November well on the way

 Summer has left us.Temperature has dropped around 15 degrees since last week, the first week of October.

Some heavy clouds have replaced the clear blue skies and there have been some drops of rain. We hope more rain will come, both for the olives and for the island's reservoirs. The river Cedrino reservoir is nearly empty now and if no rain comes soon there will be restrictions on the use of water. 

The wine is now starting its second fermentation inside the barrels. We have made around  600 litres of Cannonau wine and we are hoping for a good quality one.

Olives have started to change colour and are getting shiney, an indication that the oil within them is starting to accumulate. If the mill in town (called frantoio) opens at the beginning of November then we will start collecting olives at the same time.

Cloudy day but little rain

                                                                        

Collecting more almonds. As we collect them, like with the olive trees, we prune the trees to encourage new growth. Almond wood is very good for burning. the shells of the almonds are also used during the bread making process as they create heat and help other wood to burn better inside the oven. Here the almonds are predominantly used for making cakes.

We have collected some good walnuts from the tree on the riverside, from a tree which survived the hurricane Cleopatra on  18 November 2013. All the river trees were taken away by the force of the water leaving a wide river bed completely empty. It was like a nuclear bomb had dropped that day. 

This tree managed somehow to survive the force of nature. We are keeping an eye on him!

Some varieties of pear. These ones are called winter pears. They look no good for the supermarket shelves but they are sweet and juicy. Lots of parts of the pears are discarded, but the rest can be eaten as they mature with time after having been collected.

We still have lots of beans growing thanks to my brother experimenting in planting them outwith the normal planting time. This is due to the climate changing. We can  now  try to plant vegetables in the middle of August as the autumn season is still very warm. Tomatoes are still growing on some strong plants as well.

That is me inspecting the grapes during the harvest.

We started the  harvesting of olives on the first of November.After some rain the weather has gone back to warm and sunny spells. Good for collecting the olives from the trees.We started in Locoe  where we have around 250 olive trees. It will be a two months job as we also have more olive trees in other parts of land closer to the town. It seems a decent year and we are hoping to collect around 2000 kg.

Nets are placed under the trees. My brother Tonino will start pruning the trees and the others will collect the olives by hand, with a small tool or using a battery-run olive shaker.

after the collection the olives are cleared of leaves using this hand made separator.

Lesley takling the bonfire in the early evening. Most of the  pruned foliage has to be burned to keep the place clean but the chunkier parts of the olive branches are kept for the indor fireplace for the winter.  Ideally the small parts should be crushed into compost but we do not have the machine (yet).

the Cachi fruit. this year the tree produced  lots os fruit.

Snow has arrived briefly on Oliena mountain at the end of November. Rain also started to arrive with heavy rumbles of thunder.  This has stopped temporarirly our olive collection but rain was much needed. 

Now,   25th November, we have collected  1400 kg of olives. The olives were taken to the local mill and this year the return quantity of oil from a 100 kg was very good (20 litres). So far, 280 litres has been made in all.This means that we have excess of extra virgin oil and we can sell some of it.

 

back in Locoe

 We  apologize for not updating this blog since May 2024. We have been very busy both in Sardinia and then in our new Borders home in Scotland. During the summer and autumn 2024 Lesley was busy organising the move from Drumnadrochit while I was in Sardinia. 

                              

                                                    Growing vegetables in Locoe

Unfortunately only I am now in Sardinia as Lesley had a fall from the bike and broke her wrist, Hopefully she will join  me by the end of October.  Grapes were harvested the weekend of 20th and 21st with a very good quality  which we have not seen for many years. Also the amount of grapes we collected was good. 1400 kg. Too much for our wine stock so, we have sold some of them.

                  

                                            very good quality of cannonau grapes

                                    

                       The grapes were crashed and fermentation has already started

                                      

In the meanwhile we have started working on the vegetable patch ,clearing the area of weeds and  planting new vegetables (onions, cabbages, broadbeans and peas)

                                                 

                                                     after clearing the weeds as below  

                                                    

                       This year there are some olives but not that many. It  is patchy. Some trees are                                good others less so. Hopefully some rain will come to help those with tiny olives to recover.

                                         

                                                    tres with good olives

                 

                   Making some logs for the bread oven from the prunings of almond trees. 

                                        The almonds were collected in August.

     

preparing logs for the winter

                                                

Almond tree: we have several almond trees including some bitter almonds. Almonds are collected generally in August / September, then peeled of their the outer skin and left out in the sun to dry 

for about ten days before storing them in containers in the dark. Almonds here are mostly used for making cakes, the bitter ones which are not edible are used in small quantities ( 5% ) for making amaretti.This gives these traditional biscuits their name. Amaro in Italian means bitter.

   

                                                     Almonds before peeling and drying in the sun.

                                                       They still need to be cracked before use.

                               

I have also been collecting fichi d'india (Prickly pears in American). There is always an aboundance of this perennial fruit and as well as  eating the fruit, we do not make other things from them. This year I have decided to make "sapa", a sticky syrup like honey which can be used in winter as a substitute for sugar/honey.

Processing the fichi d'india

                               Planting broadbeans. We planted over 3000 seeds in groups of 3.

                                         My brother is planning to sell them later in winter

  

Primo anno nella nuova dimora

 Galashiels: former 18-19th century mill town that now straggles along the steep sides of the river Gala between partially wooded rounded hills....today dominated by the two busy trunk roads that lead to Edinburgh and Glasgow respectively.....so still very busy.  The most difficult change for us to adjust to: the noise and pollution.  The flat we chose to buy is right in the thick of it! 

Walks, sometimes with the Hike & Bike Hub, have taken us to the 'Policies' woodland and Gala Hill, Ladhope and Langlee woodlands, Torwoodlee Tower and Broch, Buckholm and Meigle Hill, all revealing more of the panorama of Borders hills and valleys  - a rich farming landscape, now peppered with wind turbines.... 

At the opposite 'end' of town to us, where the Gala Water joins the river Tweed, is Abbotsford House, home back then to the renowned local/national treasure Sir Walter Scott.  Down that end of town is also Tweedbank, the next and last station after Galashiels on the Waverley Line (re-opened 2015) .  

The answer to the closure of tweed mills in the town seems to have been to make it a Borders location for retail magnates - the usual cutprice megastores plus mini  outlets of more upmarket brands.  The major casualties, as all over UK, have been the high street independent shops.  Only one butcher, one fishmonger and one baker remain.

                                  Classic view of the Eildon hills on a walk in the Selkirk area

In choosing a new home, it was a priority to find a place to live where buses and train would be easy to access, and Galashiels is a perfect location for that.  With our over 60's concessionary bus passes we can travel for free all over Scotland and we are pleased that Borders Buses have plenty of local services between the towns: Selkirk, Melrose, Peebles, Innerleithen, Hawick, Jedburgh, Kelso and even Berwick-upon-Tweed (just over the present day border, in England).  

We have been exploring each place on foot, often using one of the useful guide booklets produced by the local Council which seems at some time in the past 15 years to have had funding to develop the infrastructure of waymarked paths for both walking and cycling.  I don't think they can be quite as generous at the moment and the maintenance of many of the routes is proving too costly without extra funding.  Increasingly, local councils and hence the national government are relying on volunteers to provide the services they used to take care of in the past.

                                                                   Trip to Berwick 

 

                        Selkirk walk around the loch and bridge above the                                    Teviot

                                             Kelso  annual show 

              Fresh eggs near Selkirk and where the Ettrick meets the Yarrow 

Minto hill and the church at Minto

Viaduct over river Teviot and the Cuddy Brig at Innerleithen 

Former railway bridge across river Teviot near Roxburgh and Saint Ronan's Well in Innerleithen

Neidpath Castle on the Tweed and avenue to Barns House and Tower

Footbridge at Lyne station and Neidpath castle

Bowden village church near Melrose

It has been a surprisingly pleasant first summer in the area and we have even ventured out on a couple of cycle trips with Chris as coach.

                                            Our cycle trip from Gala to Innerleithen. 26 miles.

We have also been busy doing some decorating and DIY inside the new flat as well as trying to improve some aspects of the exterior where we have a small garden accessed across a communal cobbled courtyard. The crumbly sandstone and masonry needs continual maintenance.

 

stone work repair

back exit wall decoration

 

                            replastered and painted outside stairs wall. after and                                                             before work was completed

 weeding and cleaning between the cobble stones

One year on. Christmas and boxing day walks to Victoria Park, Torwoodlee Broch and ruined 17th Century fortified tower