I have been writing a lot about all of the wonderful events and fiestas that we get involved with, and I know that Keane has also covered things like all of the music at Villa Libano, The Duck Race at Ponte Catangnana all wonderful community driven things and worthy of publicity. I thought this time I would give you a little insight into our general lives, normal everyday living.
Living at Sensone has been life changing for both of us and we believe that it is our spiritual home. We don’t even see the mile long bumpy old road that our guests comment on and just don’t know “how we live up here”. Well that is until they arrive at the house and then they understand.
Sensone set in its own amphitheatre doesn’t see another house, not even in the winter when all of the leaves have fallen from the trees. We can see the church bell tower which stands right on the boundaries of our land and we feel blessed and honoured to be living in such a beautiful place.
We are at one with Mother Nature and sometimes when Barga is covered in cloud and the occasional rain storm we sit proud above in glorious sunshine. So unlike most people think we can actually be warmer up here than down below, basking in bright sunlight.
Its position means that Sensone is in full sun (when its not in cloud) from early in the morning until at the moment early evening 6.00pm to 6.30pm, even longer in the height of summer.
This year we are a little behind with all of our tasks, Richard has been really busy and traveling all over Italy with his new company Europasat, with his fast internet services, and we have met many new and wonderful friends through this venture.
The last couple of days though we have really had to focus on getting our wood in for the winter. Luckily we have tons, we just have to pull it out of the forest and spack it up. Our wood shed is now about half full so we have a few more days to go.
On top of this we still have to fit in the other day to day stuff, like looking after the animals, me with my writing, Richard with his business, not to mention lunch and dinners out with our friends. I am often found wishing for another 24 hours in the day.
I am busy looking into all sorts of different ways of preserving things, my neighbours have an abundance of beetroot and strangely they only eat the green tops whereas I like to preserve (by pickling) the bulbs, great for salads. I have found some great recipes on line for zucchini, this link I found really useful with some great ideas.
With the abundance of beans around too, I came across this site. Although I have had a go at preserving them in olive oil and I will let you know the outcome.
It has been a bad year up here for the tomatoes and although I had a load of plants started in the new greenhouse, which grew beautifully and fruited only for a lot of the tomatoes to go black. I have heard that it is a common problem this year and is due to all the rain that we have had.
I have also been busy making jams, plum mainly but myrtle berry too. I use my neighbours method of for every kilo of fruit you add a kilo of sugar, a little water and boil until ready. I think I have over 30 jars, I think this will keep me going through the winter.
Today I am going to try and make beetroot and carrot soup using this recipe , if all goes well I will bottle some for use later.
So as you can see there is always plenty to do, we haven’t touched on keeping the garden up to date, cleaning the house, reconstructing the dry stone wall and to add to it all I now want to build my own little blessing area to the Madonna.
The great thing about it all is that I am never bored, I am never depressed (I just don’t have the time to be) and I am always fulfilled. I do find all of this manual labor hard going, although I like to think as I walk the wheelbarrow of wood down the drive, down the path to stack in the wood shed that this is my own private gym, I think bums and thighs.
But over all we have the peace and solitude that our position gives us, the sense of calm and tranquility, outstandingly beautiful and inspiring views from every single window and the patio panorama is exhilarating.
Bring on the hard work and long may I live in the beautiful house.
Article by Sensone
