Author Archives: Zephyr

June Continues

Dogs in Ria Formosa, Belmonte, Luz de Tavira, Algarve, Portugal good for kayaks
wachoro in the Ria Formosa, Algarve, Portugal

Certainly hot today with a maximum of 34ºC predicted. Good for the tourists and tourism. 🙂 Managed to take the ‘choros for a dip in the Ria Formosa this week. They loved it! Unfortunately I cannot take all three on long walks in case we get ambushed by unaccompanied dangerous dogs. So we stay close to home as a norm.

Ria Formosa, Belmonte, Luz de Tavira, good for kayaks
The wachoro having a splash in the Ria Formosa
Ria Formosa, Belmonte, Luz de Tavira, good for light tackle fishing
The terrible two, Ria Formosa

The tomatoes have been a bit disappointing. From a dozen plants I have managed a dozen tomatoes. They are of a decent size but definitely could have been better in terms of quantity.

Tomatoes, short bush variety,
Tomatoes, short bush variety
Tomato - grown in a control pot, Belmonte, Luz de Tavira, Algarve
Tomato- grown in a control pot

Been irrigation my clump of lemon grass with a hose pipe. It hasn’t dried out. Lemon grass tea is all I got at the moment.. :). I haven’t seen a tea bag for over two years. Shocking. Still drinking four cups of coffee a day to keep the brain going.

lemon grass / Principe, Belmonte, Luz de Tavira, Algarve
lemon grass / Principe

My path lined by guava trees. They are beautiful trees and provide some nice shade. I am growing one more in the front and that will be it. Making guava jam or perad (guava cheese) is hard work :).

guava tree lined path /caminho com guababeiras, Belmonte, Luz de Tavira, Algarve,
guava tree lined path /caminho com guababeiras

Still in plum with a few yellow plums now. Besides the infection the birds are wrecking a lot of destruction. I will try some hanging tins.

The submersible Titan is on my mind. The Pakistani Billionaire would have been better off taking his son, Suleiman, kayaking or scuba diving in Portugal. The other three were professional adventurers and fully understood the risks. The deep is largely unexplorered and unknown. Whales have been known to ram ships so the Titan could have suffered some external form of impact that led to the catastrophic structural failure. I am sure the facts will become known by and by. And it right that search and rescue teams spent a lot of money and time trying to locate the sub. Even though the company were very cavalier and irresponsible in not fitting a surface beacon and a self-surfacing emergency beacon to the sub.

That’s all for now. Thank you for having a look. 🙂

Influencer Jéssica Riço, Jéssica Alexandra Riço, jessica-riço on Peoople

Summer is here!

It really feels like mid June now. These last couple of days have been extremely hot with today’s indoor temperature in excess of 33ºC. It will probably be like this for the next month or so.

Apricots / Damascos, Belmonte, Luz de Tavira, Algarve , Portugal
Apricots / Damascos

So I had a few apricots. I thought I wouldn’t have got any this year, so I was pleased.

ameixas mais cedo, Belmonte, Luz de Tavira, Algarve , Portugal
early plums / ameixas mais cedo

Had my first plums this week. The are a small variety. Good but acidic so you can only eat a few at a time. The mid summer variety plums will be coming online soon.

composting toilet, Luz de Tavira, Algarve , Portugal
Composting Toilet

Been using the potty for about three months now. I had almost forgotten about it. Used it when I first came here in 2014-15. I quite like it. It is 100% ecological – goes to compost. It okay if you are just one person using it. The flushing toilet blocked and I haven’t had time to sort it out.

one of the grapevines / uma videira,  Belmonte, Luz de Tavira, Algarve , Portugal
one of the grapevines / uma videira

The grapes are coming along.

potatoes / batatas,  Belmonte, Luz de Tavira, Algarve , Portugal
potatoes / batatas

The potatoes are doing very well. I am really pleased. I sowed some sweetcorn from seed collected from last year’s crop but on very few germinated. And shockingly only of a dozen bought pumpkin seed germinated.

Been eating a bit of sweet potato leaf (red variety) mixed in rice and pasta. Chalini had given me the shoots a few years ago. Doesn’t seem to upset my stomach this time round.

The lemon trees are growing a lot better. Besides adding a bit a horse manure compost bought in bags from the Cooperative store in Monscarapacho I have been putting in diluted vinegar. This to increase the soil acidity. At the moment 200ml cider vinegar to 4 litres of water seems to bring down the pH by 0.5. As Christine Shinn advised me a few years back pine needles composted around the trunks is a better long term solution. I plan to implement this.

nespiras / loquat trees ,  Belmonte, Luz de Tavira, Algarve , Portugal
nespiras / loquat trees

I have been surprised to find out that nespiras (loquat trees) do very well in semi arid conditions. I water these just once a week and they are growing well. One 3 year old fruited this year. They seem to grow better than the olives I on the same irrigation cycle.

young olive trees /oliveiras jovems, Belmonte, Luz de Tavira, Algarve , Portugal
young olive trees /oliveiras jovems

The young olives are growing - some better than others :).

Wild thyme / tamilo, honey bees,  Belmonte, Luz de Tavira, Algarve , Portugal
Wild thyme / tamilo

Wild thyme for a good time 🙂 The bees love it. use in in rice which cooks very well on the 500W hot plate 'Justin' Beper running on Solar P.V.

boundary post / poste de fronteira, ZR , Zephyr Rodrigues ,  Belmonte, Luz de Tavira, Algarve , Portugal
boundary post / poste de fronteira

This is one of my four boundary posts bearing my initials ZR. These mark out my property. If anyone claims or implies anything else – this is false.

That’s all for now. Thank you for reading!

References:

How to make soil more acidic: 7 ways to amend your soil's PH |

Influencer Jéssica Riço, Jéssica Alexandra Riço, jessica-riço on Peoople

Setting up SSL/HTTPS in WordPress Manually

Prerequisites: A web server with SSL enabled. This method requires you to troubleshoot issues manually and edit WordPress files. However this is a permanent and more performance optimized solution. Performance gains are due to the fact the requested content does not have to be parsed by an additional plugin before it is displayed in the web page. In addition, it gives you more control over your website's security.

Steps

  1. Log into the WordPress Dashboard.
  2. Roll your mouse over Settings in the navigation menu, then click General.
  3. In the WordPress Address (URL) field, enter your https address.
  4. Enter your https address in the Site Address (URL)  field. 
  5. Click the Save Changes button on the bottom of the screen. 

Note: If you get an error to the effect of "Error connecting to web server" after savings the changes - the problem lies at the hosting provider's end . Some hosting providers use a different IP for hosting http: and https: and you will have to ensure the "A" record of your https domain is pointing to the correct one.

Next, you need to set up WordPress redirects from HTTP to HTTPS by adding the following code to your .htaccess file.

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} off
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
</IfModule>

If you want to force SSL and HTTPS on your WordPress admin area or login pages, then you need to configure SSL in the wp-config.php file. Simply add the following code above the "That's all, stop editing!" line in your wp-config.php file:

define('FORCE_SSL_ADMIN', true);

This line allows WordPress to force SSL / HTTPs in WordPress admin area. Once you do this, your website is now fully setup to use SSL / HTTPS, but you will still encounter mixed content errors.

Mixed content errors are caused by sources (images, scripts, or stylesheets) that are still loading using the insecure HTTP protocol in the URLs. If that is the case, then you will not see a secure padlock icon in your website’s address bar. The majority of these incorrect URLs will be images, files, embeds, and other data stored in your WordPress database.

What you need to do is find all mentions of your old website URL in the database that starts with http and replace it with your new website URL that starts with https .

You can do this by installing and activating the “Better Search Replace†plugin. However, The free version of the "Better Search and Replace" plugin is not useful and even harmful as you cannot see what changes have been made. I used the “Search & Replace†plugin by Inpsyde GmbH. It is not supported anymore but works in WordPress 6.1.1

      

Credits

https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-add-ssl-and-https-in-wordpress/