With this weekend heralding the official start of spring, and promising some fine weather to go with it, we planned a weekend of fresh air, sunshine and good, wholesome productivity, giving ourselves a break from the mess and chaos of the dusty, dirty, partially deconstructed house (more about which you will have to wait for in.. er.. last week's blog).
As promised, Saturday morning was glorious, so after a quick breakfast we headed straight up to the quarry track above Vellano for a lovely morning walk. The air was fresh, the birds were singing, we saw two deer skipping off into the trees, the sky was blue and the sun was shining - we really couldn't have wished for a more perfect spring morning (on what was actually - officially, at least - the last day of winter). The beautiful clear day gave us views all the way to the mountains of Abetone, with a heavy covering of snow. It seemed strange to us that just as our weather seems to have turned a corner into spring and the temperatures have ratcheted up over the last week or so, the hills in the distance have had their first really thick white covering.
After our walk, we dropped Reggie back off at the house before heading out for a shopping trip. Thankfully not of the supermarket kind! After a cappuccino each at the Cafe Delice, we headed to our closest garden centre 'Natali', where we loaded up with six 80-litre bags of compost, two fruit trees (a cherry and a plum) to add to our baby 'orchard', and 7 more packets of seeds.
By the time we'd got our gardening supplies, it was lunchtime, so after hanging the washing out on the line, we sat at the table on the patio and enjoyed lunch in the warmth of the sunshine.
Before we got down to any gardening (of the vegetable bed kind, at least), we had a job to do. Some weeks ago, our friend Mara (who lives across the valley from us with her husband Franco) called Stuart to ask if we would be interested in having someone else's bees on our land. Keen to get a toe-hold in the local bee-keeping community, we'd said yes. Mara's contact and owner of the bees in question, Alain, had called last week and asked if he could some and see us this weekend to check out the suitability of our land.
Having given it some thought, we had decided that the perfect spot for a collection of bee hives - for bees in search of acacia flowers and (later on) chestnut flowers) would be in the small clearing (previously a quarry) just inside our gates. However, over the course of the last 18 months, the area has become rather less of a 'clearing' and rather more of a brambly mess. Since we were expecting Alain this weekend, we needed to go and sort the brambles out, so Stuart loaded up the tractor with the chainsaw and two sets of hedge trimmers and headed to the end of the drive, while I followed behind, taking the opportunity to clear out the drainage channels along the drive as I went.
Since about a week after we moved into our house, the clearing we were heading for has been known between the two of us as the 'Dead Deer Head' enclosure - way back then we'd found a dead deer in the clearing - or rather, we found its just head, two hooves and some ribs, the rest of it clearly having provided a good meal for some other wildlife. Anyway, as I went in with the hedge trimmers and started cutting bramble down I stumbled across what must have been the remains of that - finding just a skull and a small part of leg bone. So Dead Deer Head enclosure retains its title, for now at least.
Stuart's plan had been for us to go in with a double-pronged attack with hedge trimmers, but just seconds after starting his up, the drive shaft broke, so the hedge trimming was down to me, while Stuart came in with the chain saw to cut a tree that had fallen across the clearing in last year's big storm.
It wasn't long before we were happy enough with the state of the clearing to leave it - it still needs some tidying, but enough of it is visible and accessible for Alain to get an idea of whether or not he thinks it will be suitable - so we loaded up the tractor with the tools and the logs Stuart had cut from the fallen tree and chugged our way back down the drive, this time with me riding shotgun.
By the time we got back to the house, Stuart realised he'd missed a phone call from Alain, and it transpired that he was calling to say that he wasn't going to be able to come this weekend after all, thanks to having gone down with the flu. Still, the job is done now, so we are ready for whenever he wants to drop by.
Having unloaded the tractor we headed down to the veg terraces for an afternoon's gardening. Stuart set about moving the cold frames to a new spot just behind the poly tunnel so that he can extend the vegetable beds on the top terrace, while I headed down to the rather neglected bottom terrace to have a go at finally getting the flight of tyre steps finished (in the hopes that the bottom terrace will be a little less neglected if we can access it a little more easily). I eventually got enough tyres in to make it a usable set of steps, but this set comes with a disclaimer! For some reason, partly due to the shape of the bank, partly due to the number of stubborn roots and large rocks in the bank, these steps have been particularly hard to make and have ended up somewhat haphazard and wonky. Still, they work as an efficient way to get to the bottom terrace without having to scramble down the bank, so I count that as a positive.
By the time I'd called time on the steps, Stuart had moved the cold frames, extended one of the veg beds and put compost on half of the bed. I helped him rake out the compost of the rest of the bed, before helping plant out the garlic plants that have been happily growing in the poly tunnel.
After watering the newly planted out garlics and tidying up, we decided to stop our work a little before 5pm so that we could enjoy the last of the afternoon sunshine on the patio. At the moment, the sun is disappearing behind the hill opposite us at about 5.20pm, at which point the temperature drops, and it becomes too chilly to sit outside (well it is still only March, I guess). We therefore sat on the patio with a glass of wine and the fire-pit lit and really started to look forward to the warmer, brighter seasons to come.
Once the sun dipped, we headed inside to light the log burner, finish our wine and relax after productive day.
Sunday was not only the first official day of spring but also my Mum's birthday. Happy birthday Mum!!!
The morning was bright and fresh, not quite as sunny and glorious as yesterday had been, but definitely mild and spring-like. Our first activity of the day was a stop at Da Nerone for a coffee and a breakfast pastry, before heading up the valley towards Vellano for a dog walk.
The lovely spring weather really seems to have brought out the flowers, the birds, the insects... and the cyclists. As we made our way up the hill in the car, we passed cyclist after cyclist, toiling up the hill with varying degrees of huffing and puffing. Today seemed to be a cycle club outing as most of the cyclists we passed were wearing matching sets of lycra. Reggie watched them all through the window with great disdain, giving a fierce growl to those he took particular dislike to. I was thankful we were in the car and not attempting to walk along the road with him!
We eventually stopped the car a little way beyond our regular quarry track and instead took another track - one we've walked only once before. This one heads uphill, eventually ended up at Macchino, the village above Vellano. We didn't follow the track all the way to Macchino, but we got a fair way along it. It's a very pretty walk and made a very pleasant change for us. We met only one other person (who was treated to a good barking at from Reggie), and were otherwise accompanied by just birdsong.
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| Spot the foot! |
After our lovely walk, we loaded ourselves back into the car and headed for our weekly Sunday stop at Amanda's shop. As usual, we bought lunch, picked up homework, and Samantha came out to the car to give Reggie some bread before waving us off on our way.
We had an early lunch - on the patio once again, although today it wasn't quite as sunny as yesterday had been - before setting to with our afternoon of gardening jobs.
We started with potatoes. Stuart had decided some time ago that this year he wanted to try something slightly different with our potatoes and after finding an idea on the internet, he set about creating some potato boxes.
Initially, these are small wooden frames with tall corner posts - the idea being that as the potato plants grow, you add more height to the sides of the box along with more compost.
So, while Stuart produced boxes, I positioned them on the terrace, cut the ground fabric out beneath them, dug over the soil, positioned potatoes and then covered them with their first layer of compost. We ended up with four potato boxes. Two of them contain shop-bought compost, and the other two contain our own compost - the race is now on to see which ones do best!
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| Today's treasure from digging over the soil. |
Once the potatoes were all in place, I turned my attentions to planting up more seeds (melon, two more types of bean, nasturtiums, passion flower and a type of marigold), while Stuart had the somewhat less enviable task of rodding the septic tank to clear a blockage in the drain-off pipe. It wasn't the worst we've ever seen the state of the septic tank, but it's never a pleasant task!
After that, he put his skills to altogether more wholesome use, building version 2 of the chicken compost container. The compost has gone down brilliantly with the chickens - they absolutely love it and get visibly excited when we go in each day with a fresh batch of food scraps - but version 1 of the container had suffered somewhat under the weight of the heavier chickens (Colombo the cockerel in particular), and without a solid frame, the sides had become bent and misshapen. Version 2 is altogether sturdier, with a proper wooden frame, so we await to see how it stands up!
That all took us up until 4.30pm, at which point it started trying to spit with rain, so we headed indoors to change and reflect on our weekend's efforts.
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