It has been such a long time since my last entry on this blog that I do not know where to start. And so I'll just start with the weather. Cold and dry, like nowhere else in this little corner of the world. We now live higher than praca Tiradentes, higher than the flight of vultures, and do not be fouled by topless Coline, she has been enjoying a fire in the late afternoons, and was even caught wearing slippers on a few occasions. Oh and so did she start wearing her hand-knit blue dress once it had been customized by her - see those pink flower-shaped buttons? They made the whole difference. Dry means that fires were a daily occurrence and not only in our fireplace. Most hills around Ouro Preto have had a fire in September, and this reminded me of the winelands near Stellenbosch in February.

Sunny days meant much play outside the house. Leila and Coline have been parent and daughters to each other, to their dolls and the animals around. Leila's school program currently focuses on insects (on which occasion Silvia and I learnt that spiders are not insects) and Coline has declared that she loves spiders. I am not looking forward to seeing her holding them in her hand like they do with Tatu-bolas (three-banded armadillo) because we have some out-of-proportion specimen around here that do not run away when they see us.

I had some attempts at garden-keeping, rather than gardening, with the help of Thembile. She and Scratchy follow me everywhere and she generally shows me how much better and faster she is at digging than I am. I really do not know what I am doing, but I did clean up the banana-trees (while ignoring the above-mentioned and shown below spiders), set-up the compost pile and clear a small area which I then covered with bits of wood collected on the ground on one end and horse dung on the other end after a horse spent the night on the lawn below our house. I did leave a good-looking weed in the middle because it seemed to be loved by the indigenous stingless bees that I am hoping to breed one day for honey. Well, that will be after I get us some chickens to hopefully take care of the spiders and scorpions. It turns out that the "weed" is used as a remedy against indigestion. I am planning to plant some non-GMO corn to feed the chickens.

In late September we had a feast with mulberries.

 Right after that came the first rain of the season, along with coughing children and tummy-bugs and more fires in the fireplace and herbal tea to fight the humid 13 degrees indoors.

Now is October already. Warmer days have arrived, although I am not yet letting go of my knitting needles.