Figs galore!

We've been making the odd batch of fig wine recently but only a few kilos at a time.  Last Saturday I made a batch of white fig - 6 kilos - and a batch of black - 3.6 kilos.  No added water or sugar,  just mashed up figs and a yeast starter from the previous wine that was still fermenting.  When I squeezed them yesterday we got 4 litres of white juice and 2 of black.  But they had both used all their own sugar up so then I added some sugar,  a mix of 1 kilo to 1/2 litre of water,  boiled and cooled.  Within a few hours there was a good fizzy head on both brews.

Out yesterday morning with the dogs and a bucket,  we only went as far as the big fig tree which is on the way up to the fuente and while I picked 9.5 kilos of black figs they pottered around under the tree eating windfalls for their breakfast. 

This morning I thought I'd aim big,  get out the grape crusher and  pick as many figs as I could find and do a big big batch.  I got John's big rucksack and put a bin liner inside,  took a hooky stick to pull down branches,  and set off to the bottom land.   It's about a 10 minute walk down to the last fig tree and I picked on the way back up.  As it happened,  I only picked from 3 trees before the rucksack was getting quite heavy so bought it back and weighed the bin liner.  11 kilos.  Back out,  5 trees this time,  14 kilos.  Back out to the final 3 trees which were a bit disappointing - only 8 kilos.  But 33 kilos of figs should be about 25 litres of white wine.

We did the crushing outside in the sunshine then hose piped the terrace clean before the wasps came.   Soaped and rinsed the crusher (it looks like a wheelbarrow on legs,  has rubber paddles inside and as you turn the handle,  the figs - or grapes -  get crushed by the paddles and go down into a bucket underneath)  We call it the mangle. 

After the weather of the past week I was surprised to see so many figs still on the trees.  We had that torrential thunder storm of last Monday,  then on Thursday afternoon another one but worse because not only did we have torrential rain but also an enormous hailstorm which covered the garden in white.  Lots of our plants look like they have bullet holes in the leaves,  some had their leaves  shredded by the hail.  The area all around the pool flooded,  the pool overflowed onto the flooded ground and the muddy water drained back into the pool.  It doesn't look anywhere near the normal blue and sparkly cleanliness of a few days back but it is starting to settle.  I can see down to the 3rd step today!  A few more days and we'll be able to clean the floor and hoover out the dirt.  The front garden flooded too as the drain blocked again but that is easy to empty. 

A few good things though after the rain,  no need to water anything for a while and the cars are clean again!