What a beautiful start to my day.

Firstly, I was woken up by the loudest cuckoo, who I’m sure, was on the window sill looking in. Then as I looked out of the bedroom window, what I initially thought was a large bird, was actually a young hare! In fact two of them, doing what young hares do, running around, chasing each other and generally having fun!

I was so happy as it’s possibly six or eight years since we last saw a hare playing in the fields, we thought that the local hunters had wiped the family out during the hunting season.

Spring is always such a busy time here, it really is a time when everything comes to life again. The garden which has laid dormant over the winter becomes a mass of shoots…and weeds!

The pool is opened, and the house cleaned from top to bottom by our wonderful cleaners who, move absolutely everything inside and out, in preparation for our guests throughout the summer.

Then of course we have the olive trees and vines, all craving attention.

This year the olive trees have been ‘professionally’ pruned by a local young farmer. He really does have commitment and staying power, as between us and Casa Gialla we now have around 500 trees which produce our single estate delicious Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Our Enologist thought that both the olive trees and vines needing some feeding. As all vineyard owners will tell you, what the Enologist says ‘goes’

We had 3.5 tonnes of stallactico (dried horse manure) delivered, so that we could give each olive tree 5 kg, together with a kilo for each vine. All 3.5 tonnes were spread by hand, we really did look forward to a beer at the end of the day! But I’m sure it was all worth it, as every leaf is saying a big “thank you”.

The olive trees from now until harvest, will almost look after themselves, we will keep looking out for the mosca though, this is the olive fruit which can destroy the whole harvest, fortunately they haven’t been too much of a problem for us.

The vines, on the other hand, need constant love and attention until October. Following bud burst, the vines grow so quickly.  It’s a race, for me anyway, whilst Jerry’s replacing vine poles and doing the vineyard maintenance, to get the canes tied down to ensure the vines grow in the right direction…upwards!  and not over the ground, which happens if not tended regularly. A vine can grow 4-5 metres in a matter of months, just like our wisteria, I think they could both engulf us and then take over the world, that’s a scary thought.

We’ve now almost finished our ‘spring clean’ I feel an air of calm around us, which is always a good sign!

It’s at times like this, when I look around and feel more than grateful to be part of the Sant Elia journey, we love our surroundings, the people, the  Italian culture and feel very much embedded in the nature surrounding us,…Thank You Italy