After the fun of the weekend I felt up to a bit of physical work Monday, the first in weeks which was hugely frustrating as the weather had turned positively Autumnal since getting back from England, weather that I had been waiting weeks for to arrive so that I could get stuck into some work outside.
After breakfast and walking Reggie I went to finish off building the new compost bays below the car park area so that I could start building some compost piles with the help of the new chipper.
Having built the bays it was time for lunch and a bit of time in front of my computer to work on the graphic design for the Virus Bulletin conference the following week, the clock was ticking!
After Finishing off the video I produced to open the event I went back outside but the phone rang before I got more than a few steps (will I ever make any compost?), It was the courier delivering our new fridge, he wasn't far away but didn't know the area so I had to give him directions after which he said he would see me soon, leaving me to hope that he wasn't going to have kittens about the driveway like the guy who delivered the dishwasher did.
He soon rang the gate buzzer which set Reggie off barking and I waited for him to arrive at the house, he did a three point turn and reversed into our little dry stone wall breaking his rear light, preparing myself for the worst as he hopped out of the van...he said nothing, relief!
We unloaded the fridge, as we did he apologised for being late, he had a puncture that morning which had delayed him considerably and he still had another five deliveries to do that evening, poor guy.
After setting the fridge in the house and signing the multiple copies of the paperwork I walked him out while trying to explain where Larciano was so that he could head off to his next delivery.
I went back inside to unpack the fridge when my phone rang again, it was the courier, he had hit a piece of stone on the driveway and had another flat tyre!
I went to see him to offer help, he was clearly running out of patience with Monday and didn't seem to know what to do but asked for a hammer to try and repair the wheel rim which now had a huge dent in it.
The hammer didn't work, this was a wheel destined for scrap!
So, I had a large van on the drive with three working wheels and two flat ones and he was saying that his breakdown company would be hours before coming to him, did I know a tyre shop he asked.
After all the messing around going back and forth for hammers and tyre shop numbers it was gone 6pm, quite likely now that most if not all tyre shops would be closed but we tried calling a couple and one in Pescia said that they were too busy to come out to him but if we took the wheel to them they would have a look so we loaded the flat spare from under the van into the car and went into Pescia, a little confusion ensued as I was looking for the tyre place we'd spoken to but he now wanted me to go back towards home to a car mechanic we had passed, it turned out someone in his office had been calling around too and spoken to someone there that said they would have a look.
We found the place ready to close but two young guys waiting for us to arrive, after pulling a couple of suspect items from the tyre tread but failing to find the puncture we were on the verge of giving up and I was wondering if this guy was going to need a bed for the night or at the very least a stiff drink and dinner.
Luckily, just before doing so the young guy found the problem was a broken valve and set to work repairing it before sending us on our way with a fully inflated tyre.
Relief! A quick wheel change and I would be rid of this guy!
It was now dark by the time we got back to the van, he'd been here for about three hours already so we unloaded the wheel and he asked for a wheel brace...'non hai una chiave'? I said, he said he used to have one but hasn't done for months so I produced ours from the car only to find it too small, 5mm to be precise...would this saga ever end!?
I called David up in Vellano to see what he had in his car..it was bigger than 20mm, so I charged up to Vellano to get that from him along with a second he found of yet another size, Why aren't these things standardised?
I got back, tried the first..too small...tried the second...HURRAH! 20 minutes later and with a smile returning to his face he drove off into the night Larciano bound.
What a day!
Tuesday after breakfast, and a dog walk I sorted through the two crates of tomatoes we picked the weekend so that some could go to Amanda and the rest into the freezer, this took up the rest of the morning but good to have done it, now we have heaps of homegrown cherry tomatoes in the freezer which make a great out of season fresh pasta sauce.
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| Tomato town! |
While there I caught sight of one of those builders rubble chutes and thought that would be amazing for shifting large quantities of chippings directly to the bays below so I asked Danilo if they were expensive, they were, not that I ever found out exactly how expensive but I explained it was only for wood chip, it didn't need to be that indestructible just long enough to reach the bays and wide enough to throw a spade of material into.
He took me to the very back of the yard and showed me some 6 metre long tubes that were very light, a little flexible but durable, used for laying under roads he said, or at least I think that's what he said, he can be quite hard to understand, especially when laughing at me as he often does.
I went in to Paolo to pay for the posts and asked how much the tube was...€100 was the reply, seemed like just the right price for the amount of labour that would save in building just one pile so said I'd like one but didn't know how to get it home.
He looked through the window at the car and said put it on the roof, he said this with a deadpan expression so assumed he was serious, had it been Danilo who suggested this I'd have been giving it more serious thought but Paolo as the owner of the shop is much more serious and sensible so I paid and took the car to the back of the yard to strap the new chip chute to the roof, much to Danilo's delight, who laughed and giggled his was through the whole process insisting I don't leave until he took a picture of the car with its 'canon' on top.
He appeared from the office with Paolo and his camera, both men beaming from ear to ear, it was infectious and I couldn't help have a little giggle myself with them before driving up the valley for the short drive home...that was quite enough for one day.
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| 'Pimped' my ride! |
Wednesday as usual started with our Italian lesson with Johnny, this week though without David and Sarah as they had guests with them and were heading to Siena for the day.
After an interesting lesson translating a list of common mistakes made by foreigners when using Italian we sent him on his way to Paul and Kathy, and I took Reggie out for a walk in the woods before lunch time was upon us, I was determined today to make a start on the compost heaps.
After lunch on the patio Helen went back to the office to continue to tie up loose ends before heading to the conference and I headed to the compost area to start loading the first bay.
Up until now we haven't wasted any food scraps of any sort, uncooked veg peelings get split between the chickens and the cold compost heap behind the house while cooked items plus some raw veg go to the wormery which is now also home to black soldier fly larvae, also excellent composters and possibly even better than tiger worms, time will tell on that front.
This is all working very well and we have taken a fair amount of fresh compost out of the cold piles each year but the down side of a cold pile, (by 'cold pile' I mean a pile that is slowly added to until full and then left for many months until composted) is not only the time required for it to break down but that seeds germinate readily in the compost and it's possible to harbour disease from old plants which then ends up on your next years plantings.
WARNING: more paragraphs of compost talk to follow, feel free to skip past if you have no interest in dirt.
By contrast a hot pile, which is built in one go to a minimum size of 1 cubic metre gets so hot it kills all disease, pests and seeds in the process and can be ready to use in as little as three months, clearly the best compost we could hope for but we need a LOT of material to create such large heaps, hence the purchase of the wood chipper.
Now...I've read a fair amount in books lately about composting and all seem to agree that the optimum composition for compost building is a ratio of 3:1, that is 3 parts brown/carbon to 1 part green/nitrogen, so fallen leaves and wood-chip for browns and grass clippings and anything still green as the nitrogen or greens.
The theory is the greenery creates the initial heat in the heap as it rots quickly then the brown materials will heat and stay hot for a number of weeks helping the whole heap break down much more quickly, turning the pile about every three weeks or once the pile has dropped below 38 degrees centigrade.
So I spent the rest of the afternoon shovelling materials down the chute and then layering the pile, each layer had a light sprinkling of fresh compost to introduce the helpful bacteria and a light watering so that the bacteria can function.
A fairly labour intensive job but very satisfying knowing that this single heap will have saved us around €80 on shop bought compost and we still have another four bins to fill, self sufficient in compost next year? hope so!
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| 5 bays built |
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| Chute ready for action |
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| Taking aim! |
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| Layer one of many...6 inches of 'brown' material |
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| layer topped with a sprinkling of fresh compost and then watered |
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| A layer of 'green' with yet more compost and water |
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| Compost lasagna almost finished!! |
I first busied myself with walking Reggie and finishing off my own last bit of conference work which took me up to lunch time.
After lunch the compost thermometer I order arrived so I went straight down to see how the pile was doing, assuming I'd built the heap correctly it should be warming up already, I stuck the thermometer into the heap and watched as the needle span slowly clockwise ending up at 65 degrees centigrade, excellent start!
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| ..and then to 65 degrees! (149 fahrenheit) |
It wasn't long before Samantha arrived for our weekly lesson so I sat down to do my homework before she arrived not wanting to be a disappointment the teacher.
After half an hour of marking and correcting I left for the office while Helen and Samantha got stuck into whatever advanced stuff they are working on with out me to hinder the process, most likely more prepositions.
Once Samantha left to the usual volleys of barks from Reggie I started up the wood chipper to chip up a pile of kindling cluttering the area where the tractor will soon be parked under cover before calling it a day and retiring indoors for a quick and easy dinner of take away pizza.
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| Goodbye cuddles! |
We barely spoke during the drive, partly through tiredness partly through sadness as she was going to be away for a lengthy 12 days, possibly the longest time we've been apart.
Needless to say there were a few tears at the airport and after waving my best friend goodbye I headed back home to count down the days.
Once home Reggie and I went out for a walk up near Vellano before coming home for lunch.
After lunch and a large mug of coffee I headed out to do a few hours strimming before getting ready for dinner at Restaurant Da Carla this evening, Allen and Gisela had very kindly invited me out to eat with them and I took no convincing, it would certainly be nice to chat properly without Reggie as the backing track for a change.
I cut the grass around the gates to tidy up the entrance way before heading to the upper donkey track which I wanted to cut and tidy before attempting to venture up there in the tractor to collect wood to chip.
After getting up to the top and running out of cord I headed back to the house to shower off the dirt before going out for what felt like a well earned meal after such a long period of inactivity thanks to the tracheal infection I've been battling with since getting back from England.
We were soon in the car and heading down to Da Carla for a typical Tuscan meal and more Sorana beans which both Allen and Gisela had developed a soft spot for in their short stay here.
We shared salumi, cheese, bean salad, crostini and bruschetta to start followed by a plate of pasta each and then a mixed grill for two between the three of us, a mixed grill that beat us, not being able to eat the last pork rib or two pieces of rabbit (Reggie had no problem helping out once we got back with them).
After they refused my money and paid the bill, yet again remarking how cheap the restaurants were in this area we headed home with the doggie bag and sat outside for an hour with a glass of wine chatting until almost 1am before retiring for the night, what a wonderful evening was had with such lovely people, we were all just sad that Helen had missed out.
After a late night with Allen and Gisela it was a slow start to the day, while I could hear Allen and Gisela packing and tidying down in the apartment in readiness to leave I sat with another large mug of coffee (I have to drink twice as much from the Moka pot now Helen is away) and a book on small scale farming.
Eventually I knew they were starting to load the car, or at least that's what I think Reggie was shouting from the fence separating them from him.
I went down to chat while they finished off and helped fill out some postage forms for a couple of parcels they were sending back home to upstate New York before they continued their holiday heading for the mighty Dolomite mountains.
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| One of Allen and Gisela's guide books! |
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| The lovely Gisela |
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| A rarity...all three of us in a single photo..thanks Allen! |
Not long afterwards I loaded Reggie into the car and headed out for a walk down in the valley bottom by Castelvecchio, after crossing the somewhat overgrown Ponte Bello I ascended up the other side of the valley until I came to a junction in the footpaths, one Helen and I had passed before but this time I turned right towards Casa Buti and Pian della Bombola, neither of which I knew of but fancied a change.
We walked...and walked, and walked, all the while up hill, we passed an overgrown stone built chestnut barn that must have been disused for many a year judging by the location and access.
I had no idea where I was going but had vague idea of where in the valley we might pop out, If only I had my phone or GPS...but I didn't, both were at home, the phone on charge.
We continued for some time, during which we could hear some guys with 2-stroke machines way below us, surely on the track we had walked up, I couldn't tell if they were on dirt bikes or had some kind of tool, either way I decided to keep heading up in the hope we'd pop out somewhere soon but the dense woodland never relented.
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| At home in the woods but thirsty! |
As is often the way with any journey the return seems half the distance as the venture out so it felt like only a hour after turning back when we got back to the car, could well have been that much shorter, it was all down hill after all.
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| No idea how far up this track we got, next time the GPS is going with me! |
On the way home we stopped off at Amanda's to collect our weekly loaf of fresh bread, this week having changed from our usual salted Tuscan loaf to a Pugliese style loaf, much lighter and fluffier, needless to say I went straight home and ate copious slices of it with cheese and onion sandwiched between them before the gate buzzer rang, it was Paul and Kathy on their way to Montecatini with a welcome gift of a bottle of English Ale for me!
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| THANKS Paul and Kathy!! |
After a muggy few hours I retired indoors for some dinner, a bottle of Wainrights Ale and a movie before bed.
Sunday started deliberately slowly, yet another mug of espresso and my head in my farming book before heading down to clean the apartment in readiness for our next guests arriving Monday.
By half one I'd done everything but put fresh linen and towels down there but that was a job for tomorrow before they arrived.
After more fresh crusty Pugliese sandwiches I headed into town with Reggie to walk the river while it was quiet, it being lunch time.
It was warming up as the day wore on and was glad to get back to the car, we even had the air conditioning on for ten minutes as we drove up the valley home.
I had been invited to the Phillips house for dinner this evening at six so was only left with a couple of spare hours so feeling duty bound sat down to start my first blog of many weeks if not months and feeling very rusty for it!
An uneventful end to the week but punctuated nicely by dinner with Chris, Sue and the boys whom I hadn't seen for months so we had a lot to catch up on.
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