Winter draws in

It's now nearly time to go back to Scotland with our second stint of three months here complete. We will end the year in Drumnadrochit and have time to reflect on our experiences in order  to plan ahead for the next round and see where we can improve things and whether we can build something new and interesting. We have some ideas for a new construction but everything has to be weighed up carefully before we start. Considering the very unusual and record breaking weather (i.e. rain)  we have had, we can say that we have managed to enjoy the land, the sea side and 2 or 3 visits in different places. We have prepared partially the grounds ready for next March, and hopefully this preparation work will facilitate the spring planting of crops. A few crops did not perform as expected but everything was affected by the climate. Poor harvest of grapes and no harvest at all of olives. There is little we can do about it but we will try to adapt to the developing situation. We certainly can say that the paradise for vegetables has given us plentiful produce to enjoy and store.  Often there is too much of it.

We say goodbye to these lovely tomatoes

's

And most of these lovely vegetables still growing as we write

At the front of our house there is now a surprise" lawn" growing where there would normally be bare earth. With a bit of sunshine the place might begin to look like the garden of a millionaire's villa!!!

Sunset colouring the Oliena mountain

And sunrise this morning 21/11/18

The wood shed now completed using various leftover materials and filled up with the wood and logs cut from Dule.

Our new experimental apple wine will mature when we are away...and be tested  next March

Quince tree still with lots of  fruit. We made some jam and puddings

In Santa Teresa you can buy wine from a pump: just take your container along and fill it up. This idea should be replicated  everywhere as millions of containers and bottles will be saved from landfill.

Some of the tiling work in the veranda in the seaside house is now finished.

And the little bedroom has now a wall wardrobe.

Traditional dish " Pane Frattau" made with 2 mm thin bread in layers with tomato sauce and grated cheese. Like lasagne  but without the need to put it in the oven.

New plants of spring onions recently planted

 

First lot of 4 rows of newly planted potatoes

First time planting lentils. Harvest should be done  next spring. Hopefully.

The very successful flower bed of nasturtiums. The size is probably three times of the ones we grow in Drum.

All in all the season of harvesting has not really turned out as we foresaw.  I (Lesley) had imagined warm late summer days, working hard in the fields, learning to whack down almonds, followed by a group effort picking the grapes and ending up with sticky, black hands and a sunburnt face.  Then discovering how they pick the olives from our numerous trees.  Somehow everything has been more disjointed, unpredictable and frustrating...... all on account of the weather. 

It seems that the farmers here can better survive drought conditions than days of rain at the wrong time.  It looks as if we are going to have to introduce some diversification and be more experimental with which crops to plant and when to plant/harvest them.

Few pictures to end the October month

We are posting a series of pictures with a little note attached . Time is flying fast and it is only 23 days before we return to Scotland.

Enjoy

Lots of veg still growing but the beans have now finish

We are still planting lettuce, cabbage, fennel and for the first time lentils.

The goji berry plant  is now in full production

The two main vineyards in Locoe land and Dule land are going to be replaced with ( hopefully) new ones next year.

pomegranate are also very abundant this year . here is the flower of the plant.

Courgettes still producing flowers....and fruit

Aubergines still growing well. We will probably have some till the end of November.

Also the Fichi D'india better known in UK as prickly pears are still in production. My experimental wine will be a test in March to see if it was successful or a failure. The wild fruit is so abundant that we need to think how to use it as  most of it is left to rotten.

Our gold fish in the water pool. They keep water free from algae and fertilise the garden....

Same pool....frogs playing with the fish?

Praying  mantis. Very common here and of different colours. Depends on the way the want to camouflage themselves in the environment.

outside our house spiders are probably the most friendly creatures. They are everywhere and the variety is incredible. I lost counting the types. I know not everyone likes them, but in the country side here is an indication of an healthy environment. So we are happy to have them around.

Our visit to Esporlatu and the farm with many different chickens and not only...all with their little  (and  different) home.

This is for Uni. Polish chickens? They keep something like 7 different colour ones.

A seagull trying to be friendly with us when on the beach  on our visit to Marazzino. Asking for food and feeling lonely as the tourist are now away.

New job....or...more tiling in the house in Marazzino

Later on...some tiling done. We will be back there this week end as lesley is back from Scotland on the 3d of November.

Between tiling we did some walks ( not many). Decent weather in a season where all the best weather forecast expert are scratching their heads for what is going on  in the Med. They are now talking of a tropical Mediterranean era....

Our late project. A wood store area which was crying to be build for long time. Job done now.it

half way

We are half way into October and after the wine was made we started to work in " Dule" where we have grapes and olives growing. Here we are cutting a lot of wood from the perimeter of the land in preparation for the new vines being planted. This is a project financed by the European community and involves the planting of around 2000 vines.
Our vines are now too old to be productive and we decided that it is time to inject a new lease of life into our production. It will be a 3 or 4 weeks job and not all will be done when we are here.

In the meanwhile the rain has never left the island and in the last couple of days lots of flooding occurred in the centre south of the island. Not only Sardinia was affected badly, as Mallorca and Spain had lives lost and lots of destruction. This year will be remembered as the wettest ever in human memory.

As the wet weather has persisted for so long the  olive mills have now decided to open earlier so we can start picking our olives to be then made into olive oil. This early start of milling the olives is due to the fact that lots of olives are dropping from the trees and it will be a big loss if we do not start as soon as we possibly can.

But it was not only work as the previous Sunday we went to visit our neighbour village " Orgosolo" .There an event called " cortes apertas" ( open courtyards) was taking place. This event is now in its 23d year and involves the participation of several villages in the centre of Sardinia. The whole event starts in September and ends in December having  different villages opening its doors to people and tourists. (see September Blog post item on cortes apertas in Oliena)

View of Orgosolo from an elevated point

Where is Wally? Spot lesley in the crowd

In the two days around 300 pigs were roasted to serve the few thousand visitors. Street food was literally  everywhere offering local specialities and products from bread to cheese; from pastas to salamis; from honey to a variety of nuts and so on

Artisans from other parts of Sardinia were taking part. Here we can see woven rugs made in the village of Nule. Carpets are made with sheeps' wool and on the old fashioned loom. A big carpet  as shown can reach a 1500 euros.  We were told it takes two people working for three weeks 8 hours a day. Young people are not carrying on this craft, so I guess a carpet of this nature is worth the investment.

An Orgosolo lady working on the cocoon of the silk worm which is indigenous of the area

See webpage below to more information.

www.chasingtheunexpected.com/in-orgosolo-preserving-ancient-silk-art/

The Orgosolo female costume is my favourite amongst the hundreds of Sardinian costumes.

The filament from the cocoon of the silk worm  is only used to make the headdress of this costume.

Containers woven from wild olive shoots

An artist's impression of the Orgosolo costume This artist used to work in the building trade but became unemployed.   Using cement, instead of building walls, he is

now producing beautifully made colourful

pieces of art depicting local characters, architecture and customs.

The " murales " of orgosolo. Orgosolo is famous for its wall art which is anything but decorative. Wall paints here have a strong political and philosophical message, and consequently are frequently updated as you can see here. Then caption sais " Sos dirittos the sos populous non si ottenene in sa barbaridades".
People's rights cannot be acquired with acts of terrorism.

The people are happy when they do not need heroes

Another war? No thanks

No comment.

More information about the murales on web page below.

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2016/jun/01/street-art-sardinia-myth-magic-murals-orgosolo

The view of Oliena mountain from Orgosolo

Good grapes and bad grapes

The harvesting of the grapes is now over. It was a three day job and the grapes were collected in difference places. First, on Friday, in an area called Dule were we managed to fill up 9 crates (@ 20 kilos per crate)

A magnificent vine plant from " Dule".

Then on Saturday we went to my brother's friend's vineyard were we picked and paid for 20 crates of grapes; and finally here in Locoe  where the number of crates collected was 12. In total it was a business of around 400 kilograms of grapes. The hope is to produce around 550 litre of wine.

Lesley  with the harvest of the day

We bought some grapes as our vineyard was again badly affected by the weather and the production was poor. This is the second year round that the weather is compromising the harvest of the grapes, but for different reasons. Last year the frost and this year the extreme wet weather conditions. My notes are going to be a record of the changing weather patterns and how this affects the production of crops year after year.

The whole event was great and the grapes have already been crushed. The family who sold us the grapes were very hospitable and friendly -

The Maricosu family offered a picnic after the harvest with a taste of their own wine

Andrea offloading the grapes on the crusher

On Sunday there were many families around this area, all harvesting their grapes, which is normally a weekend activity and families and friends collaborate in this event which always terminates with a meal and a roast of some sort. All washed down with the wine, of course.

Then grapes will be fermenting for around 4 or 5 days before the liquid is taken out and put into barrels. What remains is the stalks and skin of the grapes which will be then pressed with a grape press to extract the maximum of the juice.

In the meanwhile my apple wine is fermenting well and the hope is that a good wine from the tempting fruit will convince my brothers that if a bad year of grape harvest happens again, and a good year of apples and pears materialises instead, we can produce a different wine.

Apple wine

Another cyclone affecting the whole of southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia blew in with the start of October.  That day, Lesley decided to head off north to the coast to enjoy a few home comforts in Marazzino. Battistino remained in Locoe and began the ongoing tasks of cleaning and pruning more trees - this time  not just almonds, but olive trees too, in preparation for the olive harvest in November/December.  There's a lot of long grass and persistent, tough plants in the fields where the olive trees grow and this needs to be cut down either by manual or mechanical tools.  The trees also need to be cleaned of their suckers with a variety of cutting, chopping and sawing implements (the names of which elude me...Lesley that is...) all in readiness for stripping off the crop.    While working on the almond trees we kept thinking we had finished the last one, only to be told there was another somewhere else that we had missed.  I suspect this is going to be the same with the olives.....

Before Lesley returned to Locoe, we were all invited to attend the church service for our nephew, Gianpiero's so-called La Cresima - confirmation.  Conducted by the Bishop of Ozieri with 300-500 family members attending for the 10 participants.  Yes, a big family affair!  The Bish made a good effort in his sermon, in our opinion, to steer everyone's attention away from the slick, fashionable outfits, expensive presents, elaborate floral displays, thoughts of the banquets booked to follow the service, group photographs, and all the customary razzamatazz, to think about the main reason they were there.  He repeatedly told us to return to 'the source'........ which is actually what we did afterwards, as the restaurant we had booked in to was called just that!

one of the many fancy houses for the many different breads of chikens

The cake...after a 4 hour meal.

It was actually a 'Fattoria'  a farm now operating partly with an  educational purpose - alongside various indigenous and foreign animal species, like wild boar, goats, ostrich,there was a large number of different species of poultry, each species designated to a separate little 'house', designed in a style imitating Sardinian archaeological architecture.  There were 48 of us at our family meal, which began with a first course consisting 11 different hors d'oevres dishes, after which we lost count.... not to mention the will to live, and we finally headed home at about 8 p.m., declining the invitation to stay for dinner..............

the archaeological architecture.this one represents a " tomba dei gigantic". the tomb of the giants. a burial site ,

" santa cristina sacred well". The miniature replicas are well made and the animals using it seem to be very happy!