Apart from the tree move and a lot of grass strimming, we achieved the following:
The last two years we spent a fortune getting the grass cut. This year, we are trying to do it all ourselves.
Andrea did a good but expensive job cutting the terraces. We had a bit of a falling out with him because a second cut along with some hedge trimming came in at about the same again and we started to feel a little taken advantage of.
The grass got as high as a Martin during the time the pool was being built. Abramo (Dominick’s guy) came with a colleague and strimmed all the upper terraces. The job was not as well done as Andrea’s but was somewhat cheaper. By the time the grass had grown a little and the mower had come out, the terraces looked good again.
When John came to visit in September, the grass didn’t really need cutting (as growth stops in the really hot months). We did, however, discover that the mower was in need of a little TLC.
Following the purchase of a new battery and a service, I was able to mow the grass one last time before heading back to the UK. We felt that things were in good shape and we were hopeful that we’d be able to keep the grass cut ourselves in the coming year.
During our December / January visit, it was pretty wet. I did just about manage to get the mower round the terraces before we left in January.
When we returned at the end of February, the two lower terraces were just about mowable. The grass on the upper two, however, was too high for the mower so they both needed to be strimmed (bugger).
By the time we left at the end of March, things were mostly back in good shape.
We also made an arrangement with Dominick’s latest guy to come every couple of weeks during April and May. He will simply run over the terraces with the sit on mower each visit. The idea is to be in a position such that those terraces only need the edges strimming and the rest can be continued with the mower. Easy work for him and not too costly for us. We’ll see how it goes.
We’ve been having trouble with this drain outside our house.
It is clogged with silt and when it rains the gutter fills with water like this.
Mirco came on a rainy afternoon to clear this drain.
This is really the work of the comune, but they seem uninterested. It was not a 100% success as the exit channel appears to have collapsed, but Mirco did get water flowing for the first time that we’ve seen. Ideally, we’d like to dig the entire channel down and fit a metal grill above it. Alternatively, the comune could reduce the height near the storm drain so that water flows out of this channel at that end. We’ll see how things go…
Mirco also cheched out and flushed our drains.
Damiano and his colleague came today to move our olive tree away from the pool area. We wanted to move the tree as it was continually dropping olives and leaves into the pool.
It’s been a very wet winter and spring. As a result, the area that was once Lake Bientina has flooded giving a feel of how it once was.
We were finally able to burn the massive pile of hedge branches we created with Fran and Nick in July. In fact it was two piles as Jesse had moved half the branches to a second pile for some reason known best to him. We had to drag them all back as we only wanted one fire. We also learned how not to start a fire with petrol.
Adrian and Tizi brought us a pomegranate tree when they came to our party. We planted it near our other fruit trees on the upper terraces.
The tree guys didn’t remove as much from this tree as we had hoped. Took a little more off with the motosega on a pole.
John broke the tractor. A new battery resolved the issue. I also bought a compressor for keeping the tires pumped up sufficiently and sent the tractor for a service. Got it back just in time to cut the grass before leaving.
Paolo (Michele’s father) bugged us all summer for this meal. We arranged it in Il Giardinetto. Porcini freschi were available and featured in a big way.
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