Back to work!

First of all to all those who have been worrying about my arm being amputated, it's still attached, complete with bit of bamboo inside! I don't know what they were thinking. Maybe they thought they only had to pull out a wee splinter or something! The conversation with the surgeon went something like this:
"Well what have we got here then?"
"A bit of bamboo inside my arm."
"Are you sure?"
"Yep, pretty sure."
"But how did it get in there?"
"Entered from the other side, when I hit a bamboo stick supporting some tomatoes."
"But that's impossible! How deep did it go in?"
"Dunno, but evidently deep enough. I pulled 1 1/2 cm of if back out and your A&E department couldn't find anything else at the time."
"How long has it been in there?"
"Oh about 6 weeks."
"Madonna!"

At that stage the assistant puts in: "Shall I put 'urgent' on the form?"

So he had evidently not sharpened his skalpels yet, also he wanted to know how big the actual thing is. So after filling in various forms and signing my life away to the responsibility of those medicals, I now have to return, stick in me arm and all, on the 8th, to have it all scanned and than have it removed in the hopefully not too distant future.

This is my arm now. Note the wee blob just to the right of the scar (old war wound still giving me the gipes occasionally), it's not an insect bite!

Sorry about that, hope I didn't upset you all too much. Here's a nicer picture for you to look at




Anyway, I can't hang around waiting for those doctors to fix my arm, there's work to be done, and I'm already behind, because of this episode. Today it was time to lift the rest of the spuds. It wasn't a good year for potatoes, with the dry summer again. But it'll keep us going for a wee bit.

We also sowed out our some broad beans and peas for spring harvesting on the terrace where we had just dug up the potatoes. Having been delayed we have also bought some ready plants, leeks and broccoli, to plant out. We had to prepare the beds for them too, so it's been a pretty busy day, and the arm was quite sore by the end.

Yesterday I made some elderberry chutney. I know it's not exactly elderberry time any more, at least not around here, but as matter of routine, whenever I pick elderberries I stick them straight into the freezer, because they are so much easier to strip off their stalks when frozen. But it also means I can use them as and when I feel like it and have a spare half hour or two.

I've already made elderberry jam and liqueur, now I've made a chutney with the rest. Would you like to know the recipe? Well here it goes. Too late if you said 'no'.

ELDERBERRY CHUTNEY

Ingredients:

for pickling spice:

• 2 Cinnamon sticks
• 1 tbsp mustard seeds
• 1 tsp black peppercorns
• 1 tsp cloves
• 1 tsp juniper berries
• 1 tsp mace
• 1 tsp dill seeds
• 4 dried bay leaves
• 1 tsp dried ginger
• 1 tsp whole coriander seeds

for the chutney:

• 2 kg elderberries
• 500g onions, chopped
• 200g raisins, chopped
• 1 l white wine vinegar
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 3 tsp of above pickling spice tied into a muslin bag
• 1/2 tsp chilli
• 1 tsp mustard powder

Method

1. Simmer onions in half the vinegar until soft.
2. Strip elderberries off the stalks & add to the onions together with the raisins, salt, ginger, chilli, mustard & pickling spice.
3. Simmer until the mixture has softened. Add the sugar, stir well & boil until the chutney is thick.
4. Remove the pickling spice, leave to cool and pot into clean jars.
5. Serve with meats such as venison, turkey or rabbit or spicy mature cheeses.

Put the rest of the pickling spice into a jar and use for you next chutney or pickle. I shall use mine for some green tomato chutney as soon as I have gathered enough jars together again.

Our Terraces part II

Well here comes the second part already. While I was writing part I this morning, Susan went out for a walk. Rain was forecast and it was overcast, but Susan went out bravely nevertheless. So, as the other spring delight has also come into season, elderflowers, to make refreshing, spritzy elderflower wine (for recipe see entry from 5 or 6 May 2008), I sent her off to pick some more. We already had 2 batches on the go.

Soon after setting off it started drizzling a bit. Undeterred she tracked down some elder bushes and picked sufficient fragrant flower heads for a gallon batch. Shortly after she found herself in the middle of a mountain bike race, so she decided to try a different path to avoid those maniacs. The drizzle became a heavier drizzle and as Susan is wont to do, she got lost. The heavier drizzle developed into a proper downpour, which incidentally is still ongoing. She came home 4 hours later looking like a wet poodle.

Well further to the terraces series, here comes terrace 3:

It sports an olive tree at the near end and a newly planted cherry tree in the middle. At the far end there are 3 ancient rose bushes. This year we’ve sown out sweet corn an a few sunflowers on it.

Terrace 4 features a kaki tree on the near end and a couple of olives the far end. In between we’ve sown peas, onions, carrots and leeks (the latter show no sign of growing yet, maybe the seeds are to old). Don’t miss episode 3 of this series, where I will reveal terraces 5 and 6 to you!

Of spring and other updates

The weather has still held so far. The middle of last week a cold North-easterly had sprung up, bringing a drop in temperatures (especially at night), but none of the horrendous rainfalls and storms we’ve had in previous years at this time. Sunday turned particularly nice again, even warm, so we took our bicycles over the scenic mountain route to Terrarossa, just the other side of Aulla, where there was an olive oil fair. Tasted plenty excellent oil, some interesting wines and some delicious cheeses, plus a selection of traditional breads from different Lunigiana villages. Apparently there is a bread road you can follow through the area.

Thus fortified we cycled on to Villa to see how things were there. It never ceases to amaze me how a few kilometres inland makes such a difference to the climate. Whereas we already start fighting the weeds and cut tall grass in Arcola, growth hasn’t really begun yet in Villa. It’s at about the same altitude, but does not get the warming effect of the sea. And the plot in Villa is also in quite a narrow valley, so does not see as much sun.

During last week we also sowed out the other things which wanted to se sown out during the waning moon phase, leeks and cabbages, dug over some more beds in readiness for the big sowing time commencing next week and have started watering the new seedbeds every other day or so. The forecast yesterday had promised us a continuation of the sunshine, so despite seeing some unexpected clouds out of our window this morning, we set off on our bikes to Arcola. Of course, as soon as we got going on some digging (me) and weeding of the strawberry and lettuce beds (Susan), the sky turned threateningly black, and in no time we found our selves in the path of 2 thunderstorms passing us left and right. Luckily it was only a shower and we could resume work afterwards, but it was the first rain in about a month!

Lots of things are now flowering beautifully and buzzing with bees, apricots, plums and as you can see on the top of the page, rosemary.

Wandering around the hills

Monday and Tuesday winter really had arrived even here. There was an icy wind, gale force at times, which left us huddled around our fireplace singing campfire songs. Yesterday temperatures climbed again, just in time to sow our broad beans and peas in accordance with the lunar calendar. Our first lot planted a month ago is going strong and seems to outgrow it’s competition, i.e. surrounding weeds. We also sowed some leeks indoors. I have previously tried sowing them directly outdoors, but the problem is, the first shoots look deceptively like grass and, with the speed weeds around here grow, before you know it you either have a bed of weeds or you weed the leek out with the weeds. So this time I’ve sown them indoors in some compost and plant them out maybe March.

Today the weather was even more glorious: not a cloud in the sky, no breath of wind and daytime temperatures in double figures. So we decided to try and find a cycleable / rideable route across the mountains to / from Aulla for Paul and Babette’s guide to the Via Francigena. Now I’m sorry, Paul, but I’m still puzzled how you crossed those mountains on bicycles. We have walked across on numerous occasions via Vecchietto (incidentally, much to the amusement of people around here, the name of the village translates as ‘little old man’), but it’s a tricky one to cross on anything other than on foot. This route is definitively the shortest, but it goes up and down through a couple of valleys on narrow, steep paths, which are covered knee deep in dry leaves at this time of year.

Starting from our village, Ponzano Superiore, we walked along the road above the village for one km to as far as ‘La Volpara’ Restaurant, easily undulating along there and all paved. There we branched right and shortly afterwards it becomes a track, going steadily uphill. After another 3 odd km we arrived at the crossroads known as 4 Strade (4 streets), which is actually a misnomer. I would not call any of those paths a street in the usual sense and there are actually 5 paths converging from here. The one we arrived on is signposted ‘Sarzana’. The official Via Francigena goes straight on from there and is signposted Vecchietto / Aulla. To the left of that is a path signposted Monte Grosso. The 2 most promising looking paths to the left and right are not signposted at all, but I suspect to the right it would eventually lead to Canepari and Fosdinovo, whilst to the left, I really don’t know.

The trouble is, we have a whole collection of detailed maps of the area, but no two are the same and none seems to be particularly accurate as far as the various mule paths is concerned, or even the smaller forest roads. We decided on this occasion to follow the signs for Monte Grosso as we knew we needed to get to the other side of mountain to arrive at Bibola. This soon became far to steep and rough to take a bike or horse on, but we shortly arrived at an unpaved road that appeared to climb up from Bibola and was signposted Monte Grosso and Chiamici. We decided to follow the road uphill to see if it was crossable. After about half an hour we reached the peak of Monte Grosso (600m a.s.l.). Whilst it was a steepish climb, the road was in pretty good knick. The snag was on the way down again. A narrow path followed a ridge with fantastic views in both directions. But descending down it became narrower and narrower, steeper and steeper and covered in a two feet deep layer of dried leaves.

Eventually we arrived at a crossroad again, looking quite promising. Straight on it said Chiamici, but left and right ??? The route down to Chiamici looked initially very promising too. It even warned of sharp left and right turns as if they expected vehicular traffic down there. However it soon became difficult to pass on foot let alone anything else. Chiamici itself turned out a delightful little hamlet and we came across a red and white marker directing us to the right towards Aulla (3 ½ hours) and to the left to Caprigliola and Ponzano Superiore on what they termed as the VF(a). The path towards Aulla looked promising again, but days are getting short here so we turned towards home. This route also turned out to be pedestrian only, leading steeply into a valley and back up again.

The whole round walk as described, took us 4 ½ hours, but unfortunately I’m no wiser how you cross those mountains. We should maybe work on a map that actually shows the real, existing paths and their degree of difficulty. So Babette and Paul, I haven’t given up yet, but I can’t help wondering which route you two took. If you went via ‘4 Strade’ somehow, from there it’s easy to get down to Ponzano Superiore, but how you got there is a mystery to me. We’ll try out a couple more of the routes, that we saw. Traditionally we tend to do a New Year’s Day walk to clear the head. Maybe we’ll have more luck that time. On the plus side, we did find some chestnuts still further up. That’s our stuffing for the Christmas bird sorted out.