the battle of the brambles

This was the week to start the battle of cleaning up the overgrowth around the finca. We have learnt that we live at Finca la ala Maida, the farm of the poplars. What a lovely address. Unfortunatley it has not been pruned in about 5 years so the undergrowth is massive. There are several trees that are completely enshrouded in brambles, as well as the whole front wall being invisible behind rose bushes, various other shoots and even more masses of brambles. The zarza, as they are called here, are not like Canadian or English blackberry which have a nice sedate thorn to them. Zarza have things that are about 1/4 to 1/2 inch long and they fester horribly if they stick in you, so we were really looking forward to the war! Simon set about pruning the walnut, loquat and olive trees in front of the house while Fran attacked the undergrowth. She discovered that cutting into the bases of the thorny stuff and then using an old broom to pull it back on itself, worked the whole lot into a giant ball that could then be rolled down onto the bottom terrace. After several days work, we had a beauiful view, a new rastrillo (rake), aching backs and could actually see the wall in front of the house.