With four mouths to feed, it’s very busy at feeding time. Some are more patient than others!
feeding time
17 Thursday Dec 2020
Posted Our Animals
in17 Thursday Dec 2020
Posted Our Animals
inWith four mouths to feed, it’s very busy at feeding time. Some are more patient than others!
13 Sunday Dec 2020
After days of rain, it feels so good to see blue sky and feel the warmth (yes, real warmth!) of the sun. We sit on our bench, grateful our grass, churned into a mass of mud by the boar, is out of sight, and look up at the snow-capped mountains, striking against this perfect backdrop. A flock of birds we’ve yet to identify, race between our persimmon tree and the one on the road above, fighting over what little fruit is left.
It’s a good day for our first orange harvest. We fill our fruit bowl with 8 Washington Navels and rush indoors to sample one. It doesn’t disappoint: sweet and juicy just as an orange should be!
Unfortunately, we lost all the mandarins, perhaps due to the stress of re-potting but next year will be the real test, when we will have a whole year to prune, feed and care for them.
08 Tuesday Dec 2020
Posted Weather
inFor days it has rained, fast and furious. The ground is waterlogged, the chickens splash around like ducks, our eggs mud-splattered. Water pours from the terraces and races down the lane, the soak-away under the kitchen gurgles. The wind, fierce and icy, sends hailstones hammering onto our windows and drowns out the television. Thunder rolls in over the hills and crashes over the house, lightning brightens an otherwise dreary sky. Is there anything left this weather can throw at us?
I scuttle down to the bottom orto as the rain eases, digging up leeks with little care and snatching at cavolo nero. The wind has forced the broccoli at a rakish angle and I stamp down their roots back into the ground, my boots leaving wells that will fill with rain before I’m even back in the house.
We console ourselves with cake and classic films, the fire glowing and warming. The cats won’t leave the sofa but we can’t really blame them. We’ve barely left the house in days.
And then a lifting of the spirits: Christmas lights in the village above us! Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which marks the conception of Mary herself and not her conception of Jesus as is often assumed. It’s also a public holiday and the official start of the Christmas season. For once, I’m cheered by this early arrival of festivities!
04 Friday Dec 2020
Posted Photo Friday
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