I'm another world away but I always feel at home

 As you are driving along the highways and byways of Portugal, you see trees with numbers painted on them. Some of the numbers are more vibrant, some are more faded. Trees with more faded numbers have nearly black bark. Trees with much lighter bark have much more vibrant are more of a reddish pink to grey colour. Some trees have no numbers at all. It is a curious thing but our guide chooses not to explain it, telling us we will all understand in a few days. Frustrating, but okay.

On my actual birthday, we are on a cork farm just outside of Évora. This has been referred to as a "cork farm" in all the literature and each time it is referenced by our guide. I don't know anything about cork other than its use in wine bottles, shoe, and trivets. Maybe it floats? I think it floats but it is not tenable to build a boat out of it. But we are going to a cork farm to find out how cork is grown and made and manufactured.

First thing we learn is that cork comes from trees. It is tree bark. Specifically it comes from cork oaks that are very finicky and don't grow just because you plant them. In fact, if you plant a line of cork trees in order to make a cork farm in some kind of orderly fashion, the trees will die off before they can be harvested just to spite you. You have to just let the trees propagate where they propagate and hope you get a good harvest eventually.

Second thing we learn is that it takes 25 years for a cork tree to grow enough bark to harvest. The first harvest is almost always the lowest grade of cork possible and goes into the making of thin cork products like wallets and purses and other trinkets. It is pressed together with the bark from other sub-par cork trees and maybe can be used for cheap cork things. This usually lasts two harvests. There are typically between 9 and 12 years between harvests.

The trees are then painted with the last digit of the year they were harvested. Older trees have darker bark. 

Trees harvested more recently have newer bark. Fresh harvested trees area reddish pink.

We were introduced to Big Mama, a 100+ year old tree that was the reason the founders decided to farm cork.

All of the bark is never stripped away. Doing so would harm the tree and as these are spiteful trees, no one wants to harm them.

                                                                          More cork trees.

As cork is a once a decade harvest, most cork farms are also vineyards. The owner of this vineyard is about my age. They also went to my high school at the same time I did. As soon as we met him I knew who he was. Do you think I can remember his name or did anything like take a picture of him? No. I did not. But it was neat to see someone I went to high school with in Portugal.

We went for a bit of a four by four tour of the vineyard and cork farm. We learned that Iberian ham is reared on cork acorns; the Spanish farmers will send in wee pigs at the beginning of the season, the pigs will eat tons and tons (literally) of acorns, and the cork farmers will be paid based on how much weight the pigs gained. This is very lucrative. The pigs were gone by the time we got there.

This particular farm had a cork and wine interpretive centre (for lack of a better word). It is very clear when walking through the main building that it is an active, working winery. This is on a catwalk to a loft. Despite my connection with the owner of the farm and the fact it was my birthday, I wasn't allowed into the room armed with a barrel drill and a straw.

The rest of the day was spent walking around Évora.

 

 

Next: I think the word "most" is doing a lot of heavy lifting.