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.