More snow..

We had lots more snow over the last couple of days. The dogs really enjoyed playing in it and it tired them out bouncing around in it (especially looking for stuff I had buried in the snow for them to find!)







The snow did bring it's own problems though.

I decided I needed to do some washing as I was running out of socks..



And I hung it in the porch thinking that was warm enough, but it all froze solid! (note the icicles on the tea towel) haha





And then my water froze up again. So I resorted to melting snow, it takes an unbelievable amount of snow to get just a few inches of water!! I felt like I was spending half the day going back and forth scooping snow off the car.

Unusual way of filling the kettle...haha



My snow melting and then heating up for washing up water.




It has started to melt now and turn to mush and my pipes also have thawed out so we have water back.

On a positive note, my woodburner has been totally fab in keeping the cabin warm, even when it was -15C windchill it was toasty inside!

SNOW!!! (finally)

After weeks of being jealous at all the snow the UK had, we finally got some of the white stuff for ourselves today! The boys were both really excited (although Kofi spent a lot of the time eating it)

Weeeeeee snowwwwwwwwwwww!



On our forest walk..



Being made to pose by the logs (again!)



Eating it (at least he is at the table eating)



Those were all taken quite early this morning before the sun came out, but later on it was even more lovely with a bright blue sky..



And I got a couple of really nice pictures of the boys by the oak tree..





The snow wasn't without it;s catastrophes though. First, despite being wrapped in bubble wrap, the water meter froze and burst. So I had no water while I waited for the man from ACA to come and install a new meter. He actually came pretty quickly and put in a replacement in minutes. But stopping it from freezing again has come at a cost. Kofi has a beloved Octopus (shown in the pic when he was still a puppy). It was kind of on it's last legs (literally, Kofi had ripped off about 4 of them) so I decided to sacrifice the octopus and cut it's head open and jam it onto the water meter. Hopefully the fluffy filling will stop it from freezing.

Kofi was less than impressed though and was forlornly sniffing around the meter cupboard (he knows it's in there)- what he doesn't know though is that Santa (AKA Granny) has bought him a nice new one for Christmas so all is not lost.

The Octopus in happier days..



I haven't been feeling that well this week, I had my wisdom tooth out last Thursday and have several stitches now in it's place. The swelling and pain actually wasn't too bad but the last few days I have felt very tired with a fuzzy head and little appetite. It might be down to the anti biotics or it could be down to the weird temperature change. Last week it was 21C and this week down to -7C.

That's all for now, hope you enjoyed the snowy pictures..

First trip to the vets..

We had our first experience with an Italian vet this week. Kofi managed to rip his dew claw, which doesn't sound like a big thing but is really painful as the quick is exposed. I phoned the vet (hate talking on the phone in Italian, but he understood me ok) and he said the nail needed clipping right back but as it would hurt a lot, Kofi would need to be sedated. So he arrived at my house and gave Kofi a jab to put him to sleep, which took effect really fast. Then he put a tourniquet on his leg to minimise the bleeding and then clipped the nail and quick right back (ouch). Then another jab to wake him up again, he was totally zonked out but the first thing he did was thump his tail when he heard my voice even though his eyes were still closed. Bless him. The vet stayed with me until he was up and about and I was really relieved that he used the same drugs that they use in the UK. I know the standard of vets isn't quite the same here in terms of equipment and I did worry that he might come with chloroform or something! But I was pleased with him and he seemed really competent. Phew!

Anyway, here is the brave soldier with his big brother..




It's not been anywhere near as cold as the UK here, and I have been soooo jealous of all the snow that my friends back home have been enjoying!! But we have had a few days cold enough to have the stove on in the day, and I make the most of it by cooking on it when I have it on. This was carrot and pumpkin soup.




It has been really windy here again, it's not that it's windy everyday but there are days when it starts and then is a continuous roar for maybe 48 hours. It gets tiring listening to it and I get a bit worried about the house! I might become a real life Dorothy and wake up in a new land one day...

The wind keeps blowing the shutters lose and then they bang against the windows and I have to rush out and lift them off (usually at 2am). So until my parents come out and we work out how to pin them back effectively, I have just conceded defeat and taken them all off, the only other option is to close them when it's windy but as i'm not a mole I don't really want to sit in the dark all day!

Here is a little video of the wind for you... (never put a video on here before so if it works I can bore people with dog training videos- haha)




I also took some pictures of some dog training and will leave you with this great one of Shilah doing an alert on command. I might attach it to my gate to keep away the hunters. haha

Happy things and sad things..

Sad things first. Fonzie the cockerel got eaten by something. :-(
I let all the chickens out one morning and then around 11am I went down to the chicken area and there were all his white feathers on the ground. The wolf/fox just came in daylight and got him. This means I couldn't let the chickens out any more.

Then a few days later we had a storm, roaring winds which lasted around 48hr. By the end of it the top of my chicken run and the roof beams had collapsed. The run needs to be built with stronger supports and set into concrete to withstand the wind here so with a heavy heart I decided to give my chickens to my neighbours. I miss having them around but I need to build them a better bigger run. Especially if I can no longer let them free range. Hopefully next year if I can afford it.

So now some happy things...

Chris bought me some lovely prayer flags (which you can read about here.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayer_flag)




I have just hung out 2 for now because I'm not sure how they will stand up to the wind.


And the other nice thing this week is the amount of rainbows I have seen. Those with dogs probably know about this but there is a story that when our animal friends die they wait for us at a place called 'Rainbow Bridge' and so some believe that seeing a rainbow is a way of them connecting with Earth from Heaven. It certainly seems that whenever I have a bad day, I get a rainbow. And some days this week I have seen as many as 6 or 7 a day.

Here are just some of the different rainbows I have seem from my cabin...



Cloud rainbow (also known as sun dog)




Double Rainbow (second one is very faint but above the brighter one)





Looking DOWN on a rainbow





And this one taken a few days ago which I love especially as my cabin is called 'Rainbows End'

Anyone for some olive oil?

My friend Chris is here from England so we have had a lovely couple of days. We went up to the mountain plains today to see if the sheep and the dreaded Maremma (live stock guarding dogs) have gone down to lower pastures and they had so we were safe to walk about, yay!

Chris with the boys




Kofi decided he wanted to be part of this monument (which is to remember all the shepherds who had died on the mountain)




Then we came across a wolf kill (and some wolf scat) which the dogs were really interested in and they both went into super sniffing mode..



It's olive harvesting time here and all alongside the roads the nets and pickers can be seen. Chris had asked how they pick the olives and as this is Italy and people are always falling over themselves to show you their traditions we were whisked away to watch both some olive picking and how they make the oil before we knew what was happening.


The nets are placed under the trees to collect the fallen olives and then the pickers go up the ladders with little plastic combs and brush out the olives...






Then the nets get tipped into crates and the crates onto the tractor..







The workers get 7 litres if oil a day and pick from 7am to 4.30pm..


This then gets taken to the oil press where the leaves are separated and then the olives are crushed by big stone wheels (now mechanical but once pulled by mules). The paste is then out onto these round things (don't know what they are made off- haha)



And then all these round things are stacked and then for 2 hours are pressed together so the oil all drips out. It was fascinating to watch and the owner gave us a bottle of freshly produced oil to take home and try. They didn't seem to mind the intrusion of 2 English people who wanted to come and be nosey and see how oil was made..!

Birthday boy

Kofi turned ONE last week, I don't know where the time has gone as he still seems (and looks) like a puppy to me! :-)


Trying his grown up pose..




I decided to take the boys to the beach for Kofi's birthday as he has never seen the sea and Shilah loves it. Thought he might be a bit worried about the waves but fear is not in Kofi's vocabulary and he just dived straight in after Shilah.



The beach was actually a bit disappointing as it was built up with loads of cafe's and bars. I was hankering after a windswept beach in the middle of nowehere!

We also had the first snow last week on the mountains, it has partially melted now but they looked beautiful with snow on!! Can't wait for more!

Forest colours

Just a quick post as I need to take the dogs for a walk before it gets dark, but I wanted to share some pictures of the lovely Autumn colours of the forest.


It changes daily and there are some really vivid colours that the camera hasn't quite captured.

Bits and bobs

I was thinking today that I don't think I have introduced the chickens on here yet! I had 6 originally but one was killed by a wolf/fox and so for a while I didn't let them out. But they always clamber at the gate so the last few days I have been letting them free range again which they love! I have also adopted a cockerel from my neighbours as he was getting bullied by a bigger cockerel. His name is Fonzie. :-)

It's difficult to decide whether freedom and quality of life is more important than safety but as they so love scratching about all day in the long grass I chose the former.






The only problem is that they don't like to go in until it's almost dark and I want them in before. So Kofi comes to the rescue and herds them in for me. I haven't taught him to do this, he just does it naturally (he is such a clever boy!). Shilah is scared of the chooks so he stays well away! haha

Bringing back the cheeky cockerel who has made a run for it..



rounding the rest up..


Herding them home having rounded them up..





It was sooooo damp and misty last week it was awful! For 3 days and nights it was like we were stuck in a permanent cloud, and everything was damp!



Sometimes I could barely see my veggie patch from the house and it was so damp that hundreds of snails attached themselves to the side of the house. I hated not being able to see the mountains for days on end and did I mention that it was damp?!

The snails also started to eat my pumpkins so I decided to pick them and bring them in. My neighbours pumpkins failed this year so I gave them 2 big ones and then kept these ones for me...



So far I have made some soup, toasted the seeds and experimented with making some sweet pie filling and putting it in a jar. I am going to see how that keeps before making any more incase it all goes off!

Some miraculous news arrived today, I might be getting my poles put in for my phone line next week! This is about the 9th date I have been given so I'm not completely convinced but the pole man did come to the house today and arrange things so there is a better chance than usual! Another miracle was that he didn't mind the dogs (most Italians are scared of them) and even asked me to let them out while they were barking at him through the window. Then he stayed for an hour playing frisbee with Shilah! A day of miracles indeed!!

The weather has turned a bit colder and now afternoons look like this...

Can't see the wood for the...

With winter approaching we took off to the forest to start stocking up for winter (privately owned forest). All the trees we cut were either already dead or had fallen over in the wind.

Here is some of the wood back at home..




Me trying out the new chainsaw (not so keen on doing this as i'm a bit scared of it!)



Dad doing some chainsawing




Because my stove is so small all the logs have to be cut up pretty small so after cutting with the saw, every log had to be chopped into quarters with the axe.




A sea of wood...




The weather has turned in the last few days so i'm glad we got the wood all cut as it's been so damp that we have had to have the stove on to dry things out a bit!

W.I.N.D!!!!

When I first came to see the land there was no mention of wind....after I had signed the deal, my neighbours began talking about not just one wind but something called the 'seven winds'. I still haven't completely understood what this is, if its a scale of wind severity or if it's the directions a wind can come from. But to put it plainly it gets very very very windy here! It's not windy everyday but it can come out of nowhere, be very strong and then just disappear in a second.

Back in June my dad built me a picnic table. When the neighbours saw it they tutted and mentioned the wind. It's a wooden picnic table we thought....surely it will be ok?




All was well until one night at the end of August when the wind picked up, all my shutters blew free of their catches and started banging against the windows, if I opened my front door EVERYTHING blew off the walls. It was a long and noisy night with the wind roaring past the house. In the morning all was calm. And I opened my door to a lovely blue sky and a big gap where the table once stood. I found it smashed to bits in a nearby valley. Should have listened to the locals!

The worrying part is that the neighbours said that the wind was only a breeze compared to the wind that comes off the Gran Sasso in winter! Heeeellllllp!

Anyway, undeterred my dad made another table with much thicker planks and they bought it out with them (dismantled) from England! It is lovely and much heavier, and this time we concreted it down!!




The boys showing how sturdy the table is. :-)




In other news.....

It is hunting season here (boo!!) and although everywhere I walk is national park and so there is no hunting allowed, I thought it better to be safe than sorry with the boys. Especially as the locals think Kofi looks like a wolf! So now when we are out and about in the forest the boys wear their jackets.




We have also been busy fencing off the bottom end of my land, so that no hunters can come up my track and also the boys can't go off scaring anyone going past on their tractor.

Safely behind the new gate...