First full week on the finca
Finca update #3
It's chaos, there's piles with stuff everywhere and I'm dragging around those piles from one place to the other. I basically never walk around with carrying something. Building materials, stones, garbage and branches. Yes, it took a few days to get a system, but I'm getting there. For me it makes sense what I'm doing, it actually does not feel like chaos, but I can imagine that if you don't know what the system or the plan is, it looks like chaos.
The property has been abandoned for more or less 6 years and it came with all sorts of materials that have been laying around all that time. In the meantime there also have been some unwanted visitors who stole everything of value and kind of left a mess. From the taps of the sinks to the towbar of the caravan. This is kind of problematic, how am I gonna remove this caravan now? Ah well, I'll think about that later. My point is that I've been very busy organizing, rearranging and clearing out the living area. There's also lots of ideas and plans forming in my head about of what I want to create where. I got to say, it is a nice way to get to know the land, walking back and forth. A lot. And honestly I love every inch of it.
I hoped to show you some before and after photos, but the reality is that I'm starting a job without taking a photo before. Often I for example start to move dead branches, then I see something else that brings me up an idea and I start with that, also without taking photos. In fact, I don't even have my phone with me most of the time. Unbelievable how some people even manage to film everything and create videos for YouTube. If I'm not even able to take photos, I think a YouTube career is not for me.
Pallets
Anyways, the first day I started with moving the pallets that blocked the door to the house. Note that it's not really a house, it officially is a toolshed and I think I'll keep it that way for now. The pallets have their place at the back of the first part of the land, behind the fruit tree orchard. Before I could put the pallets there, I needed to clean up the pallet storage. While I was doing that, I noticed a big pile of wooden boards with nails sticking out. Probably that was where they used to dismantle the pallets. I don't know what their system was, but right now these piles were a potential danger, so to keep things safe, I started to move these boards to a corner of the pallet storage.
I have to confess that it took me several days to move all the pallets into their newly organized storage place. These things are heavy! But I got there. On the way back from the pallet storage to the casita, I collected dead branches that seemed to be everywhere. Sometimes tucked away under a tree, or behind a fence, but it seemed never ending. What to do with all these branches? I dedicated one former camper parking lot to a temporary storage for branches, next to the parking lot where I collected garbage. Old fridges, a rusty bike, lots of partially disintegrated plastic tubes, water and / or electricity pipes and more rotten wood.
Fences
The previous owners divided their private area from the camper parking with a fence made out of branches. Unfortunately most of the fence came down and although I can see the benefits of these fences, I decided to tear them down. More branches to be moved into the branch storage. Because I don't want to burn everything, I set up a branch processing station where I can brake them, make them smaller and arrange them in size. Perhaps I'll use them as firewood or maybe to make new, sturdier fences, I'll see.
Near the edge of the property were more fences coming down. Once I started to clean that up, I couldn't ignore the garbage laying around, so I cleaned that as well. Also more branches were to be found between the edge of my property and the fence. Perhaps the wind blew them away from other fincas or these branches were cut, because they were blocking the road, I don't know, but they make everything messy and so, I dragged them to the branch storage.
Garden beds
While dragging branches, I got the idea to use them in raised garden beds. I wasn't planning on making them already, but hey, why not? Therefore I jumped into a new project. I found big logs that could serve a border and I dumped some other logs in the bed as well. At this point I'm still very determined to re-use as much as I can, reduce waste and avoid buying new things. It means I take on very time consuming jobs, but for me it's worth it.
That night (night 4 or 5 I think) it rained a little. Not much, but enough yo be happy about. Now I own land in a region where it's very dry, I'm appreciating rain on a whole different level. The reward was immediately visable the next day. Everything looks greener and I even spotted some flowers. I also spotted lots of stones and then I thought, wouldn't it be nice to make a proper border for the garden beds? In Croatia I helped a friend making a terrace with dry stone walls, now I could put that experience into practice. The only issue is that have no wheelbarrow yet and it is very time consuming to carry all these stones one by one by hand. I kind of paused that project for now, but the vision is growing.
First visitor
During the first week I also got my first visitor. A cyclist from The Netherlands who wanted to make a tour towards Valencia and back and needed a place to parc his car. Well, I have lots of parking lots and I'm happy to be able to put them to good use. Because I have no running water yet, I asked the cyclist to bring me a bunch of big water bottles, that would save me many trips up and down to the spring. He brought 12 of them! I'm still amazed how everything works out. How everything is falling into place. How my dream, the vision I had, is becoming reality. Really, this is all I imagined and better.
Busy but happy
It was a productive week, I've been busy every minute of the day, I've been outside every minute of the day and you know what? I've been happy, so extremely happy every minute of the day.
Besides tackling the branches, moving pallets, demolishing fences, making garden beds, collecting garbage and stones, I also worked on creating a compost station, started to remove prickly bushes and I dismantled many old structures. Not the buildings, but animal cages, old furniture and the ugly structure that blocked the entrance of the casita. I don't have electricity yet and only just a handful of tools, but I managed. I also managed to salvage a whole lot of screws and other handy hardware. Yay!
This first week of clearing and cleaning up not only cleared part of the finca, it also cleared my mind. Not a hint of stress is left, only excitement. And creativity. I feel there's space to be creative again. And that makes me even happier.
