High season at Nascondiglio di Bacco

31 Luglio
What a difference a year and a pool and a bunch of marketing makes! We are about booked up for all of August at this point and my friends are going to have to camp out here for my birthday. We just need about 3 months of full like this to break even every year.
I was listening to my computer loaded with all the old cd's i sold before coming to Italy and heard my Paraguayan friend Ruben playing 'don't cry for me argentina' and I couldn't help but mourn the loss of a cozy little KC restaurant named Melbee's. I think today is their last day. I had a lot of good times there drinking my old wines while eating their small, delicious portions. I even spent one of my birthday nights there and had a custom meal with truffles and the works. I will miss them. I think Ruben is still playing up north at the argentina restaurant at least and he is worth seeing and buying a cd or 2.
Today and the last 3 days I have been planting iron poles called tutors at each of the grape vines. I think in 3 days I have probably inserted (with help from Raffaele) about 3000. Tomorrow I will start on the next 1000.
Bacco stayed much of the day today in time-out because he has been running off to the neighbor's house to play with a friend. I was quite worried maybe we would be having Bacco puppies a bit too soon, but I have been assured the dog is a he.
Bacco and I took a hike in San Benedetto del Tronto and Porto d'Ascoli tonight and they are full of tourists from all over. We are getting some of the folks who want to avoid the hustle and bustle of the coast cities. Some of our guests are following Raffa's plan and just staying here by the pool all day, which helps pay the bills when they eat lunch and drink prosecco poolside.
I have been experimenting with bread making, without a bread maker of course, and yesterday made a yeast-free bread for a guest who is avoiding yeast. It was interesting, but much improved by the addition of one of Raffaele's homemade jams.
The vines are looking half way decent after a summer of hoeing and spraying every couple of weeks with the approved biological products of sulfur and a bit of copper. I need a hand, though, if anyone is looking for work. It is time to tie the vines to the tutors and prune 28,000 vines and at 2 per minute, you can imagine how long that will take me!
Here are some pix of our morning walk-Bacco, Filu and me looking back at Nascondiglio di Bacco in the dawn light over the old vineyard, Bacco in the "doghouse" and my single blooming rose right now.
Enjoy and thanks for reading! I had almost a record month of visits to the blog-nearly 800 and am nearing 10,000 since the inauguration of the "picture laden blog"
dwight