Another day at the hotel

The hotel Vegetable garden

Whilst picking the vegetables this morning our son Seb said to me “we must try and get a responsible travel award next year” I replied “yes… but they give so much importance to quantative data” and after a little thought he replied “but just look what’s going on today,” and that inspired me to write a short blog on what's happened at the hotel today

It was Joe’s breakfast this morning so she was in the hotel before eight o clock preparing breakfast. Our home made bread and cakes have to be cut and put out on the buffet along with local and organic cheeses, yoghurts and marmalades. Then there is the final check to see if every thing is in place; cold apple juice made from our apples, organic and fair trade coffee and teas, cereals, nuts, fruit etc

During breakfast its time to check if our guests need any help planning their day, handing out information on our self guided walks, maps, train time tables etc. Today a couple of guests went for one of our local walks leaving their car at the hotel whilst others went further a field in to the mountains and some went for a swim in the sea.

Meanwhile I was out on the farm with Sebastian and Andres, we had cut a Eucalyptus tree and were splitting the wood and then had the hard job of wheel barrowing it down to the house and hotel. This wood will keep us warm in the winter. Towards the end of the morning we picked the fruit and vegetables that needed picking; beans, courgettes, raspberries, beetroot, letuce and then I started lifting our bumper onion crop to let it finish drying ready for winter storage.

Bumper onion crop this year

Actually this isn’t just another day at the hotel as Lidia a local ecologically sensitive artist was preparing her exhibition at mid day in the hotel ready for the inauguration this evening. We always try and buy our decorative elements from local artists and it was great for us to be hosting an exhibition from a local artist.

Lidia preparing her art exhibition in the hotel

Mid afternoon and I took a box of our potatoes down from the cold store to the kitchen where Samantha and Joe were planning how to use the fruit and vegetables we had picked for the evening meal. With most of our fruit and vegetables being grown less than 100m from the kitchen and picked only one hour before being used I think this sets a new standard for the meaning of fresh and local food!

Oh and today is Tuesday so like every Tuesday at about six o clock three small local organic farmers will be bringing their produce to our old house by the hotel where members of the consumer group will prepare vegetable boxes for 24 local families who form part of this Community Supported Agriculture. This is another initiative we are very proud to be part of.

 

Back at the hotel

Back in the hotel the smell of the freshly baked bread is filling the air and guests are mixing with some of the locals who have come to see Lidias art (and I am writing the blog)

Then it will be time to serve dinners, relax, have a glass of organic wine and think about another day. And even if we don’t get any more environmental wards its just nice to do what we do and see so many people enjoying it.

Hay 2013

The traditional hay stack or "palanca" we finished last friday

Spring this year had been wetter than normal and with all the moisture in the soil when the temperatures started to rise our meadows exploded with an array of different grasses and wild flowers. With the panorama of so much grass I wanted to cut our meadows as soon as possible, so when a week of dry weather was forecasted for the last week in June we got cutting.

Starting to cut four acres of meadows with a strimmer!

In previous years we had cut our meadows using a friend’s alum scythe but we knew this year this machine would not be available. We had tried to buy a second-hand alum scythe with out success so we had the daunting prospects of cutting all the meadows by hand using our strimmer fitted out with a special blade for hay.

The plan was to cut four acres of meadows in two days and have the stimmer working non stop each day! We divided the work between three of us; myself, Sebastian our son and Andres who normally works in the kitchen. We took it in turns with each person cutting for an hour; the strimmer didn’t stop working during nine hot hours each day and we didn’t get too tired.
 

Five days latter with the hay dried and almost ready for baling

The tractor baling the hay

Once the cutting was finished, the grass had to be turned twice to help with its drying and then moved by hand from the high rocky areas of the farm to the lower flatter area where a tractor could enter to bale the hay.

96 bales of beautiful hay!

We started cutting on the Monday and by Saturday morning all the hay was dried and placed in lines ready for the tractor to bale it. By mid day we had 96 bales of beautiful hay! On Monday morning our neighbour Juanra came with his tractor and took the bales to the stable ready for the sheep to eat during the winter months.

"Heaping" the grass ready to make our hay stack

But the grass kept growing and it was obvious that this year the sheep and horses were not going to be able to eat all the grass before it started to lodge and spoil. So a week latter we decided to cut another meadow and this time make a traditional hay stack. By now we were experiencing a heat wave and the grass dried within two days of cutting.

Compressing the grass in the stack by standing on it.

Combing the grass to help make the stack with stand the rain

So last Friday we finished our hay stack which is now proudly standing in the meadow close to the entrance of the hotel.

The sheep last winter enjoying the previous season's hay.

Rather busy!

It’s been a strange year this year. At the beginning of the season our bookings were considerably down compared to last year. So to help reduce costs we decided it was necessary to employ less staff which meant Joe and I would be covering some of their jobs.

We are now half way through our season and to date our occupancy has actually been up on last year. That’s obviously good but as a consequence Joe and I have been incredibly busy and I just hadn’t found the time to keep the blog entries up to date. We’ve now employed our staff for longer hours so hopefully we will now have time for some of those “other” jobs which need doing, including keeping you up to date with the blog.

Posada del Valle Ghosts of Past and Present.

How the hotel looked when we bought it back in 1995!

When a guest arrives at Posada del Valle they often ask about the history of the hotel. It is difficult to know much about the history as this relies on the memory of neighbours, which very often differ according to who is telling it.

The inscription above the side entrance of the hotel

 We know the house is 114 years old as we have the inscription above the side entrance; Leandro Pravia Hevia..... The year it was built 1899 and Dios, Patria y Rey; the motto and cornerstone of Carlism.

As a social and political force, Carlism was one of the main actors in the Spanish civil war and to this end we have been told that during the civil war a local lad was called to cover the inscription with chalk, which we uncovered whilst renovating the house.

Discovering the inscription whilst renovating the house.

We were told that a priest and his brother lived here, the brother gambled and the house had to be sold to pay the debt. Later a Sr. Manzano told us he brought the house and farm with one sole purpose to make money. Apparently the farm had a huge woodland of Walnut trees, these were all cut down and sold, and he recovered his money and sold the farm and house. We have one magnificent survivor outside the dining room window, making its own statement I think.

The hotel with the large walnut tree standing by the dining room

We brought the house and farm from Marino and Angeles; they had cows and cut all the meadows with a scythe (guadaña), not an easy job on these slopes. Then the grass was taken up the farm with a horse and cart to the cows. The old original apples were here for cider, they had a large press in the basement of the house, we have heard many a neighbour came to help make the cider, and wandered home merry after the task was completed.

Here we are taking our first cider apple harvest out of the farm with oxen, before we had the cement road down to the hotel built.

The farm is called El Escobio, meaning a narrow pass between two mountains (which it is); hence we chose the hotel name Posada del Valle, Posada meaning Inn and Valle meaning valley. 

The hotel taken from the mounatin in front of it, showing the mountain behind

The church at the bottom of the farm is called Santo Tomas. Near this church there was a headstone dated from the 5^th century dedicated to Bovecio from his wife. These people were of Celtic origin and the headstone can now be seen in the archaeological museum in Oviedo.

Drawing of the headstone found near the church at the bottom of the farm

Blog entry written by Joe