In the news...the 2013 olive harvest, discover the Enchanted Forest, Billy goes MIA, and Patrignone saves the World, a bit more than last time. News from Tuscany More stories from deepest, darkest Chianti Yes, it’s hard to believe, but it has been a whole year since our last newsletter, and what a busy and exciting year here at Podere Patrignone. Well, it's been exciting for us. You may think otherwise... Podere Patrignone goes 'carbon positive'! Yay! You may remember that Simon was ever so slightly nervous about how we would get this 1000kg monster biomass boiler plus two 1500L tanks into our beautifully restored capanna (shed) through over a foot of wet, sticky mud?  Well, here’s how…… A big thank you to Ettore and his trusty tractor who managed the muddy bit!  Anyway, that was last February and all is now up and running smoothly.  What a treat it has been this winter to crank the heating up and not feel guilty about murdering the planet (and our bank account). What we hadn’t properly understood was the volume of wood the beast consumes and what that would equate to work-wise.  The trees must be felled, cut unto moveable chunks, transported, then cut again to fit the boiler, split, stacked, and allowed to dry for a year or so.  This led to some frenzied activity this summer to ensure we had enough wood for both this year and some of next.  An excellent way for Harvey to earn a few pennies and an excellent excuse for Simon to buy himself new toys (a bone-crunching wood splitter, and a scary circular saw, a saw so big, and so scary, it could do the old magicians trick in the blink of an eye). And this month will see Nicu and Simon doing very good impressions of lumberjacks, cutting enough wood to last until the end of 2015! That’s a lot of wood, but thereafter they’ll only need to cut enough for 1 year. Another unanticipated benefit has been our use of ‘biochar’. Simon can switch off the boiler at the end of the gasification stage (don’t ask me!) leaving him with a boiler full of lovely charcoal. We then grind this up and combine it with chicken poop and water for 48 hours before spreading it on to our veg beds. It’s a technique being used in the 3rd world in places with poor soil and little water, and Simon wanted to try it here. We ran a trial with our tomatoes, biochar at one end, and plain chicken poop at the other, with incredible results.  Not only were the biochar plants bigger, bushier and better producers, they were also more disease resistant.  Apparently the charcoal releases the nutrients more steadily or something clever like that…ask Simon! The important thing is it works brilliantly, and Simon has been ordered to keep me supplied with the charcoal I need for my veg beds. This was a big investment for us, and even with grants, the payback could be 10 years or more. But it means we have reached the goal we set when we started this adventure: to be carbon neutral within 5 years. OK, so we were 4 months late, but we can now say that Podere Patrignone is carbon positive. This means that when you add together the electricity we produce from the solar farm (and the surplus we pump into the grid), the energy our solar thermals produce, and the carbon-neutral energy we generate from the biomass boiler, we are effectively removing carbon from the atmosphere. So future guests can offset the carbon cost of their flights simply by staying with us. Not bad, eh? And we’ve not finished yet. Simon plans to add more solar panels later this year, and we’re looking at ways of storing winter rain so that we can use it in the gardens in the summer. We’ll let you know how we get on. These beauties are just about ready to be squished. Lovely.   Olives, olives, and more olives! Yes, this year has seen us pick more olives, and make more olive oil then ever before. After an unusually cool spring, it took a long time for this year’s olives to get going, and at the beginning of October, just a month before we’d usually start picking, I was starting to get a teeny bit worried. We had a team of local pickers ready to go, but the olives were just way too green and hard. You can still pick olives when they’re green, but the ideal time to pick is when they are just a little pink. Too green, and you make too little oil, and the oil is very bitter. Too black, and you make lots of oil, but it is very fatty and greasy, with less fruitiness and a lower polyphenol content (the antioxidants that make olive oil so good for you). It’s a fine balance, and those last weeks of October meant daily trips to the trees to see how the olives were maturing. And by the 7th November, they were ready, and so were we. And if I was expecting a routine harvest, I was going to be sorely disappointed. The weather was being horribly awkward, with regular downpours halting the harvest for the day; you can’t pick if the leaves are wet or you’ll damage the buds that produce next year’s harvest.And we nearly had a pickers revolt, as they got tired and frustrated by the lack of progress, blaming my 'bushy' trees and the awful weather for slow progress. (We sent Max in to show them how easily they could be replaced with child labour, and that straightened them out.)But in the end, we made it. And we have over 1000L of the most amazing oil I've tasted. I'm always impressed at how our oil can be so different from one year to the next. Last year’s oil was full of fire and spice, a nutty chilli-oil without the chilli, but this year’s oil is warm and mellow, like a good brandy, full of fruit, and possibly the most aromatic oil we've ever produced.And now that our trees are producing more olives, I’m hoping the oil-lovers amongst you are going to start spreading the word to your friends and relatives. We have a 24 hour turn-around on all orders (more or less) so as soon as you feel the need, drop us a line, or order your taste of Tuscany direct from our website.Simon has been busy on Facebook with posts on how almost all commercially available olive oil is tainted at best, 100% fake at worst, so go to the Podere Patrignone FB page if you want to learn more on the subject. Scary reading!  facebook.com/PoderePatrignone   Like some of our 100% organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil - just press this button! Wedding bells  We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Jeff & Andrea again on their marriage here at Patrignone in July.  Jeff & Andrea were returning for their third visit but bought along close friends and family to help them celebrate their marriage at Castellina’s medieval castle.  It is a beautiful and romantic spot.  The ceremony took place in the afternoon and then everyone came back here to enjoy prosecco and nibbles on the terrace followed by their banquet watching the sun set over the hills.  A lovely day and a lovely couple, we look forward to seeing you again soon! We have two weddings this year.  Olivia & Steve from the States are tying the knot here in May followed by Shereen & James (a British couple living in Oz) in August.  We are getting excited already and wish both couples all the very best. See you soon!   Certaldo's insanely fun festival  Jeff & Andrea, took our advice and visited the annual Certaldo street-theatre festival, Mercantia, just after their wedding.  In the third week of every July this colourful international event is a must-see, with performing artists from all over the world and delicious local food stands (loads of truffles).  If you are going to be in Tuscany over that week you must take the chance to spend a night up there. It really is a lot of fun, with music, and fire-eaters, trapeze-artists, and abseiling ballerinas galore. Jeff & Andrea are going to plan future visits to Patrignone around it, it’s that good.  This year the festival runs from 16th-20th  July. More info on www.mercantiacertaldo.it Monte Amiata & The Enchanted Forest Our greatest discovery last year was the spectacular Monte Amiata, south east of Siena and a couple of hours to reach the top of the mountain from our door. But, in my opinion, it’s a lovely drive and totally worth it.  A ski resort in the winter, the mountain has great hiking, cycling and tree top adventure park in warmer months.  Many local Italians disappear up there to cool down by a few degrees on hot summer days. Simon & I stumbled across it just by chance. We were having some ‘we’ time away from the kids, and Simon saw the mountain in the distance and said, “I wonder what the view is like from up there?”. But what we loved most were the spectacular forests and handy barbeque and picnic areas. In September we went back with the boys and played cricket on the big grassy areas (much to the amusement of the locals), had a go at the adventure tree thingy, (like Go Ape in the UK, and geared up for kids from 4 to 49) and then for a barbie in the woods. The boys foraged for firewood, while Simon got the barbie going and treated us to marinaded steaks and ribs. We hardly saw another soul the whole time we were there, giving the kids ample opportunity (taken with gusto) to practice their primal screaming and play hide and seek. It was magical, it really was. So if you want a quiet day away from the tourist bustle, and you fancy a change from the Chianti hills, then this is a great way to get away from it all. We’ll be back in the spring for sure. Another Italy: Reggio Calabria At the end of March we decided to take a quick break before the start of the season.  Not having much time to plan, we listened to some of our local friends and headed south to a part of Italy we'd never seen.  We broke our journey down with an overnight stay in Pompeii. Which was more impressive than we'd expected. Pompeii itself is a lovely town. Yes, it's touristy, but it's a pretty town, and kept well. We liked it. We will return when the two little boys are not so little and less easily bored. The next day we continued south to the tippie-toe of Italy, Reggio Calabria,  and in particular, to the lovely town of Scilla. If you are planning on including Calabria as part of a trip to Italy I cannot praise Scilla enough. It is a beautiful fishing town with views across to Sicily (a 20 minute ferry crossing away) and the food, mostly seafood (not surprisingly), was wonderful.  If this is a place that you’re interested in, please let me know, as I can highly recommend the lovely family run B&B where we stayed, with bedroom balconies reaching out over the water. And the same can be said for the amazing hotel that we stayed in just a couple of clicks from Amalfi, on the way home: the views were just breath-taking. Bye-bye Billy, bye-bye Last summer was not all fun and frolicks I am sad to say.  Billy, our pigeon whose gender had eluded us, began behaving more strangely than normal, when considering she was a wild bird who followed me everywhere – on foot – and wasn’t even afraid of the dogs. But she became even more needy and extremely vocal. And then she laid an egg.  A-ha! So Billy was a girl, and a lonely girl at that. She sat on her egg for many days, but I managed to coax her down with a snack, and we had a little chat about the birds and the bees.  Billy took all this in, packed her bags and moved out.  Well, moved out in the sense that a teenager moves out – just around the corner (or down the valley) so she could bring home her laundry.  She would be home by the time I went to let out the chickens, sweeping down as normal to follow me.  She would get fed and watered, have a chat with us and her other local friends, but come dusk, off she would go.  I was fine with this, as all mums are, glad to see one of my own making their way independently in the world, but returning home to check in at regular intervals.  But then she stopped checking in.  This may not have worried me quite so much (perhaps her mother-in-law had taken on her laundry?) if it had not coincided with the start of the hunting season and the arrival of a beautiful pair of sparrow hawks.  Wherever Billy may be, I am glad she was a part of my life for two lovely years, and I think of her every morning when I make my way to the chickens, imagining her following in my footsteps.  Just after Billy moved out (already an emotional time), Annouska (one of our white chickens) got sick.  She, like me, may have been mourning the loss of Billy, or perhaps she was just too hot to go on. So she didn’t. Sad times. However life goes on, and Simon kindly purchased 3 new hens for my birthday in October, and we are on to ‘B’ company now.  Barbara is our new white Livornese who keeps Adele company (chickens are surprisingly tribal), Bernie & Beatrice are our beautiful black and gold Livornese.   The story doesn't end here, of course. I am hatching plans (!) to give the girls a man to boss around so we have have lots more babies. And I'm also looking into the idea of getting a couple of piggies. And maybe a cow. And a goat. And maybe some sheep. And geese, I've always liked geese... STOP PRESS 25/1/14: Charlie was playing one of her usual games of chacing Nicu's car up the drive last night. Unfortunately, she slippin in some wet leaves when going around a corner and ended up in front of Nicu. He was going slowly, thank goodness, and manage to get his brakes on fast, but Charlie still got a hefty clout. She hobbled back home OK and we kept her warm inside last night. Lucky, xrays this morning showed she hasn't broken anything, but she can't walk at all and is clearly in a gread deal of pain...she's sleeping quietly behind me right now. We'll keep you updated through Facebook... Fancy a summer in Chianti? You may or may not know (if you follow us on Facebook you will have heard all about it) we were left without a housekeeper slap bang in the middle of last season: not an enviable situation but we were saved by the awesome Ramona, who has helped us out on a part time basis for years, and had a bit more spare time than usual last year.  If you have met Ramona you will know that she is a force of nature and a demon cleaner & ironer, as well as a great cook. She is also very clever, and she's finishing a nursing qualification which will keep her busy this year.  So, we are looking for an energetic someone who can help us out for approximately 8 months this season. It is hard work, but it is also 8 months living in the heart of Tuscany with your very own cottage, with a sunny porch and views over our olive groves, and two days a week off to go and explore.  If you, or anyone you can think of, may be interested, please get in touch with me. Are you following me? You don't have to wait for us to write another newsletter if you want to find out what's happening at Podere Patrignone. We have a Facebook page which we use quite a lot, and these posts also go to our Twitter feed. There's also a "Friends of Podere Patrignone" page where guests old and new plus other groupies can hang out and swap news, ideas, gnocco recipes. And there's a blog, where you'll find prettier copies of this newsletter, along with other interesting stuff. Feel free to join the cultural revolution and join us in cyberspace. Podere Patrignone Friends of Podere Patrignone Our Website Email us Twitter Google+ Recipe: Asparagus & prosciutto tart This was a very popular antipasti last season and is so quick and simple to make.  It shouldn’t be long until you can get your hands on some fresh asparagus so here it is. Torta di asparagi e prosciutto Serves 8 as an antipasti or 4 for a light lunch with salad: 1 round of ready rolled wholemeal pastry 1 large handful of basil leaves 1 dessert spoon pine nuts, lightly toasted 1 handful grated parmesan Juice of 1/2 lemon 10 or 12 asparagus spears (I prefer Sprue or wild, thin spears), tough ends snapped off 10-12 slices prosciutto Extra virgin olive oil Preheat your oven to 180C/360F. Lay out the round of pastry on to a 30cm/12" pizza tray, lined with parchment.  Score a circle 2cm/1" inside the edge. Put the basil, pine nuts and parmesan in a food processor with the lemon juice and switch on.  Pour in some olive oil through the spout until you have a green liquid the consistency of thick double cream.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Spread this in the inner circle of pastry, fairly thinly.  Save the rest of the paste in an airtight container in the fridge and serve on fresh pasta within the next week. Wrap each asparagus spear with a slice of prosciutto and place on the tart in an attractive fan or any other shape that takes your fancy.  Drizzle more oil over and pop in the oven for 20-25 minutes, or until the base is crispy. Serve warm. More food news It is with great sadness that we have to tell you that our favourite restaurant, the ever popular Al Macereto, has closed down.  Fantastic food, personal and attentive service in a woodland setting, and only 10 minute drive…..it was the perfect, and we sent all our guests there.  Those of you lucky enough to eat there will remember Wynn, the charming Italian/ Welsh owner. He turned 50 last year (like someone else we know), and after many years of slaving away and working all hours, he decided that it was time to try something new.  I can’t say I blame him, but it is a great pity. Good luck Wynn... Simon & I made it back to Ristoro di Lamole with great mates Mick & Jackie (of Hedonistic Hiking) in October.  It was Simon’s first visit in over 4 years and we were left wondering why he had left it so long.  Lamole is an idyllic spot to while away a leisurely lunch, with excellent food and wine, and excellent multi-lingual staff.  The drive there is stunning if a little long, but well worth it (in day light!).  This is always a must for any food-lovers with a romantic streak. And that's all we have time for. We'll be back again soon, but not too soon. Keep an eye on our Facebook page, as that's where we'll put any breaking news. Thanks for listening! Verity And if you really, really love this, feel free to spread the word in one of these fiendeshly clever ways. Share Tweet Forward to Friend +1 Share Copyright © 2014 Podere Patrignone, All rights reserved.

It's been a long time coming..................

but it's on it's way.....the new Patrignone newsletter. Don't get over excited but it should help brighten a tea break or so, we hope. We will also try and keep this blog going, particularly regarding food and my cooking shenanigans as we get so much interest on FB and lots of questions from guests. My latest kitchen digressions are bread baking. Any excuse to have the oven pumped up all day to keep me warm! Having read last year, from Michael Pollan's amazing 'Cooked', about the real lack of nutrition in all predominantly white breads, even home made ones, I have been on a quest for the tastiest wholemeal recipes. Simon got me MIchael Pollan's recommendation, Peter Reinharts book on just that. He spends almost half of the book on the science and the history of his experimentation (science is not my strong suit) before getting to the recipes. I have completed his master recipe just once so far but it looked, smelt and tasted fantastic and was made with 100% wholemeal flour, regular not strong! I think I under kneaded as the crumb was a bit cakey but I will have another go on Saturday. I did also make 3 large ale bloomers from an old favourite Richard Bertinet recipe....not a high scorer on the nutrition stakes but really delicious and a great treat. Why the passion for bread? Obviously, all Tuscan food is delicious, seasonal and simple BUT the bread is white, saltless and a deadly weapon within 24 hours. There are hundreds of Tuscan recipes using stale bread, that is why! It is not only void of goodness but taste as well. I wander what Tuscan bread consisted of before the refining of flour?

In this issue: KILLER mushrooms, DEATH by eggs, GREEN olives, mud, weddings and FURRY animals...oh, and we SAVE the World!

PATRIGNONE NEWS - JANUARY 2013

A note from The Editor

Verity is continuing her stewardship of our newsletter, adding this responsibility to her duties as mum, super-chef, chicken-girl, horticultural hack, jam-maker, master-baker, and dog-walker. She's produced another little gem here. Sorry it's such a long time since the last one. My fault entirely. I'm a bit busy too. Enjoy.
Simon - Ed

Funghi-fest

Welcome to the November edition of Podere Patrignone's newsletter. Yes, I wrote this in November and I have been waiting for our “Editor” to pull his finger out and do his thing. And now it’s January! And so much has happened in the last 2 months that most of my work will have to be written, darn it! Curse you Editor! [Sorry! - Ed]
You may remember that our last newsletter began with a slightly frenzied report on the lack of water last autumn and winter…..no such problem this winter. No siree. All we’ve had since November is rain, rain, and more rain. Outside where Simon has been working on the new biomass heating plant there’s almost a foot of mud. So, damp, muddy, cold. Yes, we might as well be back in Ol’Blighty.
The only people who’ve been really happy with the weather are the mushroom pickers. As I take the mutts for their daily constitutional, I am overwhelmed by the number of funghi in an incredible variety of shapes and sizes. All the local old boys are out in their droves (when they’re not trying to shoot stuff) and picking bags of them. This is obviously a tricky, and potentially fatal, hobby and requires great patience and skill, which is why I’m always worried when Simon gets his book out and says, “Let’s eat this one”. For now we are just enjoying looking at them all and keeping a safe distance, especially after hearing the tragic story of family in Pisa fed bad ‘uns by the dad on a home-made pizza.
Oh and Winter also means waking to the sound of gunshots at 6am, 5 days a week. This includes Sunday (our only opportunity for a lie-in), deep joy! However, I mustn’t complain too heartily as some charming hunters brought me over 3 kilos of wild boar meat a couple of weeks ago which has been stewed and devoured. - V

Olive-tastic

When I first wrote this back in November [again, sorry—Ed] we were still in the thick of our harvest. The lack of water over the summer meant the olives just weren't ripening. We normally pick our olives when they are between green and black (like the olives in the photo above). So this put Simon in a difficult position. Wait a bit longer in the hope that the olives ripen a little more, but risk worsening weather and a more difficult harvest. Or, pick now, make less oil (green olives produce less oil) and risk a bitter product because the olives are unripe.

In the end, the weather won. At the beginning on November there was a really strong wind, and more than a half of the olives in one field disappeared over-night. So Simon started picking straight away.

However, we needn't have worried. Yes we made less oil than we were expecting, but the oil itself is fantastic. Very spicy indeed this year, and fantastic on lightly toasted fresh bread.

We’re still shipping the 2011 oil to those who want oil that’s not too strongly flavoured for salads and cooking, but the 2012 will have settled down by the early summer and we’ll start shipping that too.

If you want to buy either, please email us and will sort everything out and get it couriered to your door. We’re shipping oil all over the world on a weekly basis to people who want to get their hands on the real deal. Remember, real olive oil and supermarket olive oil (even the expensive stuff in fancy bottles) is NOT the same thing. - V.









[I am in the middle of a massive rant on Facebook about Jamie Oliver’s so-called “olive oil” but they are all the same. Unbelievable that this crapola is still being bought and sold and fed to young children. It’s bad, bad, bad.—Ed]

Patrignone saves planet

At last! Something we can do with the crumbling shell of a building behind our house. For years we've been caught between two stools: put a roof on it, but be forced to demolish immediately it as it doesn't have planning permission, or demolish it, and lose those lovely hand-built stone walls forever.
In late November [yes, I know, this was a very different story when Verity first wrote it...Ed] me, Nicu & my builders started construction work for our new biomass & solar heating plant.
Yes, there was a lot of red tape, applications, forms, stamps, signatures, and money. But I'm getting used to all this now, and while it wasn't exactly stress free, I didn't lose a lot of hair in the process.
Inside will be a highly efficient, state of the art, biomass-burning boiler (logs or wood-chips) and above will be thermal solar panels. Between the two we will be able to provide hot water and heating all year around without panicking over extortionate, and ever increasing, LPG costs. And because our fuel source is renewable (the trees grow, we cut the trees, we burn the trees, the trees grow back, and so on), it means that very soon now we’ll be carbon positive. All our electricity needs (and more) are covered by the PV solar farm, and now we’re no longer consuming fossil fuels for our heat.
I say “soon” with a certain amount of trepidation. In a week our boiler arrives. It weights 1000kg (this is very heavy), and somehow, we have transport the boiler and the two 2m high1500L water tanks across a swamp of mud a foot deep. We have a plan involving tractors, palate shifters, and bits of scaffolding pole, but am nervous of discussing these plans in public for fear of ridicule.
In any case, even when/if we have the components in place, it’ll take a couple of weeks to plumb in before we go live.
So, maybe it’ll get used a bit this winter, maybe not. Either way I know we’ve completed our renewable energy plans, and just about within our 5-year plan.
And from now on our guests will be able to off-set the carbon from their flights to Italy just by staying here.
Finally, the guilt-free Tuscan holiday we've been promising our planet-conscious customers. - S

Want to find out more about our eco-values? Look here.

Tuscan Wedding bells

Having given ourselves a bit of a break from weddings in 2011, we made up for it in 2012. We do love a good wedding but each one turns us a little greyer and adds a few extra wrinkles. We did our biggest ever in June with the lovely Brits, Simon & Kayleigh. Kayleigh, it has to be said, could be the best organised bride the world has ever seen, which led to a very painless, stress-free wedding where we actually enjoyed ourselves as well as worked (& sweated) like demons.
Our second wedding was more intimate with a wonderful, musical bunch of creative Canadians. Our bride, Marissa, was a bridesmaid here a few years ago and we were delighted when she chose Patrignone as her ideal spot to tie the knot with the gorgeous John. We will always remember the sound of Marissa’s family rehearsing their music in our front gazebo as we ran around doing our preparations. Magical (where’s my CD!?)
And not forgetting Rino & Kirsty who stayed here for their wedding week whilst having their reception off site. A lovely Australian group, partly of Italian decent and with the best behaved and charming boys on the planet! Congratulations to you all and we’re hoping to see you all back for an anniversary or two. - V.



Remember the summer...? If you are lucky enough to be in Tuscany in May, you must not miss the Iris & Rose festivals in Florence, just spectacular. I finally made it this year before everything had gone over!

Death by scrambled eggs

So here they are! After much talk and little action we finally got around to getting ourselves a brood of chickens. Not only are they fun to have around and an attraction for the kids but, allegedly, they would provide us with eggs.
Simon spent many an hour researching thoroughly all the various coop options and decided to build our own. With Nicu’s help, in just a couple of days, a veritable chicken Duomo was constructed.
We visited our local man, supplier of, allegedly, laying chickens and chose two each of three varieties. Despite the warnings of another local chicken buyer not to go for Livornese (the white ones) as they tend to be naughty And fly off, I didn’t think anything could be naughtier than our kids, so I picked them anyway.
We held a nail biting vote on Facebook to choose the names for said 6, the only stipulation being they had to begin with A. Introducing Annie, Agnes, Agatha, Adele, Annouska and Alexia. I believe that myself and my nieces are the only ones who know which are which and I wouldn’t bet the life of a child on it.
Naturally, I immediately stopped buying eggs and waited patiently for them to settle in to their new, palatial surroundings. And I waited, and waited, and waited. Then we got a couple, then none. Then a few more, then none. Then 5 or 6 a day (more like it…..must have been all that talk of the pot) but then, again, none! We did not get enough for our own needs let alone enough to sell a few to hopeful guests. And these are the fussiest chickens on the earth! They only eat certain kinds and colour of scraps, leaving the rest to go manky.
Anyway, despite being warned by everyone that our chooks would stop laying in the winter, and after a further pot-related chat with a couple of slackers, I am still getting 5 or 6 eggs a day and am making fresh pasta, frittata and custard like there’s no tomorrow (when there will probably be no eggs). We have so many eggs we are getting thoroughly sick of them and have started freezing them. Hey ho.



This secret stash of eggs was found beneath their hut. They’d been squirreling away their produce for days, no doubt planning to exchange them for booze or tobacco or bribe a guard into helping them escape.

Vegetable gardening & other vices

This is the result of more hard graft on the part of Simon and the tireless Nicu. Phase two of my vegetable garden was completed in time for spring planting. Made from our very own cypress trees, these are much prettier and a darn site cheaper than phase 1!
Believe it or not, manure is like gold dust in these parts. How many cows, sheep, horses have you seen in Chiantishire!? And so, beggars can’t be choosers. Nicu and I had to dig well rotted, rather beautiful, goats pooh from a fantastic cashmere goat farm near Radda (well worth a visit). Fine if you are strong and in your twenties, not quite so easy for someone a little more mature and of the fairer sex.
I am dearly hoping that my chickens will help alleviate that necessity this year. For six smallish creatures they do produce an incredible amount of ghastly-smelling poop, which I believe is some of the best fertilizer you can have. However, if there’s one thing I have leant in 2012, it is not to count on your chickens!

Recipe: Crostini Fiorentino

This is a recipe from an old aristocratic Tuscan family that I don’t believe I have seen anywhere but in their home. It is extremely simple but delicious and an excellent appetizer at any time of year. Oh and it uses eggs!

To serve 6
1 baguette
4 fresh organic eggs
1 large beef tomato
1 tsp of rinsed capers
3 tbsp green herbs
Salt, Pepper
Extra virgin olive oil

Start by boiling your eggs for 10 minutes and then placing in a bowl of cold water. Finely chop your tomato, capers and herbs and mix well. Peel and chop the eggs and then mash, wish a fork, in to the herb mixture. Add salt, oil and pepper to taste. Refridgerate for at least one hour before serving.
Slice your baguette in to 1.5cm (1/2 inch) slices and toast. Generously spread to egg mixture on top and drizzle more oil before serving.

Who’s in the house?

It was a truly sad day in November when our Pammy packed her bags for the last time and left us for more fun and exciting things. However, she did ensure that she had provided us with an able replacement for 2013 so mustn't grumble! It is a dirty, sweaty job but someone has got to do it. Anyway, Pammy, we would like to thank you for your tremendous efforts over the last two seasons with us. I will miss our kitchen cocktails! And warm welcome to Anika who will be arriving, from Germany, in March.












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The birds & beasts 

As always, our animals have proved to be far more popular than us…...it’s OK, we’re used to it and we understand. They are much sweeter. When people get in touch after their visit it is not usually for anything other than to ask us how Charlie & Lola are doing, or to send us some snaps of them.
Well, they are both doing nicely thank you. Funnily enough they have both begun to shed a few pounds since the end of the season…...now why could that be!? Despite our pleas and firm instructions, both in person and in our Big Book, we were ignored and our dogs (and the cat for that matter) got very fat in the summer of 2012…….you know who you are!!
Not only were they fed by extremely disobedient guests but they were also invited in to/ encouraged to enter apartments and, I am led to believe, on to beds! This is utterly unacceptable and we know who you are and if you want to come back contracts will be signed, in blood.
The poor doggies are missing the wealth of fuss and attention as well as the wonderful walks our guests drag them on, and I am trying my best to take them off for a good ramble or run each day.


Billy the pigeon is still here despite risk posed by local nutters with guns. The cat has a nasty cough (too many cigarettes) but is otherwise fit and well. She spends most days staring at Billy from about 1m (and 4 panes of glass) away.
And the fish? The fish are huddled together in a big group in the centre of the pond, waiting for Spring. As are we.



Sam took this photo below of Lola which I think shows great artistic promise! Oh by the way, Lola is available as honorary bridesmaid for a small fee. [Not so small, actually—Ed]

And there you have it.

Was it worth the wait? Unlikely, but thank you anyway for getting this far. You’re very kind.
We’ll try and do this 2 or three times a year—I’ll give it my best shot anyway.
There’s a bunch of links here where you can stay in touch with things on a more regular basis, and I may even steal Simon’s blog as, frankly, he’s been pretty useless with that too. [Hear, hear! - Ed]
Until then, we wish you all the best and look forward to seeing you out here one day soon.
Ta-ta for now, and thank you. [Thank you too darlin’! - Ed]

Verity

Patrignone News - January 2012

We're going to start working on a new newsletter and blog entry just as soon as we get round to it, honestly. Until then, here's the newsletter we sent out in January, posted here for the sake of completeness.

Editor’s note

Well, I have finally been sacked as main writer and assigned the job of Editor (i.e. spelling, grammar, word-processing, design, tea and toast). Verity has taken over most of the writing, and I’m sure she’ll be more diligent than I ever was. Sorry. It was good while it lasted. [Actually, no. It wasn’t—Ed]
Simon [Ed]If you have any questions, or would like news on anything in particular, write to us at : news@patrignone.com.

V’s views: where is the water?

 Welcome to the January edition of Podere Patrignone's newsletter. Sorry Simon's been so lazy. I promise that the wait will be a little less next time; I finally have a little more time as the three boys went back to school last week after what felt like three years, but was in fact just three weeks holiday. We had a lovely Christmas back in the UK catching up with some relatives and introducing Max to English culture and grey skies. He liked the chips, but not the fish.

And while we are on the subject, we'd like to wish you all a very happy and healthy 2012. Right, on with the news.It has been an extremely mild winter for us thus far with temperatures yet to dip much below zero and very little rain. Great for our solar panels (more about them later) but not so hot for the olive trees and garden in general. It is wonderful to be able to get out walking and cycling with the boys every afternoon, and taking the dogs for walks, but we're a bit anxious about the lack of water. We had a warm dry summer last year which was slow getting going but perfect temperatures , rarely higher than the late 20's. But not a drop of rain fell throughout July, August, September and much of October. This isn't terribly unusual as November tends to make up for it with more than a third of our annual rainfall coming in this month (whilst we pick olives).But not this year. This year we had a tenth of what we would normally expect.So either we're going to have a very wet spring, or water is going to be an issue for everyone in 2012.Most of the water for our new organic vegetable garden came from our rain collection system, but the tank has yet to refill. I am still blindly optimistic that rain is on it's way; let's just hope it doesn't choose to fall when we have our first guests. Rain has a poor effect on guests’ psyche. [It makes them grumpy—Ed] The prospect of less rain in coming years will have an impact on how we decide to utilise the rest of our available land. Whether it be crops or livestock, they will have to be light water users.[What about Tuscan Tequila? - Ed]

You are what you eat

If you came to Patrignone in 2011 you will have seen our new vegetable garden with its six large raised beds. My first attempt at l'orto, and not too shoddy. [Even if you say so yourself—Ed] We had a big crop of incredible potatoes, amazing tomatoes coming out of our ears, as well as peas, broad beans, green beans, borlotti beans, rainbow chard, beets, onions, garlic and some fantastic salad leaves. We won't talk about my carrots.
Our local deer also loved my salad leaves. On their first couple of visits they only consumed one particular variety of leaves, so I just planted some more. However, they became impatient and began trying everything else. It didn't taste bad and so they told their mates. They had a small party, and ate the lot. It was near, though not total, devastation. Nicu and Simon built a fence in double-quick time (destroying Simon’s back in the process), and apart from the occasions when I left the gate open (!), all was well.I loved picking the food and preparing it straight away; you can't beat it. It has always been important for us to let our menus be dictated by the fresh produce available in local markets, but to be able to take the lead from our own kitchen garden was a real thrill. And phase 2? We have just started building another six beds. I want to try growing peppers, aubergines, zucchini, pumpkin, melons, celery, and more. I would also like to increase our yield of spuds as we munched through our crop in just 5 weeks. Water is bound to be an issue. But we’re experimenting with biochar to try an reduce our requirements, and we’ll have another try with drip-feed watering systems.And we’re going to need a lot of sheep’s poo from somewhere, both for the old beds and the new. Several cubic metres of it. [That is a lot of poo—Ed]
This time Simon & Nicu are building the beds using our own cypress wood, and I guess my new beds will need the same protection, so more fences. Simon is over the moon. [Really. I am.—Ed]Oh, and did I mention our new herb garden outside the Old Frantoio? Very cute, and handy for the main kitchen.

The battle for cleaner energy

Our solar panel project is well and truly up and running after the usual teething problems. Work commenced in September 2010 (immediately after Simon & I got married). Simon's clever idea was to create a shaded car park away from the accommodation, with less car noise and dust near the apartments. The panels form the roof and give plenty of shade so that guests don’t get 3rd degree burns when they go out.

Work progressed slowly, not helped by endless bureaucratic delays. At one point we were forced to redesign the structure to ensure it won’t collapse in an earthquake...more on that later. This meant a lot of engineers structural drawings, a lot of paperwork and a big additional expense, plus having to reorder materials and missing our arranged slot with our chippy. As usual, we were right up to our deadline to get the project signed off with the electricity company. Had we failed we would have missed-out on key grants. Anyway, having finally got everything squared off with the planners, built the structure, installed the panels, and wired it all up, on the 31st December 2010, just hours before the deadline, we were finally plugged into the grid.

Is the story over? Hardly.

On May 13th at 10.46pm, we were hit by a rather large shudder. It was enough to get us (and all our guests) out of bed very quickly, but at 3.1 on the Richter-scale, although the epicentre was just 3km away, it was not big enough to cause damage ...or so we thought.

It was only some days later that we noticed that our over-engineered super-strong earthquake-proof car port and solar array was now listing rather precariously. Bloody engineers! Some emergency reinforcement and some super-careful use of our trusty old tractor and the structure was straightened and reinforced, permanently. But it certainly gave us a bit of a scare.

Since then, we have been happily receiving all our day-time juice for free on sunny days, with the excess pumped into the grid. I have had to change a lot of life long habits, using the big power guzzlers (washing machines, dish washers, etc) during daylight hours instead of at night, but it is obviously well worth it.

We now would like to reduce our gas usage by having hot water solar panels and a biomass boiler for grey days...but this is all needs a lot of cash, plus the usual approvals and state funding, so keep everything crossed for us.

Wedding bells

You’ll be forgiven for not knowing we got married in 2010. We didn’t know ourselves until the last minute, deciding to make the most of the fact we had friends staying to tie the knot and have a party. Even the friends who were here didn’t know until they got here.

It was a lovely day, with food from our favourite restaurant (Wynn’s Al Macereto) and a party in the woods. Fantastic.

Last year was a quiet year for weddings with only one symbolic ceremony taking place on the Terrazza, a lovely couple from Northern Ireland who had married earlier in the year and decided to celebrate with their families in the Tuscan sun. The bride and her family were returning guests, and included an ex-priest who was able to don his old uniform and perform a beautiful ceremony. Congratulations again to Kate & Mark!
However, 2012 is a very different animal. We are playing hosts to three international sets of bride’n’groom (English, Canadian and Australian).

Weddings are a lot of fun, but they are also a huge amount of extra work and extra pressure. After all, there is rather a lot at stake!

So we limit the number of weddings we do, and unfortunately we’ve already had to turn down several requests for this year.

But we’re looking forward to this year’s events, especially the parties afterwards!

May the sun shine on them all!

[Oh please, oh please, oh please— Ed]

The Food Page

Having the brood and the business that we do, we don't tend to get out much. But we do try, and when babysitters allow try and find new places for us and our guests. And recently we have made a few great discoveries including some new restaurants, places and shops.

Simon & I returned 4 or 5 times to La Cantinetta di Passignano on our night off last year for amazing raw shellfish & seafood last summer. The restaurant-come-wine bar is nestled on the side of a hill in the very sleepy and pretty town of Badia a Passignano, just 25 minutes from here. It is decorated in a clean, fresh, anti-Tuscan style with lots of very comfortable outdoor seating. We used to sit and watch the moon rising over the vineyards whilst sipping prosecco with stunning antipasti and desserts.

Talking of desserts, their mascarpone cheesecake is amazing.

Our second discovery for great, traditional, home cooked Tuscan fare is Le Panzanelle in Lucarelli on the way to Panzano. The restaurant is run by two 30-something Italian women and their partners. It is a pretty and charming setting for really well cooked Tuscan fare at very reasonable prices, and with an extensive wine list. The menu doesn't differ dramatically from many others, but how it is cooked, in my opinion, does.

We also love Volpaia, an exceptionally beautiful and sleepy little town with just 40 full time residents. Visit Paula in Bar Ucci for wonderful ricciarelli biscuits (my latest obsession, both eating and making them) and bubbly service. There are a couple of good-looking restaurants there we plan to try this year.

And we made it to the white truffle festival in San Miniato which is high on a hill between Florence and Pisa. The festival was great with heaps of stalls and eateries. We treated ourselves to a 10g truffle but fear we were had as it tasted of nothing! We know what we're looking for now so we'll do better next year. We were very impressed with the town and its varied and imposing architecture, so we will return.

Harvey and I accidentally stumbled across a superb gelateria in Florence. In the touristy areas quality tends to be pretty poor, and prices sky-high, but this place was fantastic. South of the Ponte Vecchio and just out of reach of most tourists, I had my first ever grey ice cream made from black sesame seeds, and it was delicious! For all of my other top tips you will have to come and ask in person.

Animal farm

I know you'll all be dying for updates on your furry friends so here it is.

Charlie & Lola are both doing very well. After problems with them fighting for dominance last spring, we had to keep them separate throughout the summer. This was such a pity for all concerned, as only one could be walked or played with at a time, but it was completely necessary after their brutal scraps.

They have been free to roam since October, and they have only had one scuffle. We are hoping that it was a one off so that we don't have to separate them again. If we do we may have to come up with a more permanent solution which will break our hearts, but we want them both to be happy and safe.

Meow continues to lord it over us all. She pops over every evening for her supper once the dogs are safely tucked away in their kennel. There have been no more eye-witness accounts of her famous loo-using trick, but as we haven't smelt or seen anything unseemly in here we assume she still pees in the toilet….clever girl.

We also have a new edition to our menagerie: introducing... Billy the Pigeon! Hussah!

Back in early October we were adopted by a pair of homing pigeons of unknown origin. They were originally named Pinky & Perky but by popular demand [Not so popular—Ed] they were changed to the more suitable [?!! - Ed] Billy & Brian. They were soon following me wherever I went outside, and eating from our palms. Very cute.

Unfortunately Brian felt that Patrignone wasn't for him/her (it really is quite hard to tell) and he/she left [luckily he/she didn't post a stroppy review on TripAdvisor - Ed].

Billy has stayed on and boldly walks in the front door whenever it's left open. Lola has not stopped chasing her [??! - Ed] and Miao, of course, loves watching her from our kitchen window whilst Charlie watches Meow from outside.

But for the moment, everyone seems to have found his/her/its place at Patrignone.

Oh and we are busy preparing a palatial palace for this years planned additions to our ever expanding family……chickens!

 

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.