A couple of photos I took just south of us
The torrential rains of a month and a half ago eroded our neighbor's vineyard, such that he will have to move the vineyard back at least 10 meters.
A "pioneer' hike I took with Bacco through marshes and brambles, but found some cool things to shoot.
Mt. Vettore
The altopiano (plateau) of Castelluccio
It's hard work living at altitude
Happy Easter everyone! Here in Italy, they celebrate Pasquetta as well which is Monday, so buy enough food for the long weekend as all the stores will be closed.
I have been a whirling dervish the past 7 weeks trying to get everything in order so I can escape to the beautiful Stati Uniti, see some sights including a pretty girl, my family's newest additions--a grand niece and grand nephew, do taxes, and then fly off to see London with my old bud Fabio who will give me an organizer's tour of Realfood Festival there.
We have just finished the scacchiatura (removal of all the buds on the trunk of the vines below the wire) of the Pecorino, Incrocio Bruni 54 and Merlot, cleaned in between the vines with our blade attachment which broke on Thursday, repaired all the wires I have managed to break in various ways, and we are awaiting an analysis of the stability of the red wine blend we want to release in June to see if it needs to be "fined" for protein stability prior to bottling.
I also "weed-ate" my own word invention an acre of olive trees as some of the grass was above my waist, painted the walls around the pool, got the yard ship shape and started packing.
I had a nice relaxing mountain drive last weekend, through the plateau of Caltelluccio, arriving at Fabbri where Italian Reflections fb group had a first get together of expats from most every english speaking country you can think of. It was a great way to pass a Sunday. I spent the first 2 years here thinking maybe there was only a pair of americans within 50 km, but gradually and more recently rapidly, I am finding more of us as well as a slew of English folks. Every once in a while, I like practicing my lingua madre.
For Easter weekend we are pretty full, so today for the kids I made home made Nutella and then took half the batch and added powdered peanut butter, Reese's Nutella.
The winery is going nowhere fast and I accused our construction worker of giving up work on our project for Lent. I am hoping next week, he can get back to it when the wood panels for the garage arrive and the windows. A typical italian experience follows: I asked the window guy how many days it would take to have them built and he said 10 days. There were 3 witnesses. I then said: "In Italy, 10 days means a month". This was March 27th. He assured me that for him, 10 days meant 10 days. It is now April 23rd, monday is a holiday here and I haven't seen the windows. Who was correct?
These are things you have to get used to here. Unfortunately, the upper floor can't be finished without the windows sealing the place off. I am hoping to see a big change when I get back May 7!
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