Amazing sky..

I took the boys for a last run about before it got dark last night and the sky was just amazing...

First there was a rainbow in the clouds (believe this is known as a sun dog which is very apt)



And then all around the clouds were a mixture of pinks and yellows and blue with rays coming down. My photo's don't really do it justice but you get the idea..!











With my slow connection it sometimes takes a while to upload pictures to this blog and as I have no way of knowing if anyone is actually reading it, it would be great if people left comments sometimes so that I don't feel like I am just talking to myself. haha

You are what you eat...

And if that's true then I'm a courgette!! After planting 24 courgette plants I have been swamped with them. haha The freezer is now stuffed full of them and I multiple jars of pickled courgette and courgette chutney (both really nice).

I really didn't hold out much hope for my veg patch this year because I was so late in arriving and didn't have time to get the soil ready properly or to look after it once I did seed. But I have been amazed at how fast and how well everything grew!

Here is a picture from the patch about a month ago, it has now been extended out to accommodate winter stuff.




And here is the amount I normally pick every morning although with variation - (except for courgettes- they are always there!)




And the other night my neighbour helped me pick my first watermelon, which was huge at 18kg! And sweet and crunchy to eat..!




I have been busy trying to preserve everything and have found some great recipes in the process. Today I made some green tomato chutney..

Here are all the ingredients chopped up (tomatoes. onions, sugar, vinegar, chilli and raisins)





And the finished product. I have so many tomatoes that I will make another batch tomorrow.




As well as stuff I have grown, there are also some free food to be had including tons of blackberries. So today I made my third batch of blackberry jam.




Really fresh tasting, yummy jam!

Tomato bottling...

The other day was tomato bottling day at my neighbours and I went along to help (a 6am start for some reason!)

Already the night before we had chopped all the tomatoes in half and roasted them in this huuuuge wood oven overnight.



Then they had to be drained and then passed through this machine, which peels them and pours the juice out the other end.



I then stirred in basil and salt with what is quite possibly the biggest spoon in the world!



Then we used old beer bottles to pour the juice into..



And then the tops went on..



The first batch (every family makes hundreds of bottles per year for pasta sauce!)



And finally the bottles get put in this old drum and boiled over the fire for 30 minutes.



And there you have it, pasta sauce all year round!

It's a dogs life..

The dogs have settled in well and don't really seem to have noticed that they have moved country! Except from Kofi has found the joy of lizards, and loves to watch them, and leads are now a thing of the past as they are just free to go where they like all day long.

We spent most of the early weeks going to and fro between the cabin and the rental house and Shilah decided he hated the rental house and spent most of his time in the car or by the car waiting until we came back to the new house. Each time we turned off the tarmac road onto the dirt track to come up the mountain Shilah started barking and whining and spinning about in the car with excitement. Thankfully, now that he realises this is actually his home and he is here all the time, he has stopped doing it (or I would have had to buy ear plugs!)

Kofi has grown into his ears at long last and is becoming a very handsome young man (although I'm obviously biased). Both of them are a bit over zealous in guarding the house and property and so I am going to fence off the land that leads down to the track (as this is the route any people will come). They don't stray anywhere but they do race down the hill barking at anyone who might happen to be trying to come within a 100 mile radius of THEIR garden!


Just a few pictures of the dogs in their new place..

On one of their favourite walks..




Shilah on a hay bale in the garden



Kofi looking grown up




Shilah eating Kofi's ear (!)

Back online - sort of!

Sorry to have not posted in so long, I was expecting to have internet by now but have been advised that this might take another 6 months (!) so have managed to get a dongle.

I did originally take pictures as we went along with everything but it seems like too much now to go through everything and it all seems to have happened so long ago!

So I thought in this post, I would just briefly recap the house saga and then show some pictures of the finished cabin and then over the next week or so I will post different pictures/stories from around the place.

Although I was told that the cabin would be finished by the end of May, it wasn't. When we arrived there were no doors, no windows and no floor! Eventually after many false starts I got some windows, but still no doors. It all dragged on a bit longer than expected but I did get a free veranda out of it by way of an apology. And the builder paid the fee on our rental home which was just as well as we ended up staying there for almost 6 weeks! Anyway, at last it was all done and here is the finished result. :-)

So this is the finished cabin from the outside.




The lounge




Kitchen






My bedroom (haven't bothered with spare room as it just has a wardrobe in, and some gardening stuff until I get a shed)



View from lounge window..



I will post some more tomorrow!

Ready for the off...

Has been a busy few days here, saying goodbye to everyone and packing things up. We managed to get most of the stuff in my dads car but not all, but got all the important things in anyway!

My own little car is groaning under the weight of dog toys, both of the boys were a bit miffed to see all their toys being taken away and put under the boot.

Kofi tried his best to save a few but I kept putting them back..haha



So then Shilah solefully decided that even though he couldn't see his toys anymore he would lie on them and wait (think this is a misplaced sense of loyalty he has adopted after reading about Greyfriars Bobby, a dog who after his owner died, spent the rest of his days lying on his owners grave).



I won't have internet access straight away in Italy, so I will update as soon as I am back online (hopefully with some pictures of a finished house!)

Almost there..

Some more pictures of the house, it's getting there! The insulation and roof is done, the interior walls are going in, and then the windows and floor need to go in.

The outside



The inside, this corner is where the kitchen will be..



This 'box' is the bathroom, then on the left we have a bedroom (and on the right the kitchen again)



The water has been connected, although because of the altitude the pressure is low (not sure how low..) but there isn't much that can be done about that. Just might take a while to get a cup of tea for people who come and visit! haha

So I now have a departure day!! 26th May..woohoo!!

We have decided to rent a house for the first week so that we have somewhere to cook and keep food etc until I get a cooker and fridge. Think this will make it much easier and especially for the first day or two as there won't be the pressure to have to go out and buy everything straight away.

The boys will have their scalibor collars put on next week, these are insecticide collars which need a week to activate and will stop sandflies from biting them. I hate putting such strong chemicals on the dogs but sandflies can carry Leishmania which is a horrid mostly lethal disease so it's probably the lesser of the 2 evils.

I am currently painting the kitchen doors (the ones I got from ebay any months ago!) I was originally going to paint them once in Italy but I got so bored not doing anything so I just have to be careful they don't get scratched. I might put some pictures of them up next week when they are finished.