Crocks and olives

The overriding themes of this week have been the two of us feeling like a pair of old crocks, and, well, olives.

Monday

We were both up early on Monday morning so that we could let the cats out, let Reggie have a run around the garden and dispatch a bowl of cereal each before jumping into the car and heading down the hill to the Phillips house (and olive grove) in time for 8.30am. We started the morning with a good cup of coffee with Chris and Sue before following them out and up into their olive grove for the day's work. This was the start of Chris and Sue's second week of olive picking this year, but for us it would be our first ever experience of an olive harvest.

Last year, the olive harvest across the whole of Tuscany and large parts of Italy was a disaster - there basically wasn't one, and most of the olive presses didn't even open. The reason was a pest: olive fly. The previous winter (2013-14) had been a mild one, and while that may be good news for people trying to collect enough firewood to keep warm over winter, it certainly wasn't good news for olive farmers. The larvae of the olive fly overwinter in the soil and if the winter is mild, this creates ideal conditions for them - a harsh winter is welcomed in these parts as it kills off a good proportion of the pests. While there will always be some olive fly, there is a magical percentage (a low one), below which it is deemed a good crop and worthy of picking and pressing. Last winter was cold at times (I distinctly remember the inch-thick ice on the goose pond), but overall it wasn't particularly harsh, so everyone was wondering whether or not it would have been enough to kill off the fly - it turns out that, in the main, it was, and this year there seems to be an exceptionally good crop of olives.

Of course, olive picking isn't exactly rocket science and after a quick demonstration from Chris and Sue, we soon got into the rhythm of stripping olives from the branches that Chris was periodically throwing down from the trees as he combined pruning with picking. Despite a head full of cold and a lingering headache, it felt lovely to be out in the fresh air in amongst the olive trees with good company. We continued stripping branches until around 12.30pm, at which point Sue and I took the opportunity to dash to the olive press in order to collect the crates they had left there after their first pressing over the weekend. It was my first experience of an olive press - we literally only stuck our heads in to pick up the crates, which were right by the door, but even with a nose full of cold the smell of olive oil was incredible! All being well we should return to the press this Saturday with the olives that we have helped pick over the course of the week, and we will be able to see the whole process for ourselves - definitely something to look forward to!

A morning's work.

After dropping the crates back off at the Phillipses, I left Stuart in the care of Chris and Sue and trundled back up the hill so that I could get Lucca and Florence safely in, let Reggie out for some fresh air in the garden, and check my emails and do a bit of office work. Once the light started to fade, I put Reggie in the car and drove back down the hill to go and collect Stuart. Reggie and I both went up to the house to say hello, before we all left for the river to give him a very brief stretch of his legs. Darkness seemed to descend very quickly though, and poor Reggie's short walk was cut even shorter - it hardly seemed fair to call it a 'walk' - so we headed back home to light the fire and cook some dinner. Poor Stuart seemed very tired after his day's picking - but it was at this point that he suddenly realised he had forgotten to take his thyroid tablets in the morning, which was clearly having knock-on effects.

Tuesday

With Tuesday being the day of our weekly Italian lessons in Vellano, we'd decided we wouldn't go to pick olives but instead Stuart would spend the morning working with David, I would spend the morning working in the office, and we would both go up to Vellano for our lesson in the afternoon. That's pretty much how the day went. Stuart seemed very tired today, and I was still suffering with cold symptoms, but we made it through the day and managed to take Reggie for a slightly longer walk (our usual one along the river in Pescia) after our Italian lesson, managing to squeeze it in just before the daylight faded.

Wednesday

Likewise, we'd planned not to pick olives on Wednesday, with Stuart spending the morning working with David again, me working in the office again, and then me having my weekly Italian lesson with Samantha in the afternoon. Stuart took Reggie for a good walk while Samantha was here, in order to give us some peace and quiet, as Reggie still hasn't worked out that Samantha is a friend! Poor Samantha gets treated to a volley of barking every time she comes to the house. We think that inviting her to join us on a dog walk might do the trick, as Reggie seems to bond with people when he goes on walks with them, so one week we will have to have a lesson while walking the dog and see how that goes! The day ended with both Stuart and I feeling drained - my headache having returned with a vengeance and Stuart still feeling over tired - but the plan was for us to get back to picking olives the next day. We duly retired to bed at 9pm, talk about rock and roll!

Thursday

During the night, we received a message from Chris and Sue - it seemed they were taking pity on us pair of old crocks and told us not to come to pick olives. Not only that, but it was Henry's birthday today, so they themselves were planning to dedicate most of the day to birthday celebrations. I have to admit to feeling enormous relief as my headache was still in full swing when I woke in the morning, and Stuart still looked exhausted - despite having had 10 hours sleep.

Stuart's first task of the day was a mercy mission to drive into Pescia and get me some more migraine tablets - although strangely, by the time he came back I was starting to feel slightly more human, if still a little fragile. Over breakfast, we decided that since we were both going to be around for the whole day, we would take the opportunity to make this the first day we let the chickens out of their house. We duly shut Reggie indoors to minimise disruption while we headed up to the chicken enclosure to give the chickens their (relative) freedom - hoping that they wouldn't take flight (literally) again!

We opened the door and... nothing happened. There was no stampede and cloud of feathers as the chickens fought to get out the door. No, instead they all stood still, before slowly a couple of the braver ones made their way to the doorway, where they stood, looking out. Occasionally one of them would put a toe on the ramp as if thinking about coming out, before pulling it quickly back in again and standing in the door, staring out.

Don't all rush at once...

This clearly wasn't going to be a rushed affair, so Stuart and I turned our attentions to the olive tree that stands in the corner of the chicken enclosure. Theoretically, at least, the chickens could jump up onto the branches and from there flap their way over the fence and out of their enclosure, so we knew we really needed to cover it in something. Before that, though, Stuart decided it would be a good opportunity to prune the tree - it was one that didn't really get a proper pruning early this year because the former inhabitants of the enclosure, the now deceased geese, were, shall we say, not overly friendly and not very tolerant of having people interfering in their enclosure. We are already learning that chickens are an altogether gentler, friendlier, more docile species, which meant that we could spend half an hour pruning the olive tree in peace - and as we did so, one of the chickens even made it out of the door and halfway down the ramp!

After the tree had been pruned we attempted to cover it with some old netting that we had lying around, but the piece wasn't really large enough or the right shape, so we left the tree half covered and plan to go and buy some olive netting to cover it properly at a later date, hoping that the chickens don't get too adventurous in the meantime.

After doing a little office work, while Stuart continued work on the shed, I felt like having some fresh air, but with my head still feeling on the delicate side, I didn't want to do anything too strenuous. Stuart came up with the suggestion that I pick our own olives!

Our poor olive trees are still in a state of slow recovery. We are told that several years ago, a man lived in our house illegally and he cut down all the olive trees to use as firewood. This is not only a crying shame, but olive trees are protected in these parts, so doing so would have been illegal in itself. Anyway, the result of this brutal behaviour is that the olive trees on the terraces above the house are very slowly struggling to recover, with shoots having regrown from the stumps that this chap left after his olive massacre. While our predecessors were kinder to the trees, we don't think they gave them a proper pruning, so it wasn't until Stuart did it early this year that they started to get some TLC. The massacring and the lack of pruning combined mean that we are very low on fruit - although this year was markedly better than last year, with 5 of the 40 or so trees that we have access to bearing fruit. (We have many, many more olive trees - probably at least another 40-60 - but these are still buried deep amongst the bramble on the terraces that we have yet to clear; our mission is to gradually clear up to and around the trees, gradually increasing our olive tree count. The one good thing about the trees that are still embedded in bramble is that it seems that the olive tree massacre didn't make it that far, so they are all larger and more mature than the ones on our cleared terraces - so when we do finally reach them and prune them, we hope they will be healthy and bear fruit.)

I therefore spent a couple of hours carefully picking the olives from the two trees either side of the steps that lead up to the upper terraces - with a notably better crop on one of them than the other. The other few trees that bore fruit really only had a handful each, so I collected those too. By the end of the afternoon I'd amassed more than I had expected. The bag weighed in at a little over 10kg - which should be enough to make around a litre of olive oil... Of course just one carrier bag full of olives is not worth going to the press with (there is a minimum pressing cost of the equivalent of 300kg), but we plan to take our small offering and add it in with the olives we pick at the Phillipses so we can say we have pressed our own olives this year!

10kg of olives from our slowly recovering olive trees - that's about a litre of olive oil!

Mid afternoon we had a visit from David and Sarah who called in for a quick catch-up and to see the chickens. By the time I took them up to the chicken enclosure all five chickens (the four hens and the cockerel) were out and about, cautiously exploring their surroundings. They viewed us with some suspicion and kept their distance, but didn't seem too startled by our presence and certainly not aggressive in the way the geese would have been!

Stuart made some good progress on the shed on Thursday, having finished laying concrete for the end section of the shed that will house the new water tank, gas cylinder etc., attached the plywood layer to the roof and also put in a section of flooring for the other end of the shed - it's really starting to take shape now and will look really smart when it's all finished (especially when all the tools and bits and pieces from under the tarpaulin are moved into it and hidden away!)

The shed taking shape

Flooring now down at either end.

Friday

We both awoke on Friday feeling a little fragile, but I for one felt better than I had done for the rest of the week, so we headed off into Pescia to the Phillips olive grove once again, arriving at 8.20am in time for a coffee before heading to the trees.

Olives in a hessian sack - how Tuscan can you get?

We all picked until lunchtime, at which point a rapidly flagging Stuart left to go and get the cats in, take Reggie for a walk and run some other errands. I stayed for a delicious lunch with the Phillipses, before heading back out to the olive trees in the afternoon. It was a particularly cloudy, misty day today and the light started to fade at around 4.30pm, so we called it a day and Stuart came to pick me up after collecting some felt roofing material from Frateschi's and a car load of pieces of wood from the wood yard.

Since we were in town, we decided to bite the bullet and do the supermarket shopping - neither of us felt like doing it, but we knew it would be good to get it out of the way to free up more time at the weekend. By the time we were leaving Esselunga darkness had fallen and it was 6pm by the time we got home.

We spent a cosy evening by the fire, happy in the knowledge that the weekend was upon us - not that we have plans for a relaxing one, with still more work to get done on the shed in order to try and get it watertight before some rain is due next week, various other tasks to do around the place, and an olive pressing to get to on Saturday!

A weekend of upside down weather

Saturday saw us up and out fairly promptly as we had plenty we wanted to get done before the weekend was out. First on the list was to give the ever energetic Reggie a decent run out, so we hatched a plan to go to the Pescia river south of town in the Alberghi area where it's usually blissfully devoid of other people (on the side of the river that we use, at least).

We left the house and drove down the valley in the glorious sunshine, so it came as a shock as we levelled out and approached Pescia to find a wall of fog ahead - gone were the blue sky and glorious sunshine, replaced by thick fog! It seemed like something of a weather reversal - not that we have bad weather on our hill, but Pescia often fares a little better for weather and temperatures due to the fact that it's at a lower altitude and the cloud and mist often float around the foothills. Not so today though, which left me wishing I had come out in more than a t-shirt, especially as the LED sign at the garage entering Pescia registered just 12 degrees.

We were soon on the river bank and walking further south with the river bank to ourselves for the entirety of the walk. Reggie thoroughly enjoyed himself, barely stopping running, including at full speed through the river - he certainly seemed less bothered by the murky weather than we were, although it was just comfortable enough for me in the end.

After a good walk, we retired to café Delice - the one we first tried yesterday - for a coffee. After a couple of much needed and good quality cappuccini we headed off, against the grain, to do our food shopping mid-morning. Visiting the supermarkets mid-morning is something we have been avoiding for many months due to the throngs of other people all doing the same, but the idea of going home only to have to come back into town again at lunchtime seemed like a waste of time, effort and fuel, so while Reggie lay in the boot slowly perfuming the car with the smell of damp dog, we dutifully filled trolleys at both Esselunga and Lidl before finally heading home just before midday for a bit of lunch. As we left Pescia, still thick in fog, we saw brightness ahead of us on the road and on reaching San Lorenzo, the mist parted to reveal the whole of the rest of the valley still bathed in beautiful sunshine with clear blue skies.

Lunch was a fairly rushed affair as we were both keen to get started on some outside work, so after despatching the remainder of yesterday's quinoa salad on the patio in the glorious sunshine, Helen went to work breaking up concrete blocks and other detritus from the side of the house to finish filling the section of floor behind the house that will form part of the shed floor while I started bolting leg supports to the concrete pads I'd poured last week and the making a start on constructing the basic framework of the shed. This was not an easy task as very little is flat or level so it was a case of measure everything at least three times before cutting or drilling a thing!

Helen and I finished the afternoon by mixing and pouring a quarter of a tonne of cement into the section of floor behind the house to start to lay the shed floor.

By the time we had exhausted the 10 bags of concrete, we were both feeling pretty exhausted ourselves, and since time was marching quickly towards dusk we decided to call it a day and retire indoors for much needed hot showers, a glass of wine and dinner. This evening's dinner was one of our staples - vegetable fajitas. Tonight, though, we pimped our fajitas with a tomato salsa made with lime juice from the first of our very own limes from our lime tree - it was delicious!

First on the agenda for Sunday morning was once again a run-out for Reggie. We decided to try a new walk out today, and headed up the valley, through Vellano and on up to Macchino. We pulled over in Macchino in front of a selection of 4 different footpath signs and set off on our way, reasoning that with a choice of four we ought to be able to find a decent enough walk!

We also had with us the sat nav device that we've used on cycling trips, newly loaded with local maps that Helen's Mum and Dad kindly brought over for us. We started following a path through the trees that afforded us some lovely views of the valley. Once again today it seemed as if the hills were bathed in sunshine and bright blue skies while the valley bottom appeared to be smothered in fog and mist - we were quite shocked by just how warm it was. Usually when we drive up the road even just as far as Vellano, we notice a degree or so's drop in temperature with the climb in altitude. Here, however, the reverse seemed to have happened - we were higher still than Vellano, yet the temperature felt several degrees warmer than in Pietrabuona!

We followed the well marked path for quite a way, before turning off to find a loop that would bring us back to our original point, as shown on our sat nav device. All was going well until we found that the path that followed the loop was not quite as well maintained as the main path - in fact, it was obstructed with fallen trees. By this point, we had gone too far to make it worth our while turning back and re-tracing our steps, so we went off-piste, carefully picking our way through the carpet of leaves, clambering over fallen branches and heading in what we hoped was roughly the right direction to bring us back onto the right path. Reggie was delighted that we had for once joined him in going cross-country and ran about happily as we huffed and puffed our way up the hill.

Happily, we did eventually come out on the track again, after which the going was a lot easier!

By the time we reached the car again, we were feeling super-heated - it really was too warm for long trousers and big boots, especially on the uphill climbs! We decided to stop at the little café in the village of Macchino for a well earned cappuccino and a fairly in-depth chat with a very friendly Italian couple who were sitting outside the café enjoying the sunshine with their impeccably behaved dog. They wanted to know more about Reggie, although drew the line at us getting him out of the car, as their dog didn't seem quite so impressed with the idea!

Coffees dispatched, we trundled back down the hill, stopping to take a gratuitous photograph of the beautiful view from Vellano on the way - the mist still lurking the valley bottom.

Instead of going directly home, we carried on as far as Amanda's shop in the village where we called in to get some food for lunch and for Helen to collect some homework from Samantha. We were surprised at how cool and fresh it felt down in Pietrabuona after the heat of the hills.

On getting home, it was getting towards lunchtime, so we popped our treats in the oven to warm through before sitting on the patio in the glorious sunshine to enjoy a seafood and chard stew, pork escalopes in tomato and caper sauce and some boiled potatoes - delicious.

After lunch it was back to outside work for both of us - it might be Sunday, but we had a lot to get done! While I made some good progress on the construction of the shed roof, Helen went up the terraces to spend the afternoon making and tending a bonfire and getting rid of just one of the many piles of brambles.

The soundtrack to our afternoon consisted of barking dogs (for once not Reggie, although the noises did seem to upset him and he spent a fair amount of time barking back, not that we could blame him), lots of shouting and the occasional gunshot. There was clearly a hunt going on and it all sounded very close indeed - it wasn't until Helen climbed up the terraces to start her bonfire that she spotted someone in high-vis orange on the hill opposite us - it's amazing how sound travels around here.

By the end of the afternoon, Helen had completed the burning of one of the piles of bramble and I had the beginnings of the shed roof in place - a productive afternoon indeed!

Tomorrow we are due to try our hands at olive picking for the first time - on Chris and Sue's olive terraces, so it'll be an early night tonight in preparation for an early start in the morning.

Chickens come home to roost

This busy week has drawn to a close with 5 new additions to our household (well, perhaps not in our house itself...), but before we get to the chickens, we owe you an update on that busy week!


Sunday

The second part of last weekend was little more restful than the first - in fact probably rather less so! While Stuart and I attempted a nod to the fact that it was Sunday and therefore ought to be a slower-paced morning, Mum and Dad were up and out bright and early as usual and even before Stuart and I had finished our breakfast, they were busy barrowing gravel down the driveway and moving pieces of cut wood around! Keen not to appear as if we weren't pulling our weight, Stuart headed straight out after making up this year's two jars of chestnut liqueur (with chestnuts picked and prepared courtesy of Mum & Dad), while I finished off blogging, before heading out myself.

Chestnut brandy (chestnuts collected in and around Vellano) and Chestnut rum (chestnuts all from our property).

I continued the tedious but necessary process of raking the terraces that we'd cleared a couple of weeks back. Over the last 12 months, we have learnt the hard way that if you steam ahead clearing terraces without cleaning up after yourself (which is all too easy to do when you are unveiling new ground, releasing tangled olive trees from the thorny grips of mounds of bramble and discovering terraces that haven't seen the light of day for twenty years or more), it will come back to bite you on the backside. Last year, we enthusiastically cleared terraces both above and below the house without a thought to clearing up behind ourselves, leaving piles of cut acacia and thick carpets of bramble clippings across the 'cleared' terraces, blinded by the excitement of being able to see newly unveiled terraces. Where the lower terraces were concerned, we were very fortunate to have the help of our HelpX-ers Holly and Zach, who spent gruelling and tedious days raking the terraces and burning the rakings so that we would be left with beautiful clear terraces ready for our vegetable beds. The upper terraces, on the other hand, were rather neglected and didn't see any 'cleaning' action. The result of which was that nature took hold again, presenting us not only with a forest of acacia trees on the very terraces that we'd cleared just months earlier, but also threading tendrils of bramble, blades of grass and creeping vines through the piles of twigs and branches that we'd carelessly left up there - making the task of clearing up several months later almost impossible. The lesson we have learned here is that we simply must not get too carried away with the exhilaration of clearing new land but we need to take things slowly and steadily, and clean up as we go.

So, while I raked, Stuart went along the drive with the chainsaw to cut down a couple of trees that Dad had spotted on the driveway which he felt it would be prudent to cut down, and to start cutting up part of one of the large pine trees that had fallen way back in the big storm of March. Mum and Dad then spent the rest of the morning, and indeed much of the afternoon moving pieces of tree down the driveway.

Lucca watches the workers.

We all worked on until around 4pm, when we downed tools so that we could take Reggie out for a walk before the daylight faded. We walked along the river Pescia in town, with the light all but gone by the time we got back to the car. Before heading home, we decided to check out the mini chestnut festival that was going on in the small square to the south of the main square. The festa wasn't much to write home about - just a handful of stalls, but they still had their braziers up and running and we treated ourselves to two bags of piping hot roast chestnuts to share between us. The chestnuts were delicious and well worth the detour.

Monday

Monday morning saw Stuart heading off up the valley with Mum and Dad to deliver them to Croce a Veglia, a point at the head of the valley from where they had planned a day's walking. The weather was bright and clear, which seemed like a good start for their day.

After that, Stuart called in to see Donatella on his way back home, while I spent the morning working in the office.

The afternoon was spent with Stuart making some progress on the construction of the shed - before the shed can go up, the old doorway needs to be fully blocked up and insulated, so he spent the afternoon constructing a 'cat tunnel' from the cat flap through an air gap (to be filled with insulation material). Meanwhile, I started a bonfire and spent more than three hours burning some of the bramble and clippings that I'd piled up in my raking. Even after a whole afternoon's burning, I barely seemed to have made a dent in the enormous pile we need to get rid of!

Doorway almost blocked up, insulation in the air gap, and cat tunnel in place.

Stuart headed off up the valley to collect Mum and Dad at around 4.30pm - they came back after having had a wonderful day - perfect weather, stunning views (we can vouch for this as we were treated to a viewing of their photos in the evening), a rather strenuous walk by the sounds of things, involving some steep climbs and precipitous drops, but they both seemed very happy indeed with their day's excursion.

Tuesday

We decided to give Reggie a walk first thing on Tuesday morning, in order to make sure that he didn't miss out, so we collected Mum & Dad and headed for the other side of Sorana. We had a good walk along the track, which was carpeted in golden autumn leaves, before heading home for another morning of raking, shed building, wood moving and so on.

After lunch, it was time for our weekly Italian lesson at David and Sarah's in Vellano. Mum and Dad fancied another stretch of their legs, so we dropped them off on the outskirts of Pietrabuona, where they planned to have a look around the village before heading up the hill towards Medicina. Meanwhile, we headed for Vellano and another good lesson with Johnny.

After leaving David and Sarah's we drove to the Medicina road to pick up Mum and Dad - darkness was beginning to fall by this stage, but they'd made their way all the way up to the village and about halfway back down again, and had enjoyed their second walk of the day.

On Tuesday evening, Mum and Dad treated us to another meal out. This time, we decided to try another restaurant that was new to us - and another one recommended by David and Sarah. We went to Lucignolo in the Santa Lucia area just outside Pescia. Thankfully we'd been briefed by David on how to find the place - it was tucked away in the most unlikely place next to a sports field! The restaurant was lovely - sleek and modern in style, and the food was absolutely delicious. We had a very enjoyable evening indeed, a lovely way to spend the last evening of Mum and Dad's visit.

A lovely evening with Mum & Dad at Lucignolo.

Wednesday

The pace slowed somewhat on Wednesday morning, and instead of all rushing up the terraces or along the driveway to collect wood, we instead headed out on a shopping trip. We were heading for the ipercoop complex outside Montecatini, but our first stop was at the charming café that we'd found on 'soil stack day' a couple of months ago when we were waiting for builders merchants to reopen after their lunch. Anyway, we stopped for a round of coffees before heading on our way to the shops. Next, we pulled in to Maury's - a kind of a large hardware/homeware shop with such a wealth of things on offer that you tend to come out with a dozen items that you didn't go in to buy. Such was the case today: we'd gone in intending to buy a washing-up bowl for the apartment but left with two washing-up bowls, some hand soap, toothpaste (on special offer), a photo album, a box file, an adapter and a hand whisk!

Next on the shopping expedition was Decathlon. I needed a new pair of work trousers, and where better to go than Decathlon? I soon found a pair, and we picked up a new work t-shirt for Stuart while we were at it, before finally heading to Obi. We left Obi after procuring a canopy to go over our front door and several packs of tongue-and-groove, which Stuart needed in order to finish constructing the new version of the woodpile.

Mammoth shopping trip done, we had about an hour back at home to do a few bits of work before heading out again, this time for lunch. Mum and Dad wanted to take us out for lunch before they left, so we decided to head for the Toti restaurant, another lovely place that is tucked away off the Lucca road. We had yet another delicious meal there - enjoying a pasta dish and a main course each (as well as a carafe of wine and coffee all round) on their incredibly good value €10 workers' lunch menu. We also enjoyed a chat with a Dutch gentleman on the next table to us, whom we'd first met back in March at Pescia train station on the day after the big storm. We had been there with Zach and Holly, who were trying to get a train to Florence, and the gentleman had been there too, also trying to find out what was going on with the trains and trying to get to Florence. Remarkably he recognised us in the restaurant and we had a nice chat with him, discovering that he is a professor of oncology at Pisa University.

Anyway, meal dispatched, pleasantries exchanged, we left the restaurant and headed back to Pescia. We made one final stop, pulling into a parking space near to La Baracchina and ordering ice creams from the little gelateria, which we ate on a bench overlooking the river.

By the time we got home, there was only a little over an hour until we needed to set off for the airport, so while Mum and Dad finished their packing, Stuart and I took Reggie for a quick walk at San Lorenzo, this time heading along the road and up the hill behind the hotel.

All too soon, it was time to leave Reggie looking after the house, pack Mum and Dad's cases into the car and head towards Pisa. As ever, saying goodbye was the hardest part of the visit. It had been a lovely 10 days and once again Mum and Dad have helped move us on with our jobs, working harder than many people less than half their age would dream of doing, and being generous as ever with paying for meals out and more. We were thankful that we didn't have a repeat of the weather we had when they visited us last October (when it was mainly very wet), and delighted that not only was the weather better, but that we had some stunning weather, perfect for Mum and Dad's excursions. Most of all, it was lovely just having them here, knowing they were just downstairs in the apartment. We hope their next visit won't be too long away.

Thursday

Thursday was a very strange day – it felt very quiet and we both felt a bit drained and empty. It was, after all, the first day in several weeks when we neither had visitors nor were preparing for them! While I got my head down in the office for a while, Stuart made progress with the construction of the new woodpile using the banner material he'd bought last week.

We took Reggie for a walk along the cava track after lunch, and when we got home Stuart finished off the woodpile while I (under Stuart's instruction) created a 'poop collector' for the chicken house (first sawing off the bottom of the old plastic goose pool, to create a collection tray, then building a wooden frame and covering it with mesh to go over the tray) and fitted an 'alighting board' in the chicken house next to the nest boxes. With these jobs done in the chicken house, we were hopeful that we might even be able to fill the house with real live chickens on Friday morning!

Reggie crunching through the autumn leaves.

Poop collector in construction.

Friday

While I quickly logged into my work email, Stuart did a couple of runs to the bins with some of the piles of rubbish that we'd accumulated over recent weeks. I don't know what it is about living here, but we seem to accumulate unsightly piles of rubbish e.g. broken garden umbrellas, washing machines, old electric water heaters, scraps of fencing mesh, empty bags of concrete... in what seems like a matter of hours after having taken the last lot to the bins. Anyway, temporarily, at least, the rubbish pile disappeared.

After that, the two of us got into the car and headed off for a morning of errands. First stop was the office of the Coldiretti, an organisation that deals with farmers and agricultural workers (that's about as far as I understand what it does, if you want to know more, ask Stuart!). Stuart wanted to make an enquiry about registering for an agricultural tax code and, after waiting for a while in the waiting area, we were seen by a friendly man who gave us some information and sent us on our way. The visit was somewhat distressing for me - on entering the office and looking at the noticeboard, I realised I barely understood any of the words on the notices, and when we were finally seen, I didn't really grasp much of what the man was saying. After having felt as if I was making some small progress with my Italian, this made me feel like I didn't know or understand a thing!

Thankfully, the next stop was less taxing - a stop for a quick coffee at a new café (that is, new to us) on the outskirts of town - before heading to Borgo a Buggiano to visit one of the agragria there to buy a bale of straw and a water container for chickens... Final stop for the morning, then... was to Perondi, a.k.a. (at least in our house) 'Mr Chicken'.

We weren't sure whether Mr Chicken would actually be able to give us birds there and then, or whether we would have to order them from him, but we were hopeful. We explained that we wanted 4 hens and a cockerel. He listened patiently, then started shooting off a list of questions at us at (what felt like) breakneck speed. He asked us whether we had a pollaio (hen house), to which we smiled broadly and proudly described the chicken house, complete with photos on Stuart's phone. Mr Chicken wasn't happy though -  he said that wood is not good and that we need to paint bitumen on the walls and floors to cover cracks in the wood, that we need to insulate the structure, that we need to put mesh over the side of the house so that if it's raining we can open up the side of it and they can stay indoors but with plenty of fresh air, and that we need to cover the floor with a sheet of plastic for easy cleaning. He said a lot of other things as well, but for the second time today I struggled to grasp much of what was being said, my barely existent language confidence quickly seeping away like quicksand!!

By the time Mr Chicken had finished his little lecture, we were both certain that he was about to turn us away and tell us to come back when we'd made all the modifications to the chicken house with photos to prove it - but instead, he grabbed two cardboard boxes and scurried off to the large chicken sheds to pick us some birds! Not 20 minutes later, we were pulling away with a boot load of birds - not that you'd know it, with 4 hens were crammed snugly into one box, and the cockerel getting the luxury of a whole box to himself.

When we got home, we took the boxes out of the boot and put them in a shady spot while we quickly put the finishing touches on the birds' new home: we covered the floor in sawdust, filled their new water container, filled up the food container and put straw into the nest boxes. Finally we were ready!

Nest boxes, complete with alighting board.

Poop collector in situ beneath roosting bars.

Stuart first released the cockerel into his new home - he stood on the threshold looking a bit uncertain. Then it was time for the hens. I managed to get three of them in (although there was a bit of a log jam as they all stood on the threshold looking a bit uncertain), but one of them decided she would rather be entirely free range. As I reached into the box to pick her up, she flapped her wings and managed to get out and scurry across the enclosure. Stuart tried to follow her, but she was quick and got away each time. Before we knew it, she'd got flustered, flapped her wings and had managed to get enough air under her to flap up to the top of the fencing, where she sat wobbling back and forth like a Weeble (if you didn't grow up in the UK in the 1970s - early 80s, look up Weebles here - although it seems they made a bit of a comeback recently).

As quickly  as he could, Stuart exited the enclosure, grabbed a stick to wave around, and made his way to where the bird sat swaying on the top of the fence. He made a couple of attempts to persuade her to flap back into the enclosure, but she had other ideas and flapped off into the undergrowth. At this point we both thought hen no. 4 was gone for good. Ah well, 3 hens and a cockerel was probably enough... But on searching the undergrowth, Stuart found that escapee-hen was simply sitting quietly in a bed of bramble and making no attempt to move any further. He swiftly grabbed her, scrambled his way back around to the gate, and deposited her safely inside the house with her friends. Panic over, we quickly shut the door on the new inmates and decided to leave them to settle in. We plan to leave them in their house for about a week (with fresh water and food of course) before letting them out to explore the wider area of the enclosure (er... hopefully with no more escapees), in the hopes that by that time they will be sufficiently well settled in their house to know where to go at the end of the day.

5 chickens (no really...)

The cockerel was first in.

(The real) Mr Chicken.

Followed by the hens.

Two white hens, two red hens.

It wasn't even this one that escaped.

All safely in the house.

After the excitement of the morning, it was time for a quick lunch before Samantha arrived for my weekly Italian lesson. Stuart took Reggie for a walk by the river while Samantha worked hard to slightly restore my faith in my ability to learn Italian, and by the time she left, I was feeling a little less disheartened than I had been in the morning!

So, as another busy week comes to an end, we have finally got livestock again and feel more like a real 'farm' or smallholding again. We're looking forward to seeing the chickens out and about in their enclosure soon, and of course looking forward to the day when they start producing eggs for us!