Sea of Clouds

The weather on La Palma can be many things - and often at the same time around different parts of the island. In fact, when guests arrive here at the finca either at the cottage accommodation or bed and breakfast, they often ask, 'Is it always like this?' And that is no matter what the weather is doing. The answer to the question is, 'It's never always like anything'. (Incidentally though, if I may take the opportunity to mention it, that is the title of our book out on Kindle later this year - Is it Always Like This? And you might be relieved to hear, it's not just about the weather on La Palma but about our journey which led us to come and live on a finca in the most rural part of one of the smaller and less well-known islands in the Canaries and, yes, fun on the finca.)
But talking of weather, last week we enjoyed a particularly hot spell even at daybreak with the air like a pleasantly warm bath.
And this early morning warm air induced a phenomena known in the Canary Islands as El Mar de Nubes, The Sea of Clouds.

The photo above was taken from our car park area right here on the finca in Franceses, looking westward towards Santo Domingo de Garafia. The time was 07.25 in the morning - what an amazing spectacle to wake up to.

And this photo was taken a couple of minutes later looking eastwards towards Barlovento.
La Palma never ceases to amaze me.

Sitting Ducks (and chickens)

What a fun and busy time we are having.  A couple of weeks ago, we got four new chickens.  Here's a photo of two of them wondering where on earth they have come to and what they are doing being transported in a pet carrier.   Come on - time to get out now!

Well of course the chickens aren't a problem as they can just go in the existing hen house with its own run and tree for them to jump into.  But then we were asked if we would take a couple of ducklings.  Help!  We know nothing about ducks!
So that required some very serious thinking about.  What would they live in - oh, they don't need a special house, we were assured, they can just wander about.   Mm, not sure about that and trying to fence in almost 8,000 sq.m. of land is very trickly as most of it is in terraces.   And what about water - don't ducks need a pond?  Oh no, a children's paddling pool will do or an old bucket sunk into the ground.
We were not convinced.  And what is the point of ducks anyway?  They don't even lay that many eggs.  So that was it - zero votes for keeping ducks.  But then, our home farm handbook declared that they would 'delight and amuse us.'  And that we could believe so now we just needed to make a home for them.  And a pond. Bucket, indeed!
Once the little guys arrived, we unfurled them from the sack they had been transported in - the pet carrier having been rejected by the farmer.  And of course we had to give them a proper welcome from the comfort of the kitchen.

Ooh, a little bigger than we were expecting but still decidedly cute.  And probably a very good thing they weren't tiny babies because they would need too much looking after and I wouldn't get any work done for coo-ing over them!
So - time to show them their home and their little pond.  At first, they were rather reluctant to get their feet wet and preferred to sit down at the edge of it.

But once in, they really took to it like, well you know, with lots of duck-diving and even swimming underwater.  This was great for us spectators!  And the ducks looked as if they were really enjoying it too, until that is, they scared themselves silly by splashing and that's when they really did delight and amuse.  If you would also like to be delighted and amused - here is a You Tube video of them.  It's really quite funny and whilst we doubtless still have lots to learn, we are really enjoying these new additions to the finca.

Flower Power

This is the time of year on La Palma when wild flowers are popping up everywhere in all colours.  April is when the action starts to get going (if you don't count the months building up to it) and nature is still on a roller-coaster of colour as we zoom into May.
Whilst each year is a little bit different with certain flowers being more prominent, a good old faithful is one that never ceases to amaze me although I guess it is not strictly wild. I see that I wrote about it last year as well - little wonder with its perfect little parasols of shocking purple!

 

Another plant that I really appreciate grows steadily throughout the year, slowly and silently spreading itself across the ground or down a wall, all along hoping you won't notice. It's a succelent plant which means that basically it doesn't care if it gets water or not.  This is my type of plant.   It then produces wonderful pale lemon flowers seemingly from nowhere and then of course it's too late to cut it back because you can't bear to cut the flowers off. 

Then there is a variation of the sweet pea.  My previous experience of growing them in the UK was that it took plenty of patience to first get them growing and then make sure they followed the appointed path up bamboo canes.  From there, with luck, they would make a colourful show.
Here on La Palma, they grow like plants posssessed!  Great tumbling and billowing clouds of them line the donkey path at the side of the finca but - to be honest - they don't do much harm there.  However, they are not content with that but want to envelop anything else they can find such as our lovely white wild rose which is in full bud at the end of the path. 

But my final salute is to the wild poppy.  It strikes me as being such a brave little flower with its 'hey, here I am' bright red colour.  And yet, when you come to inspect it more closely, it is in fact the most delicate of flowers with not a robust petal to its name.  For sheer simplicity, to me, it's a winner. And that's my reason for letting it grow (almost) wherever it likes on the finca here in Franceses.

British Summer time begins in La Palma

Goodbye winter, Hello summer.  And as if to order our very late snowfall is melting on the mountains.  Most winters there is snow up at Roque de Muchachos, the top of the island at 2426m above sea level, but this year it came as low as 1000m which was especially amazing as it was near the end of March.  We can actually see the ridge of the Caldera right from the finca and the photo below was taken from our car park area today, looking inland.

 This photo was taken from the same place a couple of days ago on zoom and you can still see the snow.  Brrr, a bit chilly up there I think!   

We have never been 'treated' to snow here as the finca is much lower down at 500m above sea level and so whilst it is still a little snowy at the top, we are basking in glorious sunshine and surrounded by spring flowers.

 I'm starting to think I like this British Summer time ...