Casa da Eira dos Nove Vintage

It's hard to start again but sometimes it is the best thing you can do. 
For over 5 years I have been dedicating myself to clean the farm from my parents, plant trees, move soil, clean old water draining systems, etc...

It took a lot of time and effort to change things and unfortunately I can no longer work together with my father. This change set me back a lot, since I was improving all the Farm (about 20 000 m²).

Right now I'm working together with my mom (Ires) and her boyfriend (Rolf), and we agreed to use half of the land since one half belongs to my mom. This "alliance" is bringing us closer together and improving our lifestyle and eco-friendly living. 
(But this progress is meant for a different post.)

To sum up, we are using 10 000 m² from my mom and Casa da Eira dos Nove has around 5000 m² at the moment 
(we are thinking about buying a land from a neighbor if we manage to get enough funds)

This is just so you have and idea of how much work this can be.
I called this post vintage because I want to show all the old pictures from the house and the history as far as I can track it back.

So this is the house in 2004. 
Looks naked compared to today pictures. I checked my old Photo albums but I couldn't find a picture before 2004, I know I have at least one. If I find it I will add it here.



The good thing on this picture is that you can see the "Eira" completely free and cleaned and this was the way people used to dry or organize their harvest.


Here we have the garden before all the changes.



Later we have build a roof here to store wood.



The Peach Tree



A lot needed to be planted...



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A new Beginning!

Casa Da Eira dos Nove.

For a long time we haven't posted anything on this blog. In fact, we change the name, the template, but we kept the old posts as draft. For those that are starting your reading adventure with this post, just a brief explanation:
This blog was born from the necessity to share our projects at Quinta do Vale. That little farm was the starting point for our experiences and knowledge building, for dramas and comedies, for many good memories... But Today we need to express ourselves using our own identity.
So, last Christmas, with all family together (Rafa, Ires, Rolf, Salomé, Leonie, Alika [Our helpful volunteer] and Lucas) we decide to work on this new identity.
Sitting together, we thought about a new name for our place.
It was pretty simple and we should have done this earlier. After we asked the older people in the village about the house and how they would call the place many, our neighbors said that this house was known as "O Palheiro" and others said it was known as "Casa da Eira".
Anyway, there are too many others places out there, in Portugal, with this simple names, so we remembered that once we got told that 9 inhabitants of our village were born here.
Our family helped with this decision, and on 24th December our Home was baptized.

This is our House. (30th June 2015)

Eira in Portuguese means "Smooth or cobbled land where you put to dry thread, shred cereals or vegetables" In this case we have a large sandstone area that was mainly used to dry corn and beans.

A lot has changed but that is the reason I'm doing this blog, it is a good way of organizing myself and being able to show family, friends and the occasional reader what is happening in this beautiful place. 

Before we start.

Hello! 

Welcome to Casa da Eira dos Nove!
Rafa and Lucas have their hearts here. 

This peaceful household is located in Casais de S.Clemente, a small village with 150 people, that is 7km from Miranda do Corvo and 20km away from Coimbra.

Lucas' parents came to Portugal 30 years ago, approximately. They recognized many advantages to start a new life in Portugal, so here their three children were born, many animals had a good life, volunteers and guests helped around..However, life doesn't go always as we wish and the farm was in standby for 8 years.

Meanwhile, Lucas, that grew up surrounded by nature, after some years studying programming, decided to dedicate himself to the place where he was born.

Along with his father, they started to clean and rebuild all the land. Rafa appeared and helped on this demand, along with almost 200 hundred volunteers, that came between January 2012 and December 2016.

Many good and bad events occurred since then - too many to tell you about. But, after 4 years, the project called Quinta do Vale came to an end. 

For almost a year we were re-organizing our lives and thoughts, and today, we are together on a new project, that define who we truly are. 

We hope you can follow our adventures!

Feel yourself at Home.

Rafa