Moribund??
Suddenly it’s 6th May and there has been nothing on this site for over a month! Whoops. I guess April was busy with leaving Phuket, sojourning in Dubai, a side trip to the UK and then getting back to the house in Tuscany where a jungle seemed to have been transplanted into the garden! Actually it wasn’t that bad but it all seems a little daunting when you’re confronted with it after many months away. Fortunately our trusty Franco, who had been left to keep an eye on things, had done some clearing in the woods, pruned a lot of trees and even cut some of the grass. Trouble is the stuff just keeps on growing!
Got up early this morning to catch up on computer stuff – Red Bubble is time-consuming, but fun – and sitting here in the kitchen tapping away at the keys I noticed some movement on the terrace outside. It was a young hare who lives in some bushes in the garden taking a morning hop and looking for something scrumptious for breakfast. Last week, we were treated to a couple of cavorting red squirrels eating their way through the blossom in the trees just beyond the terrace, so life back here in the Tuscany hills ain’t all bad!…
Getting back to the garden, our aim is to have it at a maintenance level that means we are not slaves to it – there are 3 acres so it could easily become a full time job. Maintenance level includes it not taking too long to bring it back to it’s former glory when we return from an extended trip. We were pleased to find that about three days judicious weeding sorted the main flower garden around the pool. Now there is the real jungle – all the wild stuff growing around the olives and vines. Previously I’ve worked my way through it with a strimmer, but this is firstly knackering and secondly slow, so I’m off to find a ‘trinciatrice’ (flail mower) to attach to the tractor to make most of the cutting of the large areas easier.
It’s now 9 days since I wrote those three paras – it’s presently 15th May. Progress in the garden has been made, if not on this site! The flower/shrub/bush garden around the pool is now looking great, all the beds are weeded (all Gail’s preserve this, I do the grunt stuff!), the grass cut in the garden bit, areas around all vines and olive trees strimmed, garden rubbish burned off, pool cover drained and pool opened and a trincia ordered. Phew! Time flies when you’re having fun. Today was actually the first wet day since we got back which means no watering of the orto (vegetable garden) this evening – planting the orto should have been added to that list above. So after day catching up with the addictive Red Bubble – another feature today, yippee – and dgcphoto brought up to date, the focus is on R&R.
Although we have a couple of short trips planned over the next couple of months – UK at the beginning of June for a 90th birthday party, and then UK again around the beginning of July to see Lea & Jonathan’s new bambina once she’s born – we’ll basically be sticking around here for the summer. As a result, apart from posting some articles from the travels of the last six months that are outstanding, the current articles will be more of a diary of how things are going at Gupole.
The first big excitement next week should be the arrival of the flail mower. I can’t believe that when we first started coming here for summers 20 summers ago, I went through the land with a home-made scythe cutting the very long grass. It was a voyage of discovery since the grass was so tall that I couldn’t see what was in it and I kept on finding trees we didn’t even know we had. The scythe was replaced by a motor-strimmer which finally fell apart and was replaced with a backpack version about 4 years ago. However, strimming the best part of three acres is hot work and takes about five days owing to the way the land is broken up. So the thought of only strimming the edges from now on and sitting on a tractor to cut the rest is way beyond appealing.
Updates on this tractor fun will appear soon, Agrimachine permitting ( the retail company that sells all things mechanical for farm, vineyard/large garden) – they can be a bit tardy in delivering.
The other news of the week on garden progress is that on Monday last, Franco turned up with about 20 very long chestnut poles and a chainsaw to build a pergola over the garden dining table. It was a hot day but between the two of us – about 75% Franco and 25% me – we got it built in a day. Photo to be posted soon once the temporary sun screen for this year – bamboo matting – is in place. The vine I’ve been nurturing for the very purpose of eventually forming a natural screen for the roof is already doing well, but it won’t cover the whole thing this year. However, the pergola has really finished the pool garden, it looks amazing!
So the ‘Moribund’ title does not refer to us or our efforts, it was a question mark over this site. Well, with this article, we’re back in business and hopefully there will be stuff appearing a bit more frequently.