Well, what a week it´s been! Getting back from our holiday and trying to re-establish a routine with gardening, chickens, dogs, cooking, work…but all of it fun.
And now, four nominations at once. How lucky and honoured am I? First of all I have been nominated by TikkTok and RaeDi at Hummingbird Hollow for the Versatile Blogger Award. I was lucky enough to have been nominated for this a while back (but I am not a believer that you can have too much of a good thing), so check out my 7 bits of info in this post. Better not reveal any more or I may lose some of my mysterious allure. What…I don´t have any? Oh well…
Then, much to my surprise, I was nominated for the Liebster Blog Award by the lovely Cecilia over at The Kitchens Garden and Mandy at The Complete Cookbook. You don´t have to make any lists or link to any blogs with this one, just nominate 5 blogs you admire who have less than 200 subscribers, and who you feel should have more!
So, I´d like to thank all the lovely bloggers who nominated me (oh you shouldn´t have…) and nominate the following for the Liebster Blog Award (and apologies if you already have more than 200 subscribers – WordPress was showing this info and now I can´t seem to see it!)
Please feel free to accept, ignore, pass on, enjoy…but for those of you reading this, do check them out, I think you´ll like what you see!
Now…a quick look at our almonds. We had so much rain here in the spring that one of our two almond trees lost all its blossom and the second one only managed to hang on to a few flowers. Such a shame.
When we got back it was time to pick our “bumper “ crop. As you can see, there really wasn´t very much picking to be done. We didn´t need to bring extra workers in!
The almonds are covered in a green velvety casing.
We peeled this off of most of them as we stood by the chicken shed.
We left them in the sun for a few hours which helped us get those stubborn little “coats” off.
And that was it – one evening soon we´ll open a nice bottle of wine, get our stinky cheese out and have an almond cracking session. Fingers crossed for a better harvest next year.
Chica Andaluza 
Wow, how cool to be given so much love – 4 awards – YAY! Well done!
Don’t eat all your almonds at once now! hee hee
Have a great day.
🙂 Mandy
I´m feelin´the lurve! Will try not to pig out on the almonds 🙂
Wow – I’ve just been foraging chestnuts! Thanks so much for the nomination – I’ll have a look at your other suggestions too 😉
I hope you get more almonds next year!
The chestnuts are ready in the north here, but we´ve got a while yet to wait in the south! Congrats to you, well deserved 🙂
Congrats to you too – I was so taken aback by you nominating me, that I forgot to congratulate you 😉
Thank you!
Congratulations on your well deserved awards!! Those fresh almonds must taste so good!!!! I loved your post title!!!
I won´t let them go to my head! The fresh almonds are great – completely different fromn we buy….glad you liked the title 🙂
Oh you grow almonds and i saw a wee glimpse of a very posh chicken shed there! How wonderful that you have received all these awards and so you should have.! darling girl. Now .. back to work! c
Well, we only grow them because there were two trees in our liitle olive grove when we bought it. I´d love a walnut tree but they get SO big. The chicken shed is made out of scraps that we “recycled” – all from the local dump, so not very posh!
Wow! These almonds look amazing! How cool to grow your own nuts! Congrats on the awards! 🙂
Thank you – and the almonds do taste extra special 🙂
Stinky cheese rules! Oh I should put that on a T-shirt. Congrats on the awards, well-deserved. These almonds are making me hungry!
How about a scratch and sniff t-shirt?!
Wow, almonds. I saw them growing in Provence when we were there in the spring, and wondered how long it took them to ripen… They look like peaches – all fuzzy on the outside. Very cool!
We´d normally have a whole lot more, but not this year. They are pretty from start to finish (blossom to green shell) and great to eat!
Congrats on your awards! Your nuts look lovely!!
Thank so much JamieAnne!
Congratulations on the well-deserved awards! And thank you so much for passing one on to me – I’m flattered and very pleased that you like my blog, but I hope you won’t mind if I don’t pass it on. I decided when I began blogging that I wouldn’t participate in these challenges and awards. I broke that rule once recently, as you know, when you kindly challenged me, but I won’t this time. I feel a bit guilty, but I’m sure you know that I value your comments and love your blog too. Oh, and the almonds look great, even if there aren’t many of them!
Thank you and no worries about the award – you must do exactly as you please, it´s yours! (And they can end up going round in circles). Our poor old almond trees, they took a real bashing in the rain this year. Oh well, it´s good for the olives.
Congrats on the awards you old blogger you! Love the nuts too x
I´ll save you a few nuts and we can go mad with them when I am in London!
Wow! A bucket of almonds and a bunch of awards — all well-deserved. Congrats to you on both counts.
Thanks so much – shame there weren´t a few more almonds…next year hopefully!
Congrats on the worthy awards. Enjoy those almonds.
Thank you – we´ll try not to gobble them all up at once!
Nice! Congrats on your other (dare I say “real”?!) award! Did your chickies get a tasty treat once you peeled the nuts? 🙂
He hee – and thank you! Ys, the chickies had great fun playing with and pecking at the almond casings!
Muchas gracias por la nominación Tanya! Como siempre, es un placer venir y leer tus posts. Aunque pequeña, la cosecha tiene muy buena pinta. Enhorabuena!
De nada – lo mereces mucho. Y la cosecha, si, muy pequeña, pero rico!
congratulations on the deserved awards…sending and sharing the love for the weekend around wp has been fun, and a great way to get enticed to meet some of the great bloggers out there!Your almonds look great and have a great evening of wine, nuts and stinky cheese….just the way I like it! Sweet indulgence!
Thanks Yvette – it is a good way to see blogs you normally wouldn´t have visited or just haven´t come across yet. Looking forward to our wine/nuts/stinky cheese evening!
I am in love with your huerta!! What doesn’t it have?! And thank you for the nomination, I greatly appreciate it!!
Here’s to wonderfully stinky cheese!! 🙂
It´s smll but it has just a little of a lot of things! Enough for the two of us anyway. Congrats on the well deserved nomination 🙂
Congrats on your awards!!!
I love fresh almonds… I used to get them in Sicily all the time… I haven’t eaten them in a while!!! sigh 🙂
There is a huge difference in taste – shame you can´t get them any more. Thanks for visiting!
A bottle of wine and an almond cracking session?? Sounds like a party to me!! I had no idea about the growing of almonds…I feel like a city chick who just learned something new! Your awards are all so well deserved; I’m always looking forward to your posts!!
You´re right – a cheese (nut) & wine party!
Congrats on the awards! Those almonds look delicious. Nice that you didn’t have to bring extra workers in!
All the extra cost we would have had!
well done on all the awards 🙂
Thank you – all pretty surprising!
Well done!! You deserve those awards.
I love those almonds, such a privilege to reap those! Once, in another lifetime, in another part of SA, we also had almond trees, and those photos of yours brought back such memories! Thank you.
PS My bougainvilleas look like your header photo at the moment…. 🙂
Thank you so much! You made me smile with your comment about the bougainvilleas. Big Man and I love them so much but have struggled to grow them. The photo was taken in Cordoba but finally this year, after moving a plant and one of our dogs trying constantly to dig it up, it has taken off! I think we were treating it too nicely….:) Do publish a picture of yours, would love to see it!
Congrats on the awards (that includes the almonds!)
🙂
I thank you most humbly!
Tanya, your blog is definitely worth all the awards and even more. There is so much of your soul in it. 🙂
Hi Olga and good to “see” you again. Many thanks for your lovely words – I do so enjoy writing my blog, I guess it´s natural that part of you is visible to the world in it!
Congratulations on all the awards 🙂
You totally deserve them, I love your blog and I see I am not the only one 🙂
I love almonds …there is nothing like fresh
Ah thanks Sawsan – they almonds are pretty good…well, very good actually!
You deserved each and every award given, more will be on coming your way I am sure. Interesting about your little nut….RaeDi
Ah thanks RaeDi – shame about the little harvest, but luckily we have lovely neighbours who have given us more!
You deserved earned each one and I am sure more will be on the way! Very interesting your little nuts….RaeDi
My grandmother had two big almond trees
I remember all the peeling and drying fondly
we kids used to have a blast, using stones to crack open the wooden cover
nothing tastes like those almonds
You´re right, the taste is amazing! We have nut crackers, but sometimes have to resort to a hammer or a stone too…