Prawns

When we came back from our summer break we picked the animals up from the kennels. Louis, our cat, was not in good shape. He is 18 years old but had started to not eat and the kennel owner had been giving him vitamin syrup to help him. Also his eyes and skin had taken on a yellowish tinge which is a sign of liver problems.

We brought him back home and offered him some prawns. These he seemed to like and so for the last week or so he has been on a diet of prawns. He now seems to be a little better.

Should this be just one of his nine lives I don't know, but if we continue his prawn diet indefinitely this could well lead to ruin of the house of Margherita.

However, he is a good old puss and deserves them.

Early bird flies too close to the sun

We've just got back from a short break. Our flight leaving at 07:30 and having drunk champagne (and some) the night before was not a good combination. Very nice in the evening before but..

Back here at Casa Margherita we appeared to have had a thunderstorm so everything was damp. These dampish/coolish conditions appear set to continue this week so I will be back out clearing the grove.

This morning it was time to clean up the garlic which I had pulled before we went away and stored in our boiler room to dry out.

Long hot days of summer

Today was the hottest day of the year - 40∘and the inside of the car was a barmy 45∘- nice.

Ran some more oil to the butcher in Trevi which was good. Besides that we are getting ready for our holiday so a complete garden and veg patch watering system has been laid so hopefully we will not lose anything when we are away.

The Casa Margherita QR code is here

This codes can be read by mobile phones (with the correct gadget) and this will take them directly to the Casa Margherita website without the need to the URL. You can also link them to text. This makes it easier for people to take note of your business and remember the details as they are all stored on your mobile

I will be adding this to my business card all my other publicity materials over time.

Not bad for a partial luddite.

The salad days of summer are here

We have now seemingly settled down into summer with daytime temperatures in the early/mid thirties. You can only do any real work outside either early or late in the day. I still have some grass to cut so it will be done at this time.

As ever there are other things to do and I spent an hour this evening lifting the garlic and removing the forest of weeds they had been growing amoungst. I have stored the garlic in the deposito where we have our boiler/washing machine etc. The smell now when you go in is very perfumed.

The end of the world is nigh.....

A natural mushroom cloud which I snapped from Casa Margherita a few nights ago.

Oce e cavalli da lavoro

One of the local wine producers in the area is taking his organic credentials even further and is using work horses to plough between the vines and geese to keep the ground under the vines free of weeds. Great stuff methinks.

However, using traditional old fashioned farming methods means using traditional old fashioned skills. These he is having to acquire the hard way. The geese are not eating anything in the grove as they are being fed to much grain. He is having to reduce the amount he feeds them.

He has ruined two line of vines trying to train both himself and the horses how to work. He is now having to bring over some Romanians - they are very much still using these techniques there - to help teach him and to train the horses.

I admire his approach. For more information go to http://www.vinidifilippo.com