It’s not like riding a bike

It's more like pulling teeth

It's been a while since our last blog/newsletter so there's a bit of catching up to do...quite a lot actually. This makes the task all the more herculean. It also means I'm likely to give up ½ way as we did with the last newsletter (the so-called and unfinished 'June Issue', uncensored versions of which are now collectors' items and are making the rounds on some of the seedier file-sharing sites).

So like all anal-retentive, work-shy, issue-avoiding writers, let's start with a list of the things I should be writing about, in the hope that this actually feels like I'm writing something.

• The year so far
  
• Energy projects
  
• The Kids
  
• Nightmare guests from hell
  
• Dogs & cat & small furry animals
  
• Sculpture garden
  
• Winter projects
  
• V's cooking
  
• Olives & farming...toys & traps
  
• Wine & harvest
  
• And...err...oh yes, the wedding(s).
  

See my problem? This is just a start list. I'll probably add a few more lines to it as I remember them, so it's going to take forever to write this lot.
I'll try and publish in chunks as I write them. But don't expect miracles. Tomorrow I'll be pouring concrete so my chances of getting more written are slim.

It's been a long, hot summer

It's been a really busy summer for us, that is for sure. We have been to the beach...twice. I've been in the pool...OK, more than twice, but loads and loads less than last year. Bookings have been on a par with last year, if a little bit ahead, so it's not that. I've been rushing around like a eejit trying to get these big projects moving (see below), so that's been taking up quite a bit of my time, but I'm not sure that explains our lack of free time either. In fact, work-wise, I think we've been pretty well organised this year. Ish.

There is, of course, the extra child to consider. That could have something to do with it. Having to deal with a toddler who, up until recently, has not been especially partial to sleep (unlike his parents, I might add), and who has morphed from an angelic, quiet, smiling, giggling bundle of joy, into speed-crawling tanty-satan-child with a scream that can damage hearing, literally, and can destroy anything not nailed down if you take your eye off him for a second (yes, another one...why us?). Max, started out easy (except for the not-sleeping bit), but is not definitely not easy. He's still cute, he still laughs a lot, and he and Sam are hilarious in the bath together as they were tonight. These little moments do make it all worth while. Just. I would be lying if I denied we'd considered the Ebay option on several occasions, both for Sam and Max.

Harv, on the other hand, despite the usual very-occasional preteenage strops, he's been an absolute brick, helping out with everything from looking after his brothers to waiting tables at weddings. (As a small gesture of thanks we bought him a mountain board, and we thank the gods he hasn't broken a limb yet, as we'd be up sh1t-creek without him...come to think of it, maybe we should have got him some Meccano?) Harv – you are a star.

Still, Harv and Sam are now back at school, and Max starts nursery for 3 mornings a week next month, so we'll soon see if we suddenly feel like we have oodles of lee-zure time. As if...

And right on cue, that's Max grumbling on the monitor...will correct mistakes tomorrow!

Saving the planet, Tuscan-style [not as easy as it sounds]

OK. Let's get something straight right at the outset. I'm no crusty vegan with a chip (no pun intended – see below) on each shoulder. I see myself as practical, direct, even business-minded if I'm going to be hard on myself. I'm not the kind of person who would smash up his TV and recycle the plastic into comfortable clothing. I like my TV. It's mine. Smash your own if it makes you feel better.

But any clear-headed business-minded idiot can see that grinding this planet under our go-gett'em heels does not make good long-term business sense.

When I lived in Bristol, I did my bit. I turned off lights, was careful with water, insulated my loft and windows, bought low-energy bulbs, I recycled. No big deal. But there was never any doubt in my mind that I was anything but a burden to the home-world. Maybe the damage I inflicted was smaller than it could have been, but it was there none the less. And those frequent flights to far-off places didn't help either.

Nevertheless, I slept well. Sure, I saw the same TV programs as everyone else that talked about 'zero carbon lifestyles' but they only served to emphasise how fantastical and impractical that kind of life is. No, you can't live in the real world and save the planet too. C'est la vie, n'est pas?

Now I am lucky enough to live in a beautiful place with lots of space. Lots of space, lots of trees, lots of fresh air. Lots of cold fresh air, lots of driving rain, lots of big horrible gas bills. Yes, finally, ecology has grabbed me by the short and curlies, and I have seen the light. After three winters of forking out huge sums of money because I'm single-handedly burning a big hole in Siberia's gas reserves, I have decided that enough is enough. I cannot go on raping Planet Earth any longer. It's too bloody expensive.

The road to ecological enlightenment

So, no altruistic desire to save tonnes of carbon has driven me to this point, but a simple matter of economics.

However, the scary thing is that once you start along the road to enlightenment, there is no going back. Once you start to do the calculations and realise how positively vile you are being to the environment around you, it's hard to ignore. Sure, I could switch to diesel oil and save a quid or two, but it's no longer enough to save money. Now I want it all. I want lower bills and a cleaner planet.

Read a bit more, study a bit more, and that isn't enough either. Now I know what I really really want. And I want it very badly.

Oh, to be a carbon-negative superhero

Yes, I've made the decision, and that's the end of it. V tries to understand, of course, sympathise even. But then she sees the amount of stress I am under and wonders, rightly, if the very small effect I will have is really worth the effort. Might I not be happier spending more time with the kids, more time on my tractor, more time drinking Chianti? Naturally, she's not actually said any of this. And she might not be thinking any of this. It's probably just the voices in my head. The same voices, by the way, that got me all steamed up in the first place. And they may have a point (so might Verity, but she'll have to tell you that herself – I could ask but I'm afraid I won't like the answer).

But this is what I do. I have big ideas that are very difficult to realise and therefore highly stressful to live with, big ideas that are not always successful. I fret, it stress, I have shout at suppliers, I rant about how unfair life is (see below), stress a bit more, moan a lot more, shout at the kids a bit, and eventually get on with it.

But this time, I may, on behalf of the planet, our children, and our children's children, etc., have bitten off more than I can chew.

The Plan

OK, those of you who have seen Patrignone know it is quite big. During the summer when we're full, we get through many many buckets of hot water every morning and evening. Sight-seeing is a dry and dusty business, and after a day at the Uffizzi your hair is bound to smell Renaissancey – beautiful but old and a bit smelly. In the winter, it is cold and wet here. Just to heat the absolute essentials means we burn a big tanker full of gas every month or so.

And yet every year we burn small mountains of olive wood from our pruning. For nothing. And the forests have to be kept clean and thinned out regularly to minimise the risk of forest fires. That wood is burned in open fires...pretty, but a total waste. Hugely inefficient.

So, Phase 1: install a large biomass heating plant designed to efficiently burn wood-chips from shredded olive clippings and surplus wood from the 100 acres of forest we own.

And no, burning biomass does not mean we are adding carbon to the atmosphere, because when you burn wood efficiently you are releasing the carbon trapped by photosynthesis. As long as we replace the wood by growing new stuff, then we are trapping the carbon we have released and we will be zero-carbon rated for all our heating and hot water.

Which brings me to Phase 2: install 150 square metres of solar panels to generate 20KW of electricity, all the juice we'll ever need, and more left over to pump back into the grid, so providing clean energy to others.

Put the two together, and it means that we will be completely self-sufficient for all our energy requirements and will have extra energy to sell back to the suppliers to make us carbon negative.

Cool, or what?

And my cunning plan does not stop there, as I plan to reinvest any savings and by more photovoltaic panels, or even a biomass electricity generator, so that I can generate even more green energy.

Not something you can do from a terraced house in Bristol, or a flat in London, or loft in New York, or most places where people live. But I am in a unique position. I have plenty of space and natural resources (sun, trees).

But there is a deep gulf between the thinking and the doing, and this great chasm must be filled before I am deemed worthy of this Holy Grail. And it must be filled with a great deal of money.

Bloody money

Yes, saving the planet don't come cheap. Total cost? Somewhere in the region of €250k to €300k ($350k-$400k) for phases 1& 2. The payback time is around 10 years, which means that going to the Italian banks and borrowing money from them is financial suicide for the project (money in Italy is very expensive). I am applying for EU grants via the local schemes in Florence but they will only pay a fraction of the cost, the paperwork is a bureaucratic nightmare and expensive, and the chances of success are slim.

Selling the dream

So, my next step was to contact a few carbon-offset companies. These companies invest in 'green' projects worldwide, and then sell the 'carbon credits' to corporate giants who need to salve their ecological guilt by buying credits to set against the horrendous damage they are doing elsewhere.

But my project doesn't qualify. For starters, most of these funds have to invest in projects in developing countries. Although Italy is becoming more 3^rd-world every day, it's not there yet, al least, not officially. Reforestation project in the Amazon: cool. Renewable energy in Tuscany: cute, but not cool.

Also, my ecological cajones just aren't big enough. The reams of paperwork involved to make sure the funds invested aren't siphoned off to buy arms for the local militia or some drug-baron's new speed boat are severe, which means the projects have to be large before they are worth the overheads. I am a mere snowflake in their eco-blizzard. Simply not worth the effort.

Don't get me wrong. Of course the developing countries should get more help.

But I can't help feeling that something is very wrong. Large sums of money are being paid to agents, monitoring agencies, project managers, and the carbon-offset funds themselves, all of which need to make a decent profit to stay in business, or at the very least, pay for offices and staff to keep the machine working.

And yet, my small project will pay for itself in 10 years or so. That means that the money invested now will be ready to reinvest in a similar project in just 10 years. It doesn't need any special monitoring as anyone can pop in and have a look any time they like (coming to Tuscany is not like popping over to the Congo). And since the Florentine-Sienese wars finished in the 1500's (btw I didn't know this – I had to look it up on Wiki) there are very few risks for a project like this.

Act small, think big

Safe, reliable, sustainable, long-term, and easy when given a bit of cash. OK, small yes, but what if there were 100 farmers like me willing to do the same thing? What if there were 1000? 10,000? There are 2.5 million farms in Italy alone. 10 million + in Europe. 2 million+ in the USA. Farming is hard and largely unprofitable without massive subsidies. And yet what do all these farms have in common? Space, sun and organic fuel or biomass.

Surely some bright spark out there can find a way to get enough cash to just a small fraction of these farms? A safe investment with the capital repaid in 10 years, and you get to help save the planet. Bargain!

That's not a bad deal. If someone had said to me, back when I was living in my terraced house in Bristol, "Hey lard-arse, recycling isn't enough. So how about you put some money in this here 'savings' account? You won't earn any interest, but you can take your money out when you like, and you are actually doing something positive towards cutting greenhouse emissions. Oh, and you get to keep your TV." Being as tight as they come, I might not have put all my savings there, but I might have put some of it.

So where next?

Honestly? I'm not sure. I am determined to make this happen, or have a heart attack trying. If I get a grant I'm 20% of the way there. Getting the rest could be tricky, but I'm not done yet...

I plan to make some noise via Facebook and Twitter, shake a few trees and see if anyone comes up with any bright ideas. Someone has even suggested starting my own fund to collect cash on behalf of small investors and invest them in local schemes, but I think I have enough on my plate as it is.

Anyway, got any ideas?

Where has the winter gone?

When I started this blog entry in October (yes, my completer/finisher skills had taken a bit of beating recently) we were looking forward to a long winter break, some quality family time, plenty of crappy films, lots of cake. Since then three months have gone by, and we are open for guests in just 11 weeks. THAT IS JUST NOT LONG ENOUGH! I'll grant you, we have had lots of family time, lots of cake (you should see my belly), and lots of crappy films (God bless Kung Fu Panda). But I've not managed to get much of my big project done so far – getting us energy self-sufficient with solar electricity and bio-mass powered heat. More on that later. Because I'm forgetting something, I know I am. Something important, something big...some reason why I can think straight through lack of sleep. Oh, how silly of me. I remember now.

The baby

Yes, baby Max joined us just a few days after I started this entry back in October. I won't bother regurgitating the never-ending struggle with had with the hospital staff. It's ancient history now. Needless to say V has said "enough is enough", girl or no girl, I have recorded her statement, had it witnessed in front of a notary, and locked the evidence where she can't get to it.

But Max arrived whole, healthy, with a full complement of extremities, and V is fine – that's all that counts. He was a teeny weenie thing when he was born, under 3kg (that's less than a bag and a half of sugar in old money), teeny weenie hands, teeny weenie feets, big head (not a looker I'll grant you – we have no deluded ideas that he might wine any cute baby competitions or earn us any extra cash modelling, worse luck)...I could almost hold him in the palm of my hand.

Not now. No siree. Max is now a brute of a thing. Big. Really big. Remember Insectosaurus in Monsters V's Aliens? Bigger. V has a hard time keeping up and feels like she is being sucked inside out most of the time, but that's nature for you. He's gone from a wee thing on the 23rd percentile to a monster on the 91st percentile in three short months.

V is worried that she's over-feeding him, but I'm pretty sure he knows exactly what he needs, and makes sure we know it. And anyway, how else is V supposed to get through 7 seasons of Sex and the City? I wonder if this is the correct way to subliminally educate a baby...but V is bored of ER, so I guess he's not going to grow up a doctor. Oh well...

Harv, though initially not over-enthusiastic about having another little runt to annoy him (and I can see his point), is now a major help and shows wisdom and maturity well beyond his years. Most of the time. Sam hasn't tried to murder Max yet, but to the most part is pretty ambivalent, though he does surprise us with occasional shows of very cute affection. But he gets bored very quickly, and doesn't yet comprehend that this thing that eats, poos and sleeps (in that order) is soon going to be his very own little brother, someone to play with and torment in equal measure.

All in all, we couldn't be much happier. Max is sweet natured, smiles a lot, and has trained us to respond to his cute smiles and noises rather well. He doesn't cry much, and rarely 'purple-screams', something Sam would do regularly, just for kicks. We're tired, and today we're all home with bad colds so we're feeling a bit jaded, but all in all, things are going well.

Mustn't grumble, eh?

Clear it, and they will come...

Despite having a new baby to wear us down, I have managed to get one big project finished this winter. Those of you who have been here before might be aware that well beyond the swimming pool there's an old olive grove, abandoned 70 years ago. It was so overgrown that it was almost impossible to walk through it, filled as it was with lethally spiny bushes wielding 3" wooden spines that would puncture anything short of sheet steel. Even getting the tractor near it was next to impossible. And yet, from above, one could easily see the olive trees poking up above the 3m high brush. This is no small field either. About 5ha (15 acres) by my reckoning.

And it needed to be cleared. Land that is left to go wild can soon find itself reclassified as forest, and if that happened here our ability to grow anything except trees would be lost forever. So one misty morning, armed with my tractor, chainsaws, and 15 tonne excavator (it's big, really big, and very cool) me, my friend Ettore, his brother Stefano, and his cuz Mauro set off for the bottom field to see what could do in 2 weeks.

It was carnage. Image a bloody medieval battle, with all the hacking, gouging and gutting that goes on. This was nothing like that. But imagine instead the sound of heavy machinery bouncing back off the hillside, the insistent constant whine of chainsaws, and the constant smell of diesel fumes. We worked like maniacs, often into the dark (until we realised that walking back up to the house in the pitch black was more dangerous than juggling chainsaws).

By Saturday night when we took stock of what we had done, and what was left to do, we were amazed. The equipment had taken a pummelling (the digger broke down twice and my tractor managed to impale itself on a tree stump, though its injuries weren't fatal) but we'd cleared almost 3ha and resurrected the most beautiful olive grove. Many of the original trees were long dead, but we managed to recover around 100 old trees that, with some heavy pruning, should bear fruit again in 2 or three years. We also found a couple of rows of the original frees they used to use to hang grape vines on (before they started using poles and wires like they do now), with the ancient dead vines still in the ground. We cleared nearly 200m of old dry-stone wall, with some of these walls 2m high...how on earth did they build these things? It must have taken them years! And we may have found an old spring, though we have yet to finish clearing it properly.

On the Monday we moved up the hill a little to start clearing some more rows of olives...and then the rain came. You can't work with heavy machinery in the rain, way too dangerous, especially on the kind of slopes we have here. So we packed up our tools and called it a day. It didn't stop raining for a month, and even now the ground is way too wet to risk going back there in the tractor, but give me a couple of dry weeks and we will head on down there to finish up. I think we only need a couple or four more days, and a field that once looked beautiful 70 years ago will look beautiful once again.

[I'll post some pictures here as soon as I have found them!]

And the olives?

In a word, disappointing. We only managed to press 350 litre of oil this year, a third of what we managed last year. Everyone else is in a similar boat, so expect olive oil prices to shoot up everywhere, but when we are such a small producer in the first place, having so little oil is upsetting. We should be fine...there should be plenty to go around, but my hopes of establishing strong links with one or two large buyers is on ice, as no one, no matter how forgiving, can really plan their business from one year to the next when their supply is so erratic. I will need to plant more trees and slowly build up my supply capability before I can seriously position myself as a reliable supplier.

And why was the harvest so poor? Apparently, a strong wind blew in from the sea during the flowering season, and this salty breeze damages the flowers and prevents fertilisation. Allegedly. I know I lost at least 15% of my crop during a hail storm, and this may have been an under-estimate. Plus we had the longest hottest summer in 100 years, and that stopped the olives from growing and maturing. Take your pick.

Still the upside is that the oil is lovely: nowhere near as biting as last year's, but a warm, mellow flavour that I am very happy with.

What else?

Well, Sam started school. Traumatic. The first day was hard. Leaving your screaming little boy behind is unbelievably hard, torture. It is amazing how well are programmed to protect the little sods. The pull is visceral and real, and the need to hang about outside listening to him cry in the hope that he'll stop was too great. So wait I did...and wait....and wait...and after about 3 whole minutes, he stopped. Thank God. And when, as I went back to collect him a couple of hours later, he started screaming blue murder the minute he saw me, how bad did I feel? Quite bad, actually. Again, pure programming, my genetic memory saying "don't you ever leave the carrier of your genes with strangers who might eat him or feed him to sabre-tooth tigers".

But all is fine now, of course. He loves school, is slowly starting to learn the language, and is picking up lots of annoying bad habits from some of the spoilt Italian kids in his class. To be expected.

Kim left us at the end of October. That was really hard...tears all round on that one. She had become a real part of the family and we miss here sorely. However, as I speak V is organising our 1 week of holiday and if all goes to plan, we're going over to France to ski for a week in the same town where Kim is working, so we'll get the chance to catch up with her properly.
We wish her good luck cruising the seven seas in super-yachts next year...and why wouldn't you!? Good effort.

Actually, I don't have the heart to bore you with my woes on the heating plant and solar energy front, so I'll save that one until I have some good news for you.

Meanwhile, the weather this winter has been atrocious. Not much of the lovely snow you've all been telling us about (lucky sods) but weeks and weeks of torrential rain. The Christmas break was particularly horrendous, but here is a shot I took when we did get a bit of the lovely white stuff.

A presto.