Freya Update.

Freya continues to delight and annoy us in equal measure. No, not really. She is a lovely big pup.

The D-i-L came over a couple of weeks ago and little Freya took a few days before she was  comfortable around him as she is terribly shy of new people she meets. But she was soon won round with D-i-L’s general pleasing demeanour and, it has to be said, his terrible jokes.

She has already been swimming, although not intentionally. She was trying to follow Bertie whilst he was chasing sticks and got quickly out of her depth and had to doggy paddle to get back to the shallows. She absolutely loves the river. We have been three times now and every time she is a little more adventurous.

We went to Lago san Ruffino early this week with our friends who have Lola. Freya absolutely loved the walk and the water. We let her off the lead and she was very good. A lot of chasing after the other dogs, then back to the humans to check we were all there. Looking for a quick pat. The off again. An immensely happy dog.

Bertie, we think, is loving having a pal. La D was right, of course. (“Of course I was right!” La D speaking, sorry, writing.) A friend for Bertie would be a good thing, and so it is proving. They play a lot together. Tumbling all over the place. Bertie is often on his back with Freya trying to bit his neck and other bits, the unmentionables. It says a lot for his confidence with her that he lies like that. Of course there is still the occasional snap and corresponding whimper when Bertie has had enough. But these are few and far between and Freya seems to bring him round to more play or else goes and has a kip in the shade of the hazelnut tree.

She also loves the chickens. So much so that one of her favourite games is to sneak up behind and grab them by the tail feathers. It’s an odd sight to see a chicken with a large white dog attached to its rear end. We tend to discourage this sort of behaviour as it may affect egg laying, but so far it hasn’t as we still getting out tre uova per day.

As I have already mentioned, it really is a good time of year to have a pup as they are outside all the time and of course there is plenty of space for them. The weather also helps. It’s has been pretty lovely the last few weeks. The odd shower but then back to mid 30s and glorious sunshine.

Garden Update

Those of you with a keen eye will have seen that La D now does a gardening blog associated with this one.

We were out at 6 this morning planting some more tomatoes (pomodori), cucumbers (citrioli), beans (fagioli) and courgettes (zucchini). La D has also planted quite a few flowers around the place so we should have wonderful colours over the Summer. Somebody we knew who lived briefly over here left us a Bottle Brush plant rather than take it back to the UK. Lovely isn’t it?

English Library

Together with a few other “Inglesi” we have opened a library in a town near us, Servigliano.

There must be well over a 1000 books now with more coming in. There is a tremendous breadth to the books as well.

We are open twice a week at the moment and take it in turns to play Librarian – not the way of Peter Sellers in ”Only Two Can Play” mind you!. We have been given a room by a charity in a fabulous old “palazzo” in the middle of the town. The architecture is quite stunning.

Activity is slow but we are hoping that will slowly increase as the library becomes more known.

It will definitely save on Amazon orders!

Spring has Sprung

As usual at this time of year the local felines have had kittens or are pregnant. One of the ones that hang around our place, Daisy, had three a little while ago, but they mysteriously disappeared when they were about 16/17 days old. We understand that the male cats come along and take the kittens off somewhere, so that the queens will again come into season then the toms can get their end away again. All seems rather brutal to me, but there you go. C’è la vita

Ciao, mantenere la fede

Once again I apologise

For the tardiness I have shown recently on blog updating. I’ve been that busy. Heard that one before have you? I expect so.

Anyway a quick fill in before the big, and I mean BIG news.

La D had a good time with her siblings and pa but it was rather lovely to pick her up from the airport.

With the lumberjacking done, I had been in charge of the slash and burn of the ground to liberate it from the weeds and general overgrowth. It was great. When La D got back it was time to move the timber up to the house. It was hard going but we managed it over several days and now have a good wood stack which I am hoping will last perhaps two years.

With the advent of some warmer and dryer weather we have also done a bit of decorating in the kitchen and sitting/dining room. We had the doors and windows open all the time so the smell of the paint didn’t get to us too much. Looks very good.

The lovely Spring weather has also meant we have been eating breakfast and lunch  outdoors for about three weeks now. Lovely.

Veggie gardening is about to go ballistic as we head into the major sowing season although our fava (broadbeans) are ready now. Lovely with sheep’s’ cheese. So there will be lots of weeding and putting up of support canes. Good fun. In fact one of things that La D have been thinking about is perhaps going into a sort of partnership with some friends and working out what we all grow best and set up a small cooperative venture. If we grow toms best then we grow all the toms, if somebody else grows onions best then they grow all the onions, etc.. Or something like that. We’ll see. We haven’t talked to anybody about it yet.

BIG NEWS TIME!

La D has been banging on about something for quite a while now and I have been resisting – not that hard mind you, just a bit to give her something to push against!!

When we heard that what we have just got was likely to be “at risk” quite soon, we took the plunge.

We now have a friend for Bertie!!  She (another dog might prove problematical in the future, temperament-wise) is just about 12 weeks old and scrummy.

Her name is Freya and she is one of six pups from a farm not too far from here. The shepherd’s dogs had 5 bitches and 1 dog. Whilst the shepherd has no problem with a dog, they don’t need bitches as they tend to breed. Surprising that. So he wants rid of them. Mind you she was expensive compared to Bertie. We had to give the shepherd a packet of cigarettes, when Bertie cost us nothing! The shepherd was more than pleased someone took on one of the pups and he was thrilled by the ciggies.

Some friends have seen the pups since they were born. They do in fact have a sister of Freya’s from the previous litter.

Freya’s great. Very pretty, clumsy, fluffy, bitey but licky too, and almost house-trained already. When you think she spent the first nine weeks of her life living in a field, she has taken to domestic living very quickly.

Bertie has come round rapidly. He was a little distant at first but I expect couldn’t resist the way Freya just threw herself at him, literally, to get him to play. Bertie is just coming to the end of his moulting and we often see Freya with a mouthful of white fur from where she has charged into him, mouth agape, nipping him. He tells her off sometimes. Not often.

The time of year is of course brilliant. The dogs are outside all the time. Of course a lot of puppy-watching is essential to her correct upbringing.

Here are some photographs.

So you share in our delight you can have a look at a couple of short videos we have put on Youtube. Here are the links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBpCRACQprg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHKg54OV_A8&feature=related

Happy viewing!

I will keep you informed of progress and probably put some more videos up on Youtube too.

Ciao, mantenere la fede

I’m a lumberjack and I’m OK

Last week we had to take the Golf for its first Revisione (MOT). As usual I had been fretting about whether she would pass and how much it was going to cost to put things right. I don’t know why she wouldn’t pass as she is well looked after, but then, that’s me. Anyway it was fine and she is now OK until March 2013. Great.

So, with no expense associated with the Revision and after much cogitation and deliberation I finally went and got a chainsaw (petrol) to start on next Winter’s firewood. It was a difficult decision. I find – much to La D’s annoyance – that I have to cover all aspects of a major purchase from north to south, east to west, back to front, etc., and then spend a bit (OK, a lot) of time on the web researching the myriad options. My view is that we buy very little these days and so when we do, I need to feel comfortable with the decision, in other words, fluffy. Now La D is much more practical.

She’ll ask, “Do we need it/one?” If the answer is yes, then it’s JFBI.

Actually this is pretty good, because we complement each other

So in the end I plumped for a Jonsered. For those not in the know they are one of the top brands, made by Husqvarna in Sweden. Consequently they are not cheap but it should be a reliable investment and give us a few good years of service. I would much prefer to spend €150 on a pair of shoes that will last for 15 years r more rather than pay €60 for some that might last three. But there you go.

The reason I went for them rather than another brand was because the other good ones are all about the same price but the Jonsered dealer is the nearest. I felt it better to buy from a dealer because of spares (these machines do need a few consumables) and also if anything should go wrong they will be able to deal with it. So there we are.

First thing did when I got it home was to get out the manual. It was printed only in Italiano. Oops. Onto the net. Downloaded the manula in English, printed it out a d set to work understanding how it works and what to do. This “homework” continued on Sunday. La D kept throwing glances in my direction as I was obviously not giving her 100% of my attention as I should have done.

“Isn’t it just a question of click and go?” she said, rather abruptly. Oh dear.

“No darling, not quite as simple as that I’m afraid.” I’m not sure she believed me.

We went down to the bottom of the estate this morning and got stuck in. La D had a go but decided to let me “lumberjack” whilst she cleared up and piled the logs into graded piles. Oh yes, very organised.

We nearly had the tree sawn up by lunchtime! The only thing we haven’t been able to finish is the last bit of the trunk as it is lying awkwardly, so I need to give this some thought as to how we can finish the job. The trunk will provide us with some great logs.

We also felled the tree next door to it as it was leaning pretty precariously. We hope to make inroads on that tomorrow.

Of course there is just one problemette. We have to move the timber from the bottom to the top where the house is. It’s a stiff old climb just getting yourself up, never mind pushing a barrow of logs in front of you .I did one trip this afternoon. That’s why I decided to come in and write this blog entry!

Well you know the saying, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” I hope that’s right.

I’m expecting I’ll look like a body builder by the time La D returns from her trip to England for her dad’s birthday and to see her mum and family. Well, even more body builder-like than I do now. Ahem.

Ciao, mantenere la fede

Wow!

Well, where do I begin.

The weather has been atrocious all week. First we had torrential rain – 12 inches in 12 hours at one point! – then we had loads of snow, then more rain and then even more rain. This has been accompanied with 48 hours without electricity due to the very heavy snowfall. 5 towns near us were all blacked out. The regional government has called for a regional state of emergency to be declared. It’s been raining since and still raining now.

3 people killed. Rivers bursting banks. Road sides collapsed. Earth and trees pushed onto the roads. It’s really terrible.

Just down from us a huge amount of earth and trees had slid into the road, turning it into a one lane road. This morning as I went past it, more slippage had a occurred because of the continuous rain. Fortunately there were a load of workman there with several great lorries waiting to take away all the debris and a big digger that was pulling down more earth down - to make it stable I guess.

We hear that the coast has had it the worst, but goodness knows what it’s like over there, Must be desperate.

On Thursday we braved the weather and took Bertie out down to the river just to have a look. We’ve never seen it in full spate. My goodness what a sight. The walk down to little “Torrente Saline” – this is effectively a stream just dribbles along usually but comes into its own when the snow starts to melt on the mountains – was littered with earth and rock falls that we had to climb over. At the end of the path there is a water testing plant, pretty small. From there, there are some steps down to the stream. These steps had completely disappeared!!!.

 

We went down a different way to the river. Devastation. There was a path by the side of the river that we usually walked down once we had joined the proper river from the stream. A good 50 metre length of it was gone. This path was about 2 metres high and at least 2 metres wide. Just nothing there at all. The whole vista had changed. Bertie took it into his head to swim across, or rather down, but we had trouble getting him back as the poor lad was just treading water trying to reach  us. Eventually we were able to get hold of him and were together again. Phew.

From the right hand side of the log in the river to the side, there was a path 3 days ago. It ran from where the stream enters the river on the right, down as far as you can see. The river has almost doubled in width at this juncture.

The bottom of our garden is criss- crossed with little streams. The path that La D and I have carved out during our daily walks with Bertie is now a stream. Never seen anything like it.

 

Apparently the worst weather to hit this region for 40 years. Let’s hope there is nothing like this for another 40 years. We have heard lots of stories about how people have fared. We get this info through Facebook and the Italian Community website.

We have a big tree down at the end of garden, which in some way may be propitious as it could provide next Winter’s (or the one after definitely) fire wood supply. I just need to get a petrol-driven chainsaw – we have an electric one but it is far to far away. Such a shame. Ha, ha, ha. More gadgets. Can we afford it? Probably not. But, I should be able to get a saw for about €150.00 and the value of the wood I would think is at least that. So, cost neutral. It also means that I can venture into our woods and cut up quite a bit of old timber that is there that I haven’t been able to do before.

The poor chickens don’t seem to know what to do. They have been constantly wet. Don’t think Doris and Wilma – the new ones – have been dry since they have been here. But we are getting one to two eggs a day so that is good.

A sort of spin off from all this meteorological rubbish is that La D and I have cancelled our birthday break to Venice. We were going to go next Thursday for three nights, but we are looking after Bertie’s sister – and Rustic – again as their owners have gone to Venice this week-end. Whilst it is looking dry (but very cold) for the next few days, the time we were going is looking decidedly wet.  There was going to be hardly anytime for the change over of dog-looking after roles and the forecasr is for more crap weather coming our way. La D decided we really didn’t fancy leaving rain here just to holiday in more rain. So we bit the bullet and cancelled the little pensione that we had booked. We have lost the train fare, but it was a good deal so it’s not too bad. We are going to re-group and have a break maybe in the fairer weather.

Ciao, mantenere la fede

Dog for sale. One owner. Free to good home. Reason for sale? He’s absolutely useless.

Well, it’s happened again. Mr Bloody fox visited us last week and took two of our girls, Tir and Nog. We couldn’t believe it. The weather was as it had been before when the fox came, very grey and p***ing with rain. However, big difference this time, Bertie was outside and we were in the house.

It happened in the afternoon. The girls had been out all morning and lunchtime. The heavens opened about midday. It had finally stopped raining. I went out about 3 to check if there were any eggs. I saw Na in the pen, scratching around, but couldn’t see the others. Then I came across what was left of Nog, our beautiful French Black  Copper Marans, and quite a few brown feathers from Tir, but nothing else.

La D and myself cursed ourselves for not remembering the conditions that Foxy likes to come hunting. Oh, dear, dear, dear.

Again we had become very attached to them all and they would usually come running if they heard us. They would never be any bother picking them up. Our lovely garden friends when we were out there in the garden.

The next day I was despatched down to the chicken farm and picked up a couple of replacements, Doris (another Marans) and Wilma (a red one). They have settled in pretty well. We have even had a couple of eggs from one. We think it is the red as the black last time took months before she was laying. Na is a bit fed up because we haven’t let her out of the pen yet because we need to get the others acclimatised to their immediate surroundings first. We also don’t want them laying eggs anywhere apart from the nesting box.

So what happened with Bertie? We don’t know. His breed’s whole raison d’etre is to guard anything that “belongs” in a recognised boundary, in this case, our house and garden-at least that bit that is fenced in. Well that’s proved to be a load of bunkum. Perhaps Bertie is the exception that proves the rule as far as a Maremma’s qualities are concerned.

If you want him, we’ll also throw in some dog food and possibly a couple of cats, free, gratis and for nothing. Now that’s a good deal. He’s also fully vaccinated for another year against rabies and the usual dog diseases.

La D has just informed me that Bertie is not for sale at any price. I did say I know that and that is why I am offering him for free. I am unable to print her response as most likely the paper will combust!

Looks like this is what we need, a bit of self defence:

Weather

Turned cold and wintry again over the last couple of days. Had quite a bit of snow yesterday morning but it didn’t hang around. More snow and cold winds forecast for the next few days. Brrrrr. Have to make sure we’ve got some firewood ready.

Other things

Shame about the Bahrain GP, but totally understandable.

Shame about the Ireland – France result. It just makes me think that 3 points for a penalty for minor infringements is too much. For a vicious foul/dirty play, fair enough. I think they should reduce the points to 2 or even 1 so that tries really do count for much more of a side’s points. I will be sending my three centissimi’s worth to the RFU and IRB. Come on England and Italy this Saturday and Ireland on Sunday.

Ciao, mantenere la fede

Happy Valentine’s day!

Hope you all remembered. I did. I’m in need of a few brownie points. Always am. Better to have a few banked instead of always chasing for them I think.

So, what have we been up to.

Not a lot really.

We’ve booked to go to Venice as our birthday presents to us both. Got a couple of really cheap rail tickets and have booked a lovely little “pensione” not far from St Mark’s square. We’re going up just after Carnivale finishes. The prices at least double at Carnivale time. It’s a bit ridiculous if you ask me.

The tickets for the opera season at Sferisterio in Macerata came on sale about a week ago and we have booked there for our wedding anniversary.

We don’t seem to go out anywhere apart to celebrate our birthdays and anniversary. Still, it makes it all the more special. If we were going out every week, it would begin to pall a bit, we think. Anyway, it suits us.

Although having said that we are going out for meal this Thursday with some friends who are celebrating having lived in Italy for 5 years. That should be fun.

Oh yes and I nearly forgot, we are going out to Saturday lunch to some friends, they are the one’s who have Lola, a Bertie-type dog. She is lovely. We think Bertie is deeply in love with her as when our friends first bought her round with them, Bertie’s nose was virtually inserted where the sun doesn’t shine for whole time of their visit. V embarrassing! Never work with children and animals.

Orti and other things

All the vegetable patches are now ready to be planted. We have turned them, fertilised them and are now just waiting for the appropriate time to sow. It should start pretty soon.

We have our potatoes “chitting” in the potting shed. La D has ordered some new seeds that we are going to try this year. We’ve got some scallions (spring onions), beetroot, swede and asparagus, that we going to try. So, a bit more experimentation.

All the animals are fit. Bertie has had his annual Rabies jab and his other vaccination booster. He does not like going to the vet, at all. It takes both La D and myself to hold him whilst he has having his jabs. I’m sure they don’t hurt him, he just doesn’t like being there. Poor la D got nearly knocked out as he whipped his head up at one point as he was struggling.

We have some new neighbours moving in soon. Another Albanian family, who, if I understood someone properly, are going to try and make a go at growing tomatoes commercially. This of course may be a load of bollocks and I have completely mis-heard/mis-translated what I was told. Only time will tell. I’ll keep you informed.

The other thing is that there will be more people for Bertie to bark at. Doh! He is a bit noisy.

In her own words

We were watching something on television the other day about some people being stuck in an impossible position in a foreign jail.

La D tut-tutted and said, “Those poor people. They must have felt they were in perjury ”.

Do you know, I’m still smiling at one.

Ciao, mantenere la fede

Fresh Lemons

La D’s mum and dad bought us a lemon tree about two years ago. We’d given up hope of ever having lemons from it. The flowers would come and the fruit would follow. The thing was the fruit was ever only small and green. It would never get large and yellow. Well, we now have some lemons. They aren’t very big but boy oh boy are they lemony! The wonderful aroma that comes from them when you cut into the fruit.

La D is terribly fond of a G&T and now that we can make one with our own lemons she is even more stirred up to become a professional G&T tippler! Mind you, it won’t be a big move. Ha, ha.

The odd thing is the timing of the fruit. Very strange, but very welcome.

Big Egg!

The girls are doing very well, even in this bitterly cold weather. They are still cranking out three a day. That is apart from the other day when only two eggs were in the nest.

Oh well, we thought, it is cold so it’s not surprising that one of them hasn’t laid an egg.

However the next day there were three eggs again, but one of them was a whopper as this picture shows.

And it turned out to be a double-yoker. It was as delicious as all the others the chicks are laying for us. We really can’t get through all the eggs they produce for us but our friends and neighbours are very grateful!

La D is still at it

These are two classic La D verbal faux pas (what is the plural of faux pas? I don’t know either, so just make up your own!)

You may remember that I was given a great little gadget that measured the temperatures inside and outside and also gives pressure readings. Of late we have been looking at the temp outside – I don’t really know why as we can see it’s cold and also if you were to put your nose just outside the door, it would probably be frozen in a few seconds

However, the pressure monitor displays an upwards arrow and a sun when the pressure is on the rise and a downward arrow along with clouds when the pressure is on the way down.

There is also a  humidity indicator. It displays a number corresponding to the percentage of humidity.

Well, the other day La D was looking at this little weather station and she looked at the humidity figure and announced, “Do you know L’uomochifa, the humidity today is 56 miles per hour.”

As often in these cases of La D’s misunderstanding, I was quite mystified for a few microseconds and then painfully trying not to show the humour that was bubbling up inside.

“Hmmm.” I managed in quite a high pitched way.

A side long glance by La D was enough for me to grab my inner desire with an iron fist and hold it, tight.

The other one was a beaut of a malapropism

Can you spot the difference?

We were walking with Bert and saw a couple of engineers on the roads taking measurements for something or other.

“I wonder what those men do with those troglodytes L’uomochifa?”

“Non lo so (I don’t know) my darling,” I said  “But I think you mean theodolites.”

“Do I? Alright, what are those theodolites doing with those troglodytes?” She grinned. She’s playing me, I thought.

Doh. I give up. Well, not altogether.

A posto.

 Ciao, mantenere la fede