Crime & Mystery at The DJA Quinta

The Trowel & The Tape Measure

We've been away from the quinta for a few months, and to be honest we were half expecting for things to change or move whilst we were away. When we came in November 2022 to sign the deeds, and well, not pick up the keys since there weren't any, we also brought a couple of things with us to leave behind. The two main items were a long tape measure and a trowel. The two buildings on our land did have locks, but the keys have long been lost, so they weren't exactly the most secure places in the world. Well, more secure then most places in Manchester, but that's besides the point. Basically, there was a question mark over whether somebody would come along and help themselves to our belongings if you know what I mean ...

Both, the trowel and the tape measure, were left on a little blue stool in the lower building. This was going to the first security test. Is it safe for us to leave things there whilst we are away for a few months at a time, and will they still be there when we return? Portugal is officially one of the safest countries in the world and it certainly feels that way when you're there. However, will somebody have a snoop around our schist barns?  

The Crime Scene ... Or Is It?

As you can see, the lower building aka The Guest House, is full of valuables and would rank highly on any burglar's To Rob List. Various vintage garments, a watering can, vintage furniture, the comfortable bed and of course, now the crown jewels in the form of our trowel and a long tape measure. 

Fast forward to March 2023, we arrived after being away for a few months and the first thing we did was go and check on the trowel and the tape measure, are they still in The Guest House? Trowel, tick, yes, it's exactly where we left it opposite the door on a blue stool. Tape measure however ... not so much. The tape measure seems to have vanished and despite looking around we just couldn't find it. Clearly, somebody has breached the ventilated door protecting our items and had a very specific list of things to steal that day, as nothing else seems to have gone missing. Not ideal, but that's why we wanted to start with cheaper items and see whether it was possible to leave some more valuable items behind in the future, and things weren't looking great.

The Orange Tree

If you've seen our quinta reveal video (which you can find here by the way) then you will no doubt know, that we have planted an orange tree on the day we signed the deeds. With the climate being quite harsh in Portugal over the summer months and with winter just beginning, we weren't entirely sure if it was going to make it and how long it was going to survive, but we decided to try and planted one anyway. To add to our climate related concerns which would affect our beloved orange tree, we later realised that there is another potential issue. Having done a little bit of reading, we found out that the sheep which are being grazed on our land by a local friendly farmer, will quite possibly see our tree as more of a snack rather than our prized possession which is to be cared for and to be kept protected. The next check was therefore to see if our orange tree has made it through the winter and managed to fend off the sheep which undoubtedly were after its luscious green leaves. Good news on that front, the tree seems to have survived, it's not looking great, but it's alive, it's a fighter and we were delighted!

 The Barrel

When we left the land in March the soil was pretty bare. There wasn't much growing after the harsh droughty summer and pretty dry autumn. To our surprise however, we appear to have a wild flower meadow, which is brilliant! In the middle of it however, not very far from our precious orange tree, there appeared a rusty steel barrel. Do these sprout in Portugal by themselves? Is this how oil fields are made? Anyway ... our initial thoughts were that somebody had it lying around and didn't want it on their land any more and decided to kindly donate it to us. It seems to have been in it's current position for a while judging by the vegetation around it and the bare soil underneath it. What was strange though, was that this particular spot on the land is a fair distance from all the boundaries and a decent distance away from the nearest entrance onto the land. Surely, if you wanted to just dump an old barrel somewhere, you wouldn't go to the effort of dragging it further than what you have to? It wasn't very obvious to us, but there seemed to be more to this barrel then what it seemed at first glance. 

 Meeting Joaquin

Sadly I don't have a photograph of Joaquin, so the above image of a dead tree on our land will have to do. I like it and don't have anywhere else to crowbar it into so it goes here. Anyway, Joaquin is our friendly local sheep farmer that grazes his sheep (having checked with us that we're happy for him to continue to do so) on our land amongst others in the area. We first met him back in November 2022 shortly after we arrived on the land having signed the deeds. I was on the opposite side of the land and when I turned around there was a flock of sheep charging onto our land. My initial thoughts were, is this how you get sheep? Sheep choose you and that's it, you have no say in it? Are we now officially sheep farmers? Having looked beyond the sheep however, I spotted a man on a tractor heading in our direction. To cut a long story short, we all introduced ourselves, he explained to us that he used to graze his sheep on this plot for years with the permission of the previous owner and asked if we had anything against him continuing. He made it clear that if we didn't want him to do it then he'd stop and it wouldn't be an issue. In our case however, it was actually going to be in our favour if he continued, and we also didn't want to start pissing off the locals on day one We told him to carry on as he was doing previously and it's not a problem from our side at all, if anything it will help to stop the land from overgrowing and we didn't have to pay anyone to clear it every year. His sheep get to eat, we don't need to worry about the land getting overgrown, win win. He seemed like a very nice guy and it was nice to meet someone local.

Plot Twist

Fast forward to March 2023, we had a week in Portugal on this occasion, however most of it has now passed and there was no sign of Joaquin. Although we weren't concerned for his safety, we assumed that he was busy elsewhere, unless there was a secret Joaquin summoning ritual that we had to do but were unaware of it. Maybe a sheep dance or something, I don't know. Luckily, only a couple of days away from the end of our time in central Portugal as we were walking back to our quinta from the local village we came across the man himself. He was riding his blue tractor in our direction like a knight on his majestic steed returning from battle. We said our Ola's and having shown us a sheered bolt from his tractor which he was on his way back home to replace, he started talking about meters. Although I'm doing my best to learn Portuguese, it's not exactly at a very fluent level at the moment having only started learning a few months earlier. With some hand gestures and help from Google Translate, the fog shrouding our quinta in mysteries started to lift. The winter, just gone at that point, was very wet and there was extensive flooding across Portugal, this included central Portugal where our quinta is located.  He explained to us that a part of our land flooded and he moved the tape measure to a higher shelf within the building to protect it from the rising water should it get that high up. He also covered it up with a small piece of metal sheeting so that any water dripping from our somewhat leaky roof doesn't damage it either. When we got back to the quinta, we had another look and yes, the tape measure was there exactly as he explained! Soon after Joaquin arrived on his blue tractor and started to fill us in a little more on what had happened whilst we were away.    

Any Other News?

This is the first time I'm uploading a video clip here so hopefully the above works for you! Anyway, this short clip, which you can hopefully see, shows the lower part of the land going up to The Guest House on the left. If you squint hard enough you may just about be able to make out the orange tree to the right pretty much at the same level or slightly below the level of The Guest House. Joaquin explained that the water rose high enough that the whole section from the stream, which is at the bottom of the land, was flooded all the way up to The Guest House and our fragile orange tree! Not only that, he said that at one point the temperatures dropped so low overnight that the small lake that has developed there, froze over! No wonder our orange tree wasn't looking it's best, two muppets from the UK planted it on the edge of a flippin ice rink! 

What About The Barrel?

Having now had a chat with Joaquin about what has happened whilst we were away and how he moved the tape measure to protect it for us, we had an idea of what happened with the barrel. We walked over to the orange tree with the barrel not too far from it. He explained that sheep will eat a small tree like that or at the very least strip it from its leaves which is as good as a death sentence, The barrel in question had the bottom and the top cut off, so in essence it was a steel tube, a cage which as you can guess by now he used to protect our tree for us as best as he could from his sheep whilst allowing some light to get to it from the top. The barrel was a layer of protection between the tree and his sheep grazing around it. 

Hero!

Not all heroes wear capes, in this case our hero drives a blue tractor and looks after his flock of sheep. He knew that we don't live locally and that we can't keep an eye on things very well ourselves, he clearly realised that we're a little clueless when it comes to rural life in Portugal. He decided to help us out and actively looked out for our best interest despite having no incentive to do so, nobody asked him to and nobody certainly expected him to, but he did it anyway. The man, the legend, our Portuguese hero, Joaquin!