Nature 2014

Welcome! If you are visiting from the Grow Your Blog Party, you'll find my post HERE.

Internet connection problems and work have slowed down my visits to other blogs at the party. My strategy is to visit bloggers who have left comments on my blog first, then go through the list Vicki kindly organised for us.

This is my Sunday post in response to Jake's prompt - NATURE 2014.

Ria Formosa at low tide

Yesterday I drove along the narrow road/bridge that crosses the lagoon and went to Faro beach. It had been years since I had done that!

With my back to the beach, I take in a view of the lagoon

I noticed that storms have carried a lot of sand over the low walls along the beach. You can find more photos of my outing on my Portuguese blog.

 

Swampy vegetation, Ria Formosa

Looking more closely at some of the wildflowers

On the way back, I stopped to look more closely at the vegetation.

With all the rain we've been having, wildflowers should abound this Spring. I hope I can spend more time watching nature do its thing.

Algarve Wildflowers

They are everywhere this year- never seen anything like it!

Earth Day

Tomorrow we commemorate Earth Day but do we do enough on all the other days of the year?

In a very tiny way, I try to do my bit by reducing waste wherever possible, re-using some things and recycling others. Recently I've been reducing the already small piece of lawn in my garden, planting drought-resistant plants and using water wisely.

We all need to realise that climate change is a reality. The Algarve is no exception - we've had a tornado, cliffs along our coast are disintegrating under strong winds, rain and tides, and spring is arriving later and later every year and turning too quickly into summer.

This is a picture of fields in the Alentejo, flooded like I had never seen them in 8 years of travelling between the Algarve and Aveiro.

Are you doing anything special for Earth Day?

 

Cee's Fun Foto challenge: Wood

Wood/Spring: Wind, Moisture, Air, Minerals, Ink, Mind, Rubber, Paper, Plants, Poison, Wax, Dissolve, Carbon, Clouds, Health, Space... all part of the challenge this week.

Well, I've been hibernating for a whole week now, so I had a look at my stash of photos and came up with these shots:

Boardwalk to Salgados beach and spring flowers on the dunes.

I wonder what the original tree looked like.

Same tree trunk/stump, different angle, different month.

Boardwalk at Alvor beach under a a pale-blue sky full of fluffy clouds.

You will find many more interpretations at Cee's.

Thank you for stopping by!


9th November 2013 - updated Cee's link.

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge - Water

Water, winter, sea, ice, storms, rain, steam, sound, mist, acid. salt, time, pressure, moon, mirror, snow, frost, sugar... hmm, so much to work with - where to start?

OK, I love water and the sea so I've got lots of photos of these two subjects.

The Arade River passing through Silves

The Aveiro Lagoon at Torreira

A winter sea view at Torreira beach, Aveiro

Now, when it comes to winter, I have to tell you it is my least favourite season of the year but it does make for some spectacular shots of snow and ice. In Portugal we don't have much of that so I have to settle for grey, misty mornings.

Very grey and misty - another part of the Aveiro Lagoon

The Arade River - Silves (again)

And now something on a much smaller scale - my godson's pond:

The fish were in hiding!

To visit more entries for this challenge, click on the image.

Cee's new blog url updated on 7th November 2013.

Cee's Fun Foto Challenge: 2012 people, animals, outdoors and nature

I am joining Cee's challenge for the first time and starting off with a combination post:

People and Animals

Walking back and forth all day in the summer months, selling his wares cannot be easy, yet he always has a smile for anyone he meets along the way.

Locals at the monthly market in Algoz - shopping and catching up on the gossip.

This guy had the good sense to choose a sitting position!

I have used this photo of a participant in the street animation at a medieval fair before on a post for Jake's Sunday post challenge.

I can't resist introducing my 4 dogs. There are quite a few posts about them on my blog. Here are 2 in the garden.

Here are my other 2 on an outing to the beach.

Outdoors and Nature

A carob tree, common in the Algarve landscape.

An almond tree in bloom, also common in the Algarve in January/February.

A cloudy morning at the Aveiro lagoon.

Click on the image below to visit Cee and learn more about her challenge.

Cee's new blog url updated on 9th November 2013.

Natural Resources

Alentejo landscape on a wintery day

In Portugal, the cork oak is part of the landscape in the Alentejo region. From the outer bark of this tree come the cork stoppers we find in every good bottle of wine.

In this photo, you can see where the outer bark has been removed.

Photo by Joergsam (Wikipedia), available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

And here you can see a ceramic tile panel depicting workers removing that bark.

Portugal produces around 50% of the cork harvested annually worldwide, with Corticeira Amorim being the leading company in the industry, transforming the outer bark of the cork oak into cork stoppers and many, many other products.

This is my entry for Jake's Sunday Post challenge. Check out Jacksprinter to find links to other posts on this theme.

Who took my nest?

or The Last Thing the Algarve Needed!

These could be the thoughts running through this forlorn stork's mind one week after part of Silves' centre was ravaged by a tornado. 

On Friday, 17th November, the Algarve got first-hand experience of that rare weather phenomenon we know is not at all rare in North America - it ripped through Alvor, Carvoeiro, Lagoa and Silves, causing terrible damage. Three people were seriously injured and, having seen the videos and photos, I'm surprised there were no fatalities!

If you have read my posts about motor-home owners spending winter in the park by the river you will remember that area was still full in February. This is how tranquil the full park looked then.

By the end of October many motor-home owners had returned, in time to get the fright of their lives. Winds reaching 260 km/hr picked some of their homes like they were little toys and "played" with them.

Now some have left but many have just moved to the other side of the municipal swimming pool while clean-up is taking place. This is how the same area looks now, one week after the unfortunate event.

One week after the tornado

Over the weekend municipal workers and around a thousand volunteers removed the debris and cleaned up as much as they could. They did a wonderful job! The town looks almost normal.

Parts of the walls of the stadium came down and you can still see a large metal structure all twisted and leaning on the building next door.

The municipal swimming pool lost roof and windows. The Town Hall and many other rooftops lost their tiles.

Abandoned factory rooftop

Huge trees were uprooted.

On the main road near the bridge.

Clean-up at the Al Mouatamid Ibn Abbad Square

And the clean-up continues ...


My thoughts and prayers go out to all those who have been affected by the tornado, specially to those who were injured.

Wonderful

Jake is back (Yay!) and he has suggested the theme wonderful for today's Sunday post.

According to the Oxford Dictionary, wonderful is an adjective that means "inspiring delight, pleasure, or admiration; extremely good; marvellous".

 

Well, when I was a child growing up in a suburb of Harare, my parents would take me to the largest park in the centre of the city. (I can't remember what it was called then; now it is called Harare Gardens). I was small, it was enormous and full of beautiful flowers and trees. It inspired in me delight, pleasure and admiration!

 

We used to visit the Garden before the Monomatapa Hotel was built

 

Unfortunately they never took me to Victoria Falls! Much later, when I visited Zimbabwe in 1985 I was hoping to have the chance of finally going there but my godfather said it wasn't safe, so I didn't go. All the pictures I've seen convince me that those Falls are absolutely wonderful!

 

Don't forget to visit Jake's blog for links to other entries.

Salgados Lagoon - conserve it please!

Thursday post

Which do you prefer?

These are views of the Salgados Lagoon, pictures taken from viewpoints close to the Salgados Beach car park. Do you like what you see?

Unfortunately this may not be this beautiful for long because the Silves Town Council have announced they are getting ready to allow/encourage construction between Armação de Pêra and Praia Grande.

Do you like the idea of the land and dunes at the far end of the lagoon being destroyed to look like this?

This is part of the holiday resort on the other side of the car park I mentioned. It isn't completely finished yet and it's already run-down and going bankrupt. Construction workers have lost their jobs. The palm trees they planted to hide the ugly buildings are leaning already and many are dying because it seems there isn't even enough money to pay for the water they require.

Isn't it ridiculous to build another resort on the other side of the lagoon if this one is already surplus to requirements?

Just a few years ago, I used to walk from Salgados to Armação de Pêra with a friend on Sunday mornings. When we got to this roundabout (which wasn't here then) we could see the sea all the way to those white buildings in the background (in Armação de Pêra). Now all we see is the resort! 

Don't get me wrong - I am all for progress, when it makes sense!

For those who live in the Algarve and wish to help fight this construction mania, why not come to the Protest Meeting of the "Friends of Salgados Lagoon" on Oct 20th.

For more details, read this article at the algarvedailynews.com.

Morning

Lazy summer mornings are my favourites - breakfast on the veranda, under my orange tree, enjoying my garden.

Morning is the theme for today's Sunday post.

At 8.30 a.m. the sun is already quite high in the sky.

This post is part of a weekly feature that is hosted by Jake, who provides a word of inspiration and participants post their interpretations.

To conclude, I'd like to share this poem by Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1879):

Summer Morning   

How beautiful the morning,

When summer days are long;

O, we will rise betimes and hear

The wild-bird's happy song.

For when the sun pours down his ray

The bird will cease to sing;

She'll seek the cool and silent shade,

And sit with folded wing.

Up in the morning early

'Tis Nature's gayest hour!

There's pearls of dew upon the grass

And fragrance on the flower.

Up in the morning early,

And we will bound abroad,

And fill our hearts with melody,

And raise our songs to God.

Algarve gems - 2

Nobody guessed where I took the photos for my "Close-up" post - Pigletinportugal thought it was Monchique and Gertygiggles thought it was Alte. While they both qualify in my book as Algarve gems, this one is by the Arade River, near Silves.

View of the Arade River, from the Silves-Estombar road

The water springs from the middle of the rocks and forms a stream

After a bend in the stream, a long natural pool, with the old watermill in the distance

The pool in high tide, as seen from the watermill

The old watermill

View from the other side of the water mill

The house where the miller used to live

Part of the picnic and barbecue area, with a view of the estuary/river

The locals call it "O Sítio das Fontes" (the place of the springs) and my neighbour, not a local there but an authority on all things natural in the general area, didn't know about it, which came as a big surprise to me.

This gem, officially known as "Parque Municipal das Fontes" (Municipal Park of the Springs) or "Fontes de Estômbar" (Estômbar Springs), is a park that surrounds a major spring on the left bank of the Arade River.

It is situated north of the town of Estômbar, not far from Silves.

The park began as a picnic site on the Arade River. Then in 1989 it was formally recognised as an important ecosystem site. The watermill and the miller's house were restored, parking areas were organized properly, an open-air amphitheatre was built and a route for physical exercise was created and sign-posted. 

The day we had a picnic there, it was very hot so I couldn't convince any of my companions to go for a walk along the physical exercise route through the little wood. Maybe next time...

It is definitely worth a visit. 

The GPS coordinates are: 37º 09'42.17''N 08º 29'02.27''W

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Algarve gems