“To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

A surround sound volley of gun shots split the crisp morning air just as the sun slides over the horizon. Moments before, I have locked eyes with a roe deer (corço), a mere ten metres from me, when Midnight’s body language alerted me to something on the other side of the stone wall. I’m uncertain if she is looking at me or Midnight, who is softly warning her to stay away from us. Her ears scan the landscape before she slowly first moves towards us, and then down the slope of the land to where a little path wend its way into the long dry grass. My heart twists into a heavy knot that eventually slides into the pit of my stomach, where I know it will stay for the next couple of months. Hunting season has officially started in Portugal.*

Notes:
# In a culture where having a shot of alcohol with coffee in the morning is perfectly acceptable, the sound of hunters in the area never sits well with me, and although they are not allowed to hunt closer than 250 metres from houses, for my South African brain that is still shockingly close.
Over the years my body has learned that shots ringing out isn’t an imminent threat to me, but a certain amount of tension still linger as a visceral part of my being. From now until the end of February, every Sunday and Thursday, my heart will contract and my mind will wish safety for the roe deer, red legged partridges, and all the other animals that are allowed to be hunted, and who helps to make my life on the quinta so special.

* Strictly speaking hunting season last much longer, but is for specific species and conditions, and is much less noticable to the ears. My much loved corços are, unlike the other two deer species, typically hunted in spring/early summer (May–July) by stalking, since its rut falls in July–August.

# Michael had a lot of fun on the tractor, doing some much needed tidying up, during his short visit at the beginning of the month.

# He unboxed our new autoclave (essentially a giant pressure cooker), while building work has started on a room that will initially serve as an incubation room for the mushrooms we are planning to grow. More work will be done in October for us to be ready for the growing season in winter. This year will be a steep learning curve, as we hope to start receiving an income from it next year.

# On my way home from Madrid, after dropping Michael off at the airport, I took a different route home to make a brief stop in Àvila.

# Via the rural grapevine we learned that our original Portuguese neighbour who, in the beginning used to graze his sheep on our land and kept an eye on it while we weren’t here, passed away at the beginning of the year. It was because of ill health that him and his wife moved to the city to be close to their son, and I’ve only ever bumped into them a couple of times since moving here. It reminded both of us once again of the fleetingness of life, and that we should make the most of each day.

# On the 12^th of August, when a total solar eclipse swept through a section of the Iberian Peninsula, the cats and I enjoyed our partial version in the late afternoon watching the eerie shadows lengthen and shorten, a short while before sunset.  

# Yesterday I joined the grape harvest of a friend, who is going to try her hand this year in making a Bordeaux style wine. It was a pleasant day, and with many hands harvesting it took a mere 2 hours before we gathered for lunch, followed by weighing and pressing the grapes.

# In my garden I’ve eaten delicious grapes, zucchinis and green beans, while I’ve frozen all the passion fruit pulp I’ve been collecting to make passion fruit curd and ice cream later. The Hawthorne berries (haws) are busy ripening, and it looks like I will be able to make my first batch soon. The cats joined me in picking a big bowl that I will turn into ketchup later today.

# We’ve had some early rain (24 mm in total), which was wonderful, despite the fact that it was the first time since I moved here that we’ve had any rain in August, as our rainy season usually only starts in September.

A Special Moment(s):
My Spanish niece and her partner, who lives in New Zealand, are currently in Spain. In order for me to see them, my sister organised an apartment in Guimarães for a couple of days. Despite the fact that it coincided with some rain and cool weather, it was an absolute delight, and a memory I will treasure.

Portuguese Traditions:
August is informally known as Mês dos Emigrantes, the month when the Portuguese diaspora comes home. As it coincides with a variety of festivals taking place during the month, small towns can feel especially busy and lively.

In the past, Portuguese emigration happened in several major waves, each with different destinations depending on the era. The biggest wave is still the one that took place between 1950 and 1974. Driven by poverty, lack of opportunity, and, for many men, the desire to avoid being drafted into the colonial wars in Africa (Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau) during the Estado Novo dictatorship, large numbers left for France, Germany, the United States and Canada. The Carnation Revolution in 1974 paused this flow when it ended not only the dictatorship, but also the colonial wars.

Since then, various other events prompted emigration, like when Portugal becoming an EU member, and the years directly after the 2008 financial crisis. Where in the 1800s Brazil, a Portuguese colony at the time, was the most popular destination for emigrants, it is Spain, France and Switzerland that now top the list.

Portugal’s relationship with emigration is remarkable in scale, as it is the European country that, proportionally, has the largest number of emigrants, and the eighth largest in the world. Over the last 20 years alone, more than 1.5 million citizens have left the country. (A statistic I find ironic and interesting, as that is the almost exact number of immigrants currently living in Portugal.)

Many of these emigrants and their children, especially from the France/Switzerland generation, return every summer to reconnect with family and hometowns. It is certainly true for our area, when French suddenly becomes the language one hears most after Portuguese.

Written by: Jolandi