Crazy Idea #13

'Las farmacias. Imágenes de nuestra memoria' (editado por Cofares y la editorial Turner)

During a visit to one of the houses we looked at we were told that they´d had a previous offer from a doctor from Madrid who planned to grow medicinal herbs on the 2500 m2 of attached land. The deal fell through when he couldn´t sell his house in Madrid, but the idea stayed with me. I´d first heard about cultivating medicinal herbs from Sharon Astyk who is a blogger I admire. She´s planning a medicinal herb venture on her farm in upstate New York. (And she has adorable Nigerian Dwarf Dairy goats!)



http://www.nigeriandwarfdairygoats.com/

Interestingly, many of the online guides/info sites focus on growing culinary, aromatic or medicinal herbs in a traditional ag monoculture format - i.e. big flat acreages. Unsurprisingly, this came with lots of capital investment machinery requirements and pest problems. Certified organic appears to be a highly valuable selling point.

O Consello Regulador de Agricultura Ecolóxica de Galicia (Craega)is the governing body for organic production in Galicia. I´ll have to do some research.

There are some shade medicinal herbs which require either forest conditions or protection with shade structures (ginseng, black cohosh). Since we´ll probably be heating with wood and will need to find a woodlot somewhere - that was an interesting read. Ginseng in particular struck me. Cultivated semi-wild it could be worth up to $300/lb - unfortunately it could take up to 9 YEARS for a crop. Oy.


http://www.herbies-herbs.com/pages/herbuses-1.html

I´m watching the Gallego channel in case it turns out I can learn Gallego by pure osmosis (hey it could happen) and saw a bit on researching potential pharmaceutical and agricultural applications for stinging nettle. The lab-guy commented that there was no one actually cultivating stinging nettle in Galicia which I can understand, but it sure does grow wild. We know from our old house explorations. No sandals or shorts!

Lavender is pretty - but it might be more suited to the Ribeira Sacra, which I think is drier. But Ian and Luis at Tales of Toriello in Asturias seem to be having success.


http://www.west-norfolk.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=21809

Cut flowers would be nice, but I know that Barbara at LifeinGalicia sometimes has had trouble from time to time selling her plants at the farmers market in Sober. The Gallegos are famous for only buying what they can eat.

For more:

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/fletcher/programs/herbs/crops/medicinal/production-med-patalk.html

http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/specialty_crops//medherbs/1.htm

http://www.attra.org/attra-pub/local_food/startup.html#attra

Yogurt

My first attempt at yogurt.

I heated one brik of whole milk to 180 degrees stirring so it wouldn´t stick, let it cool to 110, added 1 container of plain active yogurt (with sugar - it was the only one I could find) to a little of the milk, stirring slowly, then added that mixture back into the cooler milk. Then you´re supposed to keep it at 90 degrees for hours. I put it in a water bath on the stove on the lowest setting intermittantly until I went to bed. This morning - yogurt! And it´s delicious.

The two containers of commercial yogurt were 0.99 € and the brik of whole milk was another 0.99. I got 5 big servings to enjoy. Also pictured, some peach preserves I made last week.



I´d like to try some soft cheeses, but am having trouble tracking down a cheesemaking kit with the right cultures. Either they don´t ship here, or they are for batches of 400 litres.

In other news - still no response to our initial offer from the sellers of the house. We are not amused.

Saving Seed

The Pavlovsk Experimental Station, a source of heritage berry and fruit seed in Russia is threatened with closure from encroaching development. The good news is that Medvedev has ordered an inquiry.

From the Huffington Post:

During the Siege of Leningrad in World War II, scientists starved to death while protecting this diversity. They chose to protect seeds over feeding themselves precisely because they understood the importance of this priceless resource to the future of agriculture.

See also http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/011516.html

Susana Seivane

While we were in La Coruña we got to see Susana Seivane perform live in the Plaza Maria Pita. She was great! She´s been touring this summer with a great band, with invited guests Rodrigo Romaní, Anxo Pinto, Xosé Manuel Budiño, David Paz, Jose Rodriguez and Jose Somoza. Great music, charming stage presence and she sings too!

I found this samba-flavored number that they played while we were there:

La Coruña

We´re back.

After a French air traffic controller strike delayed my departure for the States by a day, and then KLM managed to lose my suitcase in Amsterdam on the return, I was ready for a vacation.

We had 2 fabulous weeks in Galicia, based in La Coruña. V´s father´s family is from the city so V has about 30 cousins and assorted aunts and uncles there. We usually stay at the Hotel Palas (V likes to say that as though it were the ¨Palace¨) which is very basic but centrally located, clean and reasonably priced. But since we were staying 2 weeks and not 2 days, we opted for a studio apartment. What we didn´t realize was that there would be nothing but the room - no utensils, no dishware, no sheets, no toilet paper. Of the 150 € we saved over the hotel, we spent approximately 100€ on stuff from the Chinese dollar store down the street.

But for the entire 2 weeks it only rained twice - at night. Which pretty much balances out the 8 straight days of rain we had in June.



I have neither the figure nor the disposition for the beach - I get bored and can only read on my stomach, but the beach at Santa Cristina was a real discovery. We have gone by bus on trips before we bought the car, but it´s time consuming and confusing. With the car, though, it was about 15 minutes outside La Coruña and a great day - places to eat, great beach with almost no people (during the week), just lovely. We had a fabulous mariscada (giant platter of grilled fish/seafood) salad and a bottle of wine for about 45€ at a place just across the street from the sand.


Photo: http://www.flickr.com/groups/mapeofotograficodeespana/discuss/72157603825643302/

We also like to hang out in the historic part of La Coruña, but it´s not that big and after you´ve visited your favorite places a couple of times, it´s charm fades. But we found a new spot - O Viñedo - with a killer Raxo (pork loin with garlic and parsely) garnished with roasted red peppers and french fries for 7€.

Since we´re now mobile - we got around a bit as well - Santo Andres de Teixido (A SAN ANDRÉS DE TEIXIDO vai de morto quen non foi de vivo - you have to visit after you´re dead if you don´t get there while alive, according to the Galician saying),



the northernmost point of Galicia at Bares, and we travelled a bit up and down the Camiño de Santiago along the French route.

I will not say much more, but I think we have finally found our spot. It has it´s drawbacks - collapsed or collapsing walls, the roof is down, no plumbing or wiring. But the location is beautiful and private with 2000 m2 of garden, a barn, and still only about 4 kilometers from the village of Melide with all necessary services (and awesome pulpo). I don´t want to jinx it - so I´ll say no more, but encouragement for the undertaking is welcome.



Yes those are saplings and wild blackberries growing in the ¨living room¨.