Here is a bit of a review of 2024 that gives a general of a sense of the year we have had up until mid Nov. If you go to Barbara’s personal facebook (https://www.facebook.com/monte.doscarvalhos) or her instagram account, you will find many photos and videos that bring this report to life via images. There is also a fb page for Mount of Oaks with some snaps too https://www.facebook.com/mount.of.oaks. What I have done below is to attempt draw a few highlights together….
Winter
In the Winter of 2023 we had Tomas come from 10th Dec – 11th January 2024 to farm-sit while Barbara and Emma visited Angola. Tomas completed the apprenticeship earlier in 2023 and then came back to land and animal sit. We were incredibly grateful for his care of the land and the animals – both dogs and the 3 cats all slept in the common space with the warmth of the fire and cuddles from Tomas!!
As it turned out none of those who applied for the internship were able to commit in 2024. We received Soraia for a couple of weeks in April to volunteer, and the rest of the year we (Emma and Barbara) managed the hosting, courses, land and animals ourselves. This was not ideal, yet it was a year for recognising and feeling the different areas and the needs of the land and new animals, plus dreaming into being some new projects – such as Primative Camp and Crescent Moon Crew – more about those later… We were super grateful to enjoy the fruits of 2023 in the garden – Tomas did an incredible job at planting brassicas. We were eating huge cauliflower and brocoli end of Winter into the beginning of Spring – well done worms, soil and the soulful work of this precious brother!
Spring
Our open season began on 25th February with the first of the Singing Circles. These we have been hosting with our local circle for the last 4 years – at a time they were weekly, and this last year they have been bi-weekly gatherings. In February we were meeting at 5-7pm in the Common Space, lighting our candles, listening to our intentions and prayers and making music together. As the year went on we have met another 22 times, and moved time and locaton to the N’jango when the weather warmed up. As we consider this more of a closed circle, it was beautiful to witness how generously the group opened this sacred time to guests who requested to take part.
So our first residential activity was a Lime and Tadelakt Workshop in March just before Easter. This included a mixture of local friends/associates and two ladies who had travelled up from Alentejo for the course. More pictures from the final result of our TADELAKT Introductory course @mountofoaks …You can also see more professional photos from our friend Keri who also did the course…she is an amazing photographer among many other things (Pass:crackiscrack). Kirsty also made us part of one of her videos from her Youtube Channel “Portugal from Scratch” and you can also check here...it’s the middle part..
March continued with the work in the forest and sowing seeds in the polytunnel and preparing for arrival of guests on retreat – Rik from Netherlands and Julie from Lancaster – both came overland via train and bus. At Easter we had the visit of Kathy and Colin and the kids from Edinburgh. Together we planted 2 new fruit trees – a pomegranet and a pecan, complete with names (oops I forget them!!)
In April we organised a Herbal Yoga Journey with Daisy May, input from Olli and the star of the mini retreat was Nettle! There were 12 beings who took part and it was a beautiful mixture of sensorial herbalism, movement, nourishment and laughter.
As the days warmed and lengthened, the Bell Tents went up and we welcomed the return of Eva, Isik and their Yoruk Residency. 10 beings, mostly from Scotland, England and Germany delved into the transformational work for 5 days together. The title of this gathering was ‘Voyage to the New Dawn’ and included another magical trip to the Gardunha. (https://www.fourthland.com/voyagetothenewdawn)
Summer
Barbara taught another 2 natural building workshops in June and July which were 8 day courses – introductions to Earth Building. In June the course supposedly for women ended up including Phillipe, who was clearly not a woman!! Here are some links from Ba’s or and
In Summer we hosted more families, Dane, Jilly and their boys; Juran, Ulli and their kids; our mums, cousins and Edna and our twin nephews! It was busy to juggle time with friends, family and the normal daily routines of the garden, animals and usual daily activities of cooking, cleaning and harvesting and transforming the garden produce!
In August we also hosted Dearbhla, Jule and Rachel as part of a Creative Residency based around our overlapping loves of Food Jusice, Herbalism, Health and Healing and practices of land Commons. These were really special long lush days and while we chatted Barbara continued to work on the area outside the bus and new chicks were born!
Arrival of Gerry and Tilha
At the end of August we welcomed a a male donkey, Gerry and a mare, Tilha – both about 4 years old. They needed rehoming and so it seemed that the ecosystem here and around us was ready to have these two ‘Brownies’ as part of the pack. Our aim is that we can develop a collective of walking distance farms where they can pasture, manure and be with other humans and animals… For now it is Barbara and I looking after them alone. We have the support of an amazing horse whiperer trainer called Nina coming now weekly to help us connect and ‘join-up’ with them safely. They came from Amandine and Mark, and they still come and visit with the kids, which is great. We all envisage a time when we can walk with Gerry and Tilha in the mountain or use the cart for hauling wood around the land! It’s really hard to explain how our lives have changed since their arrival – its not just about the time dedicated to moving them almost daily, creating fencing or the training, or the new expenses we hadn’t budgeted for…..it’s like we adopted two new beings, and I (emma) am still getting used to this all, probably like Gerry and Tilha are getting used to us!! Definately a different energy to the arrival of the ducks, geese or chickens!! Step by step we will create more efficient systems
As September came to a close we welcomed Helen and then, Jayne and Charotte on a retreats and only a few days later 14 ducklings were born! The ladies and the ducklings brought us lots of joy at the end of the summer season.
Autumn
October began with the a visit from Catherine from Malta and the decline in Tali’s health. It was a really difficult decision, but we let Tali return to Source on 17th October and you can see a post just about that here
Normally this time of year we are super busy harvesting the olives and preparing to close for the year – we did a few things differently. We harvested for eating (currently the olives are in water and salt and herbs will be added when they are ready).
Samhaim/Halloween/All Soul’s and All Saints at the end of Oct/beginning of Nov is also Barbara’s birthday. It being her 50th, we celebrated with our usual Singing Circle and a special Sweatlodge and inaugaration of a dedicated area to honour our ancestors.
Mushrooms
We organised 2 wild mushroom identification walks with Tristan Coverdale and it was a delight to be able to see how many edible and delicious varieties we have growing in the woods at the back of the land – on the last walk 16 different edibles were identified. We also enjoyed tasting these under the watchful eye of our local expert! Tristan also became an assocate this year, so we look forward to more offerings together with him in 2025 – there is chat of some work with miso for example!! You can see more pictures in this post.
A few weeks later we welcomed, sister Ulli Butterfly for a week. Our similar interests in peacebuilding and reconciliation had us up on the cold nights talking and praying for the world. She stayed with us to be at the AGM – and it was so special to have a friend who has visited Mount of Oaks annually since the very early days to be present for the more formal aspect of the AGM.
Soon there will be a post specifically about the AGM!
For today we want to share some exciting news …..
We will host a Permaculture Design Course taught by Sílvia Floresta from Aldeia do Vale from 11-23 March 2025!! For more details follow this link – http://mountofoaks.org/bi-lingual-pdc-with-silvia-floresta-march-2025/
