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...

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 (!)