Monday 6 April 2015

Pleased with our lot (and our veg plot)


This morning, we were up, animals fed, cold frames opened and breakfast finished all before 9am. It was a chilly start to the day and there were signs of there having been a bit of a frost overnight, which took us a little by surprise as we had imagined we'd seen the last of the frosts for this year.

While Stuart took an hour to read his book over a cup of coffee, I went outside and did a spot of weeding on the guest patio and the herb garden, but gave up after a little while as it was too chilly to do such a sedentary job outdoors - at least until the sun made it round to the garden.

After Stuart had finished his coffee we got ourselves ready to go and walk Reggie. Today, we decided to head back to Sorana and have a second attempt at finding the walk to the abandoned village of Lignana. We knew we wouldn't get anywhere near as far as Lignana - while Reggie is still a growing pup, we are mindful of the fact that we mustn't over-walk him for fear of causing long term damage to his developing joints (much as he would love to keep going and going!) - nevertheless, we'd enjoyed the route we walked with Mum and Dad last week and wanted to see if we could get a little further.

After feeling chilly on getting out of the car, we soon warmed up as we walked uphill in the morning sunshine - there were yet more blues skies today, with just a few white clouds scudding about. There was an amazing clarity to the views today, and we could see all the way down the valley to Pescia, Montecarlo beyond it, and the hills of Volterra way beyond that, far down in the south of the region.




 




We made it a little further along the road than we had done last time, and found the point at which the footpath leaves the road, heading off uphill into the trees. We decided that next time, we will drive some of the way along the road, park the car and then head off on this track - just to see how far we can get. Of course, once Reggie is fully grown, then there'll be no stopping us and we'll be off hiking these trails in their entirety. In the meantime, we are enjoying our mini excursions of discovery!

By the time we got home it had gone 12pm. After yesterday's Sunday roast, we'd both been looking forward to chicken sandwiches for lunch today, so Stuart dealt with pulling all the good meat off the chicken while I started preparing a pan for making a stock with the bones.

We ate our sandwiches (bread, butter, chicken, salt and pepper - nothing more needed, deliciously simple) in the sunshine on the patio - after the cool start, the day was now really starting to warm up. The plan for the afternoon was to turn our attention back to the vegetable beds on the lower terraces, so while the stock simmered away on the hob, that's where we headed.

We started by raking over the last of the beds that Dad had dug, after which I dug a trench behind it for runner beans, then we stuck bean poles (cut for us by Dad last week) into the ground to create a bean trellis.

After that, we finally got round to doing some planting: asparagus, beetroot, some leeks (we also plan to try leeks in pots, so only put a few in the bed), carrots and radishes went in the beds, while some artichokes went in the ground outside the bed as we expect them to need a large amount of space once they get growing.

Vegetable bed raked, trench dug.

Bean trench.

Bean poles going in.

Veg bed, bean trench and bean trellis.

Planting.

After all that activity, we called it a day at around 5.30pm and shared a beer on the patio until the sun went down, while reflecting on how far we've come since we arrived here (almost a year ago!) and how much our lives have changed. When the sun disappeared and the temperature dropped we came indoors for the usual evening routine (feed cats, feed dog, light fire, prepare dinner, blog).

It'll be back to the everyday work routine tomorrow, but we've had a lovely Easter weekend - plenty of rest, relaxation and productivity to boot. We're pretty pleased with that.

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