a big push to get the compost toilet finished in time for visitors, but before we could catch our breath again, it was time to start preparing for the next visitor, my mum, and I’m determined that for her stay we’ll have a proper working shower with hot water. So, work continues - and as it turns out, building a bathroom is harder than I thought!

In happier news - one of my best friends came to visit and by some fluke of luck, managed to catch a couple of the only half-decent days in the whole month. We went on bike rides and walks, ate great food, did some gardening together and also spent a day exploring Valencia. It was all very lovely and is making me very excited for all the future visitors I hope will come and see us here!

A day out in Valencia, and a cloudy but beautiful hike up a mountain

I’ve also been hugely enjoying a little workshare group that we’ve started with a few local friends, who all have similar projects to us. Once a week we all go to someone’s place and help out with whatever work they want to get done. We eat, chat, work and generally have a great time, and no matter what the task is, it’s always 10 times more fun with company. We’ve been doing this for a couple of months now and our workshare day is firmly my favourite day of the week. We always come away with everyone having learnt something, maybe with some useful tool we need to borrow, leftover food, seeds, plant cuttings, all sorts - I feel so lucky to have found this little group and to know that I have a circle of great people who can call on each other whenever they need it.

Checking out other people’s dogs and veg gardens is also a bonus of our workshare group!

There’s probably a lot more to say about the last month, but I am a bit fixated on the rain at the moment and can’t seem to think of anything else.

So that’s it for this newsletter, hope you’ve had a great month wherever you are, and thanks for reading!

Harriet, Mauro & Tofu 🐾