The Crab apple and the incredible fungus Terana coerulea.

Typical wheather for this time would be have 1'5 m. of snow in the mountain or more, but the truth is that except two small snow, we have not to much snow or rain, not in the dimensions to be considered normal in winter.
On this photo you can see here the crab apple (Malus sylvestris) that I have in my garden in Orbaizeta (Navarre) It is an exceptional specimen for the specie because it measures more than 10 meters.

Crab apple or Baxako.(Malus sylvestris)

The last  year had been very good for apple  trees, and they gave an unusual amount of fruit. In this case,3 months later, the most of apples from this specimen remain still on the ground, in perfect conditions.

I wonder how a fruit can be three months above the ground, outdoors, and not rot.
Surely there will be many animals feeding with them.

Pecked apple by a blackbird (Turdus merula)

I could see apples pecked by birds, probably from blackbirds (Turdus merula) but I could also observe eaten and defecated remains of carnivores like foxes.

With these apples, we make a liquor made with anise, very  much appreciated in these Pyrenean valleys, both in Navarra and in our neighboring valley of Garazi / Cize and Xiberoa / Soule across the border; the Baxaka or patxaka.

I picked up two boxes of these apples, which gave to my neighbors, and I did a test with few of them in white wine, to try out how it would catch the flavour of s the baxaka in white wine.
After three months I filtered, and bottled.
The result was a white wine with an astringent touch, and with a flavor reminiscent of quince.
I dont think so it is going to be fashionable to go bar hopping, but is cool.

It really heat up the stomach!!

Terana Coerulea

To finish, I leave you with this photo of a cobalt color mushroom,  eating this stick of boxwood. Although the picture clarifies a little bit, it has an extraordinary blue color. It´s the Terana coerulea,
Here you are two links:


http://www.biodiversidadvirtual.org/hongos/Terana-coerulea-(Lam.)-Kuntze-1891-img80449.html

http://eol.org/data_objects/26929958

He was elected fungus of the 2009 by the German Mycological Society, for the great antibiotic action on Streptococcus pyogenes, who causing bacterial pharyngitis, and framed in the type of meat-eating bacterias!
You see, a twig with a nice color, but it is much more than it seems!

The essential things are  invisible to the eyes!

Cleaning Orbaizeta old munition factory in community work

The Orbaizeta arms factory was one of the largest weapons factories in Europe in the late eighteenth century. Although he is known by this name, actually they manufactured munitions (bombs, grenades and solid balls for guns).
It was  running  difficulty during 100 years, and soffer many wars, destruction and fires, which affected the villages of the valley of Aezkoa and therefore their neighbors for generations.
Today, once returned  the property of  the mountains in 1982 expropriated by the Spanish crown, and recovered its ruins by the  Aezkoa Valley council, is BIC (belongins of cultural interest). They most of the ruins can be visited but  they require consolidation and maintenance

Cleaning the yard  of carpentry and locksmithing

The money than before the crisis had to consolidate the ruins (PDR sustainable) disappeared, and the situation of the ruins is precarious. There are areas where you should not go because there is a risk of falling stones, and they are areas fenced that people are not always respected, but many others are visited.
  For this wide area, last year some neighbors of  the tourism sector of the valley started to coordinate and propose to make an auzolan to the Aezkoa Valley council.
The auzolan or artelan ( means neighborhood work) is a figure of community organization typically Basque, where neighbors get together to do a job for the benefit of the community, as in this case

Other times someone could summon his neighbors, to do some private work, like fixing a roof, but that person would always be willing to back the aid.
In the twentieth century this practice began to disappear, The village councils began to pay to third parties some of the work previously done in auzolan, and people will not need their neighbors and prefer to pay professionals arrangements.
Need was what kept the community together, and now also many people only go to the villages for the weekend.

The famous 22 arches separating the coal cellar and the  furnaces

If no money but there is goodwill, there is much that can be done.
This year we also have met for that purpose. The grass that usually invade the factory had been cut almost entirely by two council workers in May, but it waas necesary another cut, finish cutting the parts waht they didn´t cut, and expose in certain places removing 1cm  of ground the old pave that  the factory had, so that in later years the plants do not grow in that area, and  people can enjoy more the visit.

We have also conditioned the descent to the river so that people can get the most typical photo, the arcades. Last year we did most of this work, and now only have had to make a few tweaks.

clean pavement

If you wonder where I was, I will say that clearing and occasionally, taking pictures so that you can see it now.
All morning it has not left us the "txirimiri," the typical fine rain in these last days of 35º C seemed a distant memory, and so in this photo  we are not exactly ready to go to a wedding,

in front of the  bokarte

It is also true that we laughed, enjoyed the difference between before and after, and ... the hamaiketako or lunch!

Txistorra (sausage) and xingarra (bacon)

The underground passages

Knowns by few people and walk almost nobody, is a network of small canals that carried water under the arms factory, being the largest of them  Iturroil stream channel, passing beneath the palace, and crosses all the factory towards the river.

Main channel

Minor channel

 Legartza stream outway

Current up

The main channel is high enough for a person to be standing comfortably, and  as much the soil as the walls are made of ashlar stones. It's probably the best preserved of the whole factory, but  visit is not easy.

If one day you want to see any of these areas and see some of the tiles of the old iron roof,cannonballs, knows how life was  in this place, you know where to find me.

mysteries of the past of Irati forest and ..how long will leave the leaves?

Even if one takes a long time walking and watching, we always leave things to see.
Recently a oldman of my village, Orbaizeta, I told me that some  years ago He founded like "stone igloos" in a praeries area where he had walked all his life, but never, until that day he had noticed them.
  In the  Aralar range (Navarre and Gipuzkoa )exist "Arkuek" which would be the same structures,and the knowlegde about that is quite poor.
A good link about that (spanish):

http://www.basozaina.com/2014/03/los-arkuek-de-el-aralar-primera-parte.html

"Arkue" intact

I finally went with him today (I prefer not to mention his name if he doesnt said me the opposite) and he show  me the place. Certainly it is away from busy paths, and is well camouflaged.
It has a hole against the rock of the bottom, which probably serve for make fire, and due the form of the hole, prevents rain or snow can enter. Its orientation to the south, protected from the prevailing winds, is perfect.

On the right, there is another one, but unfortunately due to a slide some years ago, now is destroyed.
He does not remember any mention of these structures, and certainly is nothing similar nearby.

Capping entry

The fact that for a person who knows "almost" perfect place, with a lot of experience in those places, have gone unnoticed, and they are practically sealed, making them very valid elements for a future investigation into its origins and use.
Excuse me, for that reason, that does not give more information about its location, until they have been investigated, of which I'll try to take care giving notice to the Aranzadi Science Society, which I am a membership.

Another curious thing is the following picture:

Hunting tramp

At first glance there seems not to be more than beech trees, and a rock rising on the right. As we can not see in the photo, I will comment you that in the rocks on the right, there is one small way to a closed sinkhole.
If you look deeper, you can see that there is a horizontal row of rocks, in the middle  of the picture, and on the Left, another one rising at an angle of 90 °.

They were once stone walls, whose purpose, like elsewhere in Europe, were to contain wild animals in prehistoric hunting pressured from above, and animals went running to the sinkhole on the right, where stones, arrows and spears thrown from above, kill them.

This whole area has abundant prehistoric remains in the form of dolmens, prehistoric funds hut, stone circles, and even menhirs. Megalithic areas like Ilarrita on Mount Okabe (Irati Behe Nafarroa) and  Azpegi in the  Irati of Aezkoa valley, are respectively the first and second longest in the Pyrenees.

Finally, I want to show you two photos taken with 7 days difference between April 30 and May 7, from Ibañeta (Santiago´s way).
As you can see, although not to be Irati forest, this is a natural continuation of a forest that does not know place names,and  the real extention of the forest is much higher than the 17,100 hectares of Irati. We can see Orreaga Roncesvalles  lower right first, and farn away Auritz / Burguete. The mountains to the left are the South of  Aezkoa valley.
More words are unnecessary ...

Dinosaur Footprints from the "Plaza del castillo" of Pamplona ... in Madrid?

Carmen U. Godzillin paleontology blog, sent me a link to his article published in April 2009 entitled "huellas con historia",(footprints with history), which sheds light about the plate that at present is showing in Madrid:


 http://godzillin.blogspot.com.es/2009/04/unas-huellas-con-historia.html

According to local news from the National Museum of environmental science:

http://digital.csic.es/bitstream/10261/79993/1/NievesAldrey2009_periodicoMuseo.pdf

Was in 1876 when  Alfonso de Aretillo y Larrinaga found in the old floor of "plaza del castillo" the plate with the dinosaur footprints,and chose among others, to be  investigated in Madrid. The cityhall of Pamplona in that time finally gave the piece for the museum of Madrid.
So, although the events of "plaza del castillo" were as I told you in the previous article, this piece is not for those events.

Before publishing the news, I had looking in google search engine introducing the words dinosaur, arqueosaurio, Plaza del castillo, Pamplona, .. but  nothing found. As on the short museum  information card dont appeared more details than you saw, and taking into account the history of concealment of the excavations of  "plaza del castillo" from Pamplona, it seemed clear the conclusion ..but no. I was wrong and I apologize because all information that I previously published is contrasted and this is the reason that I usually put all the links that I can about it. If this new had it been what seemed , nor I could have found references online.


Now, the question would be: what happened with the rest of plates with dinosaur traces that speaking in the article, and where they came from.?  Because in Pamplona, there is no middle Triassic. By the time of formation of these plaques, and that in the nineteenth century would not carried  stones for paving a square outside the province.
It seems that the oldest rocks in the area of Pamplona is precisely from this time, located in the valley of Ollo and cendea  of Iza. However, they are not  mostly limestone, but gypsum and ophites, as you can see here in Euskomedia:
http://www.euskomedia.org/PDFAnlt/prehistoria/04/04061096.pdf


La historia de los materiales geológicos que aparecen en las Cuencas, puede remontarse
hasta el Triásico Medio, cuando el territorio queda cubierto por un lago salino, en cuyo
fondo empiezan a depositarse arcillas con algún nivel de caliza, yesos y sales (Keuper). Al final
del Triásico y durante el Jurásico, este lago del Keuper se abre al mar, que tendrá pocas
repercusiones para lo que luego serán las Cuencas Prepirenaicas. Durante este largo periodo
que llega hasta el Cretácico Superior, se van depositando en un fondo marino las calizas
y margas que hoy rodean las Cuencas.

The history of geological materials appearing in  the Basins, can be came from
the Middle Triassic, when the territory is covered by a saline lake, in which
background begin depositing clays  with some level of limestone, gypsum and salts (Keuper). 
At the end  of Triassic period and  during the Jurassic, this lake of Keuper opens to the sea, which will have little implications for what will be the Prepirenaicas Basins. During this long period
that reaches until the Upper Cretaceous, are deposited on a dark background limestones

and marls that  today surrounding  the basins.

So if you encourage  to lookin for the quarry from came this  stones, I would start in this area, but if you find something of interest, Warn  to the forest rangers of Navarre!

Cleaning in community work the Orbaizeta old munition factory

Cleaning the old workshop of examination of the ammunition 

In June during days 18 and 25, members of the tourism sector Valley Aezkoa who wanted do things despite the cuts and the lack of grants administration, met in the munition factory for Orbaizeta to improve accessibility and provide a more appropriate image as it is one of the main attractions of the Aezkoa valley.
With the approval of the council of Aezkoa Valley, owner of the ruins, we organized an auzolan or community work with the first goal of cutting the grass, cleaning trash, shut off the most dangerous areas and create on the slope some steps to the river Legartza, and people can admire the 21 stone arches that separate the coal from the rest of the factory.
But undoubtedly the most important goal of all was to start doing things like tourist sector of our valley,and begin to believe by working together, it is possible to do things if we unite wills.

Making steps down

To make the descent to the river was necessary  make a channel for a small but steady trickle of water that made the descent a something dangerous  for the constant mud that formed there, chiseling the steps with a hoe, and make a handrail which eliminate the danger of the side more height.

The posters were also being cleaned, by the time had gone dark with algae, which looks like this kind of material.

Cleanliness posters

Cut, collect, carry.

The amount of grass and brambles to grow over time did take us all day, and that we were about 8 people.

Taking the grass with the "sarde"

Cleaning the patio of carpentry workshops (right) and locksmith (left)

The "hamaiketako"

Around 11 am we stopped for brunch all, what is here called Hamaiketako, which in Basque means literally "the eleven´s one". The council of Aezkoa Valley paid the lunch, besides petrol to brushcutters,  and a accident insurance for the whole day

Garbage accumulated mainly in the Bokarte

In bokarte area, a large stone arch in the middle of the factory, we collected a lot  of garbage accumulated during many years  being used  the factory as a dump . The typical attitude of "if you do not see it, does not exist and is not my problem." We could find plastics in perfect condition as if they had thrown yesterday, and some much older things like shoe soles or bits of leather, certainly with many years but were decomposing smoothly.
The next day at work we find much more trash under a mixture of soil, leaves and stones.

The following week we decided to focus our efforts on cleaning the bokarte, where the collapse of a wall had covered much of the stone bath where was a wooden wheel that moved a  machine to crush the slag from the two  furnaces.

The bokarte, before cleaning without water

After the cleanup. Would you want a shower?

As this machinery was moving as all others by the force of water, the water is still falling to the bokarte from the Iturroil brook, channeled for it, and whose entrance I show you below.

A detour causes some of the water can get through a secondary channel and go to bokarte.

Channeling  Iturroil brook.

The  second day team

There is still much work to do, to be able to leave as many years was  after the labor camps developed almost 30 years ago. 
No doubt we will meet again to do all that we can without money , hoping that one day, we can get financing for real consolidation of the ruins, which are falling apart a little more each year. 

I want to thank everyone who worked, and somewhen they will work, their volunteer work, which shows that if not always, sometimes where there is a will, there is a way.

Oaks,firs and beeches for the old boats structures

Pedunculate oak(Quercus robur) in Etxarri Aranaz (Sakana,Navarra)

If you have  been in the Irati forest you maybe watch  that mostly  is a beech forest (Fagus sylvatica) , and  in a part of the Salazar / Zaraitzu valley,and inSoule / Xiberua valley ,we have also white fir (Abies alba), in the southwestern limit distribution of Europe.
What fewer people know is that until the nineteenth century , much of the south sides of the mountains , were mainly groves of pedunculate oak (Quercus humilis), and in acid soils of  Aezkoa valley,sessile oak (Quercus petraea ), and often hybrids of both species.
Nearby from Orreaga / Roncesvalles , we have some specimens of  pedunculate oak (Quercus robur ) more adaptated to oceanic climate .

Why were substituted for the beech ?

The economic value of oak has always been higher than the beech . With oak  timber, is posible to do all the things that we can do  with the beech , but  for its high strength and durability, is used for the construction of wooden structures too, while with the beech , as the Spanish proverb say : " Use beech when to dont have another thing" y is usually used as a cheap alternative , and never for structures , at least traditionally .
Beech  was used to make wood tiles , called in these valleys , in basque" oholak ", but when they could , oak was used, as the old roof of the old church of Orbaizeta, until it was replaced by zinc tiles .
Oaks growth  slower than  beeches , and if we also add that oaks have been cut whitout the minimum conditions for their good regeneration , we have that pioneer species, as  the pine(Pinus sylvestris), or the beech in our area, have replaced the old inhabitants.

 Centennial oak in  Irati forest( Mendilatz mountain,  Aezkoa valley)

Quercus petraea inTxangoa(west side of Irati)

In the history of the weapons factory of Orbaizeta(XVIII century) one of the biggest of Europe,  appear the complaint that the spanish soldiers of this factory put to two neighbors of Orbaizeta,whe they were cutting an oak on Mount Mozolotxiki , located beside the Irabia reservoir water.
Today is a magnificent beech , with a few oak trees on its southern slope .
The residents to the Aezkoa valley had  forbidden for the Spanish crown  cut wood from their own forests , due to a document signed between the  Aezkoa  valley and theSpanish crown , which in the late eighteenth century yielded the forests to produce coal for the owens of the munitions factory .
The Aezkoan people , who did not understand spanish ,because their language was basque, apparently they trusted  in a priest and a teacher to sign the document , clearly better to the crown, and ruinous to Their.

Have been also used in the Irati forest the beeches to make oars to the navy. Until the twentieth century was a oars workshop inOtsagabia (Salazar/Zaraitzu valley) , and white firs were  used for masts of ships, due to  his great righteousness .

White firs(Abies alba) in Irati forest of Salazar Valley

 But the oaks also had a very important use in shipbuilding, and in Navarre were oak forests expressly used  to get special parts for different types of boats, which they were  very well paid .

When you should to make a curved piece of wood, you can do by two ways:  joining several pieces of wood to get the bend, or creating that curve with a branch of a tree with ropes and selective pruning. Do not miss this fantastic link (later come back here , ha, ha ! )

http://bertan.gipuzkoakultura.net/23/caste/13.php

With the first one , the joints of the piece will be weak points where it can break , while the second one break will be much harder . Basque vessels were known to be very resistant , and therefore were often sold to other countries. It is the case of a ship that sank in the Severn River in 1465 from New port (Wales ) and thanks to the analysis of dendrochronology has been known that the wood was from the Sakana Valley in Navarre. ( More information at  www.jauzarrea.com)
In the wikipedia we can read that the ship was portugese, but itz was  a theory because it seemed the merchandise was  from Portugal.
Source: (prof..Nigel Nayling,Archaeologist,University of Wales,Trinity Saint David, School of Archaeology, history and anthropology.Lampeter,Ceredigion, Wales.)

Today we can see many of these trees until the twentieth century were used to draw different pieces of wood, which were carved in situ and  transported by oxen to the coast of Gipuzkoa, where specialized carpenters  fit them in the structure of the boat. 

Mikel, from Albaola foundation showing one of the pieces.

The Albaola foundation is currently building with wood from Irati (Keel beech and fir masts) and from Sakana valley(with oak for the rest of the structure), an exact copy of a fifteenth century boat called Nao  San Juan, a whaler which was found underwater in Newfoundland (Canada) in a very amazing conservation, and will serve to represent Donostia / San Sebastian as the capital of European culture in 2016, which will navigate to European ports representing city​​

http://www.albaola.com/pdf/nao_SANJUAN-EUSK-CAST.pdf

 Is not a coincidence the right angle of the right branch.

Among the threat of invasion of American oak, of fastest growing and introduced in the twentieth century to replace our old oak, we can still see stunning examples of hundreds of years and several meters of circumference in the oak forest of northern of Navarre (Orotz Betelu ,Aezkoa, Ultzama, Baztan ..), and in this case, I would highlight  Altsasu / Alsasua and Etxarri Aranaz for its high number of specimens and their old age. 

Members of the "oak commission" for scientific and tourism development  of the oaks forests in Navarre 

Imagine the size of this giant!

This really is a great top!

Some are hollow and fit several people.

Fantastic oak tinder, 5 or 6 years old, depending on the rings.