The weather is too good to stay inside

Okay, time is flying by and I am still at donkey paradise. As some of you might have read on my facebook I decided to stay a bit longer and will spent both Christmas and New-Years Eve in Asturias. After that I am not sure yet where I will be going ( or if I will be going  ), but I will let you know by then. A few weeks back, on a cold, rainy day I sat down to write a blog update about the apple-picking and so. While the fireplace warmed the room I turned on my computer and wrote a small piece about the many many apples we picked the week before and about the long hours we made that week. I wrote about apple-shaker Luis, a guy in his 60ties and how he shook the apple trees with a long stick with a hook on the end…about how those apples would fall to the ground into the grass and about how we picked them and placed them in buckets, after giving the apples a quick check on worm-holes and donkey-teeth-marks. I wrote a bit about how wonderful the sun was shining, bathing the late-afternoon apple-pickers in a golden light. And I would have written about the heavy bags with apples that had to be placed into the trailer and how one of the volunteers, drove to Arrobes every time with a full trailer to drop the apples near the water place where a truck would pick them up at the end of the week. If the cold rainy day would have really be very cold and very wet and if it had stayed a bit wetter and colder for a few days I would probably have blogged about the small diner we had at the end of the week to ‘celebrate’ the end of apple-picking, but the rain passed and so I stopped writing about the apple-picking ( 6000 kilo) and also didn’t write about the nice donkey-walks we took or the night walk while a beautiful full moon lightened our path.
To walk the donkeys is easier than walking the dogs del Paraiso. The donkeys of Donkey Paradise usually don’t pull, don’t run behind cars and don’t start running when they smell something of their interest. So mostly it is nice to walk with them. Mostly we just take them for a small walk, but on two occasions we walked up to the picnic area and release them there while we’re having lunch.
The weather has been too good to stay inside and mostly it still is. After a few very cold and misty mornings last week, we now have a warm few days again. Yesterday for instance we had lunch outside and were wearing short sleeve shirt and today in the early morning both Svana ( other volunteer) and I walked the dogs in sleeve-less shirt… the warm wind that came from the south made .it feel like summer…too strange if you realize it is almost Christmas and that usually here in the north of Spain it is much colder. In the garden, were I love to spend some time every day if possible, it feels a bit like summer too. Even though they do not turn completely red anymore, there’re still a few strawberries and raspberries every week. Together with some other volunteers we ’ve been working in the garden a lot lately: pulling weeds (since the very first day I came here), preparing vegetable-beds with donkey poo and straw (mucking out stables has a purpose), planting stuff and now also harvesting vegetables like leek and pumpkins ( which were planted by volunteers before me). We also had beautiful broccoli and cauliflower from the garden and only yesterday I found out that the Brussel sprouts are starting to ‘sprout’ as well…so exciting and nice to eat from the garden.

Almost two weeks back we took a nice walk up a mountain range not so far from here. After stable-cleaning we ( all volunteers and Andres) went up with the car to a look-out point from were we started our walk higher up into the mountains. In the beginning it was quite easy and not so steep, but after a while the path narrowed and became steeper and steeper, but also more beautiful. There were cows and horses grazing everywhere, the sun shone brightly and it …I really loved it. I will place some pictures, cause I cannot describe the beauty 

well, i will end this blog now and place it on line...before i forget or go inside. For now lovely greetings and abrazos from Spain and wish you all a merry christmas!