Fall Flowers, pruning foot long spikes and Pane Pugliese

7 Novembre
Today finally seems like Fall around here although all our plants are fooled. I have more rosebuds ready to roll than I did all summer and of course the mums are on schedule. The workers continue to put in the cables in our vineyard and I keep tidying up the lawn. I have a bonfire ready to go when the pruned branches dry out. It seems like most of our plants have some kind of protective spikes, the roses, the pyrocantha and some unnamed plant with longer spines than those.
I am making bread Puglia style for the 1st time today and hope it will turn out well. Also, I am finishing up another batch of quince sorbet.
We did a bit of math with the accountant and are 100% above last year as far as occupancy and I would like to thank all our guests for supporting us in 2008 and a hope you will visit again soon!
Tonight, we are heading to a wine dinner at Kursaal in Ascoli Piceno with 4 or 5 courses and Piemonte wines including a 3 glass winner Barolo. Kursaal is a nice, traditional Marche dining experience run by a family who segue the tenets of Slow Food, serving fresh and local ingredients. I once ordered a 1990 Beringer Zinfandel from their wine cellar just to give Raffaele a taste of american "primitivo".
Our final tally for olives this year was about 1450 kg or well over a ton! Multiply by 12%-15% and you get the liters of oil we obtained. Anyone want any? We will probably be selling it in 5 liter tins for 45 euros or in 1 liter bottles for 10 or 11.
Hopefully our friend Giorgio will be able to use some for his Christmas baskets; check out the link to his amazing site in the upper left hand corner of the blog page under Gaston and Parini.
I found a new site for ecologically minded travelers called organic holidays which is run by Linda Moss from England. Put it in your google search to find the site. I am hoping she will accept Nascondiglio di Bacco for her book in the future.
That's all for now. I will let you know how the bread comes out.
The photos show some of the big pile of pruned killer spikes and one of its ilk still attached, flowers in the yard, a new, unobstructed view from the infinity pool after I pruned the tall bush below and also the cables in the vineyard.
dds