Our life in Spain: Almonds

Almonds

Hi peeps! Thank you for reading my blog.  Today a little more about our life Spain. It's almond time! The trees are laden with almonds. It is the main crop in this area. There are fields and fields full of almond trees.  Apparently they don't need irrigation. As water is precious in this hot and dry climate, a lot of people grow almonds. There are many almond trees near our house.  The almonds flower in late winter (end Feb beginning of March), and then they slowly mature and round about now their skin bursts open (see photo), and they will fall.  I have collected quite a few in this state. The nut needs to dry for a few days and then I crack/bash the nut and I have a raw almond. I love them roasted in the oven and often just eat them as a snack. But I also love baking so I love using them in and on my cakes.  On an industrial level I don't quite know how it works but I do know that the almonds are exported. It's strange that we can't buy almonds locally. If I need almonds outside this season, I buy them in the supermarket like e everybody else. What we do buy locally are the shells. We use them as fuel for our stoves in winter. My husband and I buy a lorry load between 3 families in September. They get delivered in a friend's back yard and we spend a weekend bagging them up. (a standard bag being about 25 kilos).  Here is a photo of our stove. This particular one is a dual burner. One side burns almond shells and the other side is a wood burner. The wood burner is used most when we have the heating on all day in the winter. The almond burner can be lit easily and quickly so is ideal for short periods. But if we have no wood we can burn it all day too. It kicks out a lot of heat, but has to be refilled regularly.  This is my story about almonds. Hope you found it interesting.  Thank you for stopping by, God bless and..... Keep scrapping!  Lisca