My Tuscany OE

The last week in Tuscany

2008-11-29T08:11:00.007+01:00

Last week we went to see the olives that we picked being turned into olive oil at the mill. The stages are: First they go through a fan to separate the olives from the leafs. Next the olives get a rinse then they go into a mulcher. Then the olive oil goes through pipes and ends up in a trough. Last but not least you pour the olive oil in to your containers. I don't like olive oil but my mum said it was great!

Last week it was SNOWING!!!!!!
It was so much fun. We went up the big mountains behind our house and we went tobogganing, had snow ball fights and made snow devils.

Well this is my last blog entry in Italy. I have enjoyed it a lot and I am looking forward to going to England.

Arrivederci

Auf Wiedersehen

Bye Bye

Ciao

Olive Picking

2008-11-19T09:31:00.004+01:00

Yesterday we went to pick olives at our friend's dad's olive grove. They have 120 trees. Yesterday we picked 14 trees worth of olives and that's about 220 kilos. It's fun because you don't do it with your hands you do it with small rakes and you can climb up the center of the tree. I attached a stick to the end of my rake so I could reach olives that were above me. Some of the trees don't have a lot of olives but others have heaps. Before you start a tree you have to spread a net out underneath the tree for the olives to fall on and if the tree is on a slope you have to put sticks on one side so the olives don't roll off the net. We have some trees at our house. We harvested them then we gave our olives to our friends to bring to the mill. We only had 23 kilos so we got 5liters of olive oil. On Saturday we will go and see the olives we picked yesterday getting pressed at the mill.

Ferrari Cup and holiday

2008-11-13T15:35:00.017+01:00

Last Sunday we went to the Ferrari world finals. It was so cool except for the beginning when there was, in the first 100 meters, a 5 car crash. There were tractors pulling the cars away and the safety car slowing all the others down to a stop. One of the drivers went off in an ambulance but I don't think it was bad. Apart from the crash it was cool and loud. Here are some pictures.

The day after we went to Florence and bought some chestnuts. In the evening we roasted them on the BBQ. I don't like them but everyone else does. It was fun because it was cold but we had the fire going so it kept us warm. I took some bread and stuck it on the end of a fork and toasted it. It was yummy because it tasted like it had been on a BBQ. Here are some more pictures.

Yesterday we came back from our trip to Carrara, Colonnata, Castelnuovo, La Spezia and the Cinque Terre. Colonnata is famous for lardo and we bought 2 packets of it, one big, one small. Lardo is cured back fat from a pig and it tastes very salty. It is cured in salt and left in marble boxes for a very long time. Carrara is famous for Carrara marble which the sculpture of The David is made out of. When we were there we saw the marble mountains where the marble gets mined from. We stayed in La Spezia for the night. In the morning we went to the Cinque Terre. The Cinque Terre is in translation The Five Villages which go along the coast at the Mediterranean sea. First we went to Manarola. The cool thing about Manarola is that to get the boats into the water they lower them with a crane. Then we went to Monterosso and had lunch. For lunch I had a french fries pizza it was yummy. Then we headed home and that was the end of our holiday. Here are some pictures.

The river at the bottom of our drive way has changed dramatically. From hardly any water to a raging torrent. It has even gone over my dam that I built with my friend. Here are some pictures of the torrent.

Pasta Making

2008-11-04T11:04:00.004+01:00

This morning we made pasta dough. After kneading the dough we prepared the filling. The filling contains bacon, pecorino cheese, nutmeg, breadcrumbs and the yolk of a egg. Then we put the dough through the pasta machine. First we put a ball of dough through the biggest setting then we folded it twice and put it through the machine again. We repeated that step again. Then we put the dough through the machine 6 times changing the setting each time. Then we put the filling in between 2 sheets of pasta and cut it out in to triangel shapes and then its all done.Ready to be cooked. Here is a picture of the pasta.

Austria

2008-10-31T09:23:00.010+01:00

Yesterday we arrived back from our trip to Austria. We took 8 1/2 hours to get there and we stopped for lunch about 40 kilometers over the border. I had schnitzel, a roll and an Almdudler which is kind of like lemonade. Then we finished lunch and went to my Omi and Opa's house in Vienna. We had to go there because we had to pick up all our winter stuff. It was funny because for dinner it was schnitzel again. We slept in my Uncle's bed in the apartment above my Omi and Opas. For breakfast I had dream cake which is a type of cake. In the morning we went to my Omi and Opa's holiday house to pick up all the winter stuff, like all our snowboarding gear and winter shoes. Then we went into the village and I had a haircut. We came home and had lunch which was pancakes. They were yummy!

In the afternoon we went to the Zoo which was cool because we saw 3 lion babies. They were running around and around. Then we went to see the panda baby and he was sleeping he is about the size of a fully grown koala. When he was born he was 10 centimeters long and had no fur. When we went to see the tiger babies they weren't there. Then we went to the playground. It was fun because there were rabbits everywhere and you can walk in tunnels and come out in a plastic semi-circle and see rabbits all around you.

That evening we went to a restaurant. It was cool because we sat above water. After the meal we went into the restaurant's wine cellar. There was about a million liters of wine in there. Then we went home to have a nice sleep and in the morning we set of on another long trip back to Italy.

Another busy week

2008-10-27T11:17:00.008+01:00

Last week we went to a small village called Marradi to a chestnut festival. Marradi is set in the Apennine mountains and is famous for marroni a.k.a. chestnut. The types of chestnut food at the festival were roasted chestnuts, swissroll with chestnut paste inside, deep fried chestnut tortelli and chestnut cake. My favourite food was the swissroll and Ana's was the roasted chestnuts.the train trip back was awful we were stuffed full up to our necks in people. Here are some photos from the festival:

When we arrived back home our friends Mindy, Alex and Esme were there. My favourite game to play with Alex is soccer. We have been best friends since he was born. They stayed with us for a week and that's why I haven't written on my blog. One of the things we did with them was to go and see The David which is a marble sculpture of King David going out to battle the giant Goliath. His sling shot is hung over his shoulder and in his right hand is the stone. Here is a picture of the rest of his profile:

On Friday we went out for dinner. When we arrived home my Dad's friends surprised him for his 42 birthday. Their names are Georg, Doris, Tim and Lucas. Lucas and Tim don't speak any English but we got along just fine. They live in Vienna Austria. On Saturday we went to a truffle festival and we bought one big black truffle. They were also selling antique cars like Ferrari's and Alfa Romeos. My Dad also bought some salami and cheese. Then we went home and set up my Dads party. For dinner the kids had pizza and pop corn and the adults had spaghetti with truffle shavings. Then they had pork loin and roasted potatoes.

Today all our visitors left. Tomorrow my Dad and I will be going to pick up all our winter stuff from Vienna.

Rufina and Kite Flying

2008-10-18T10:05:00.010+02:00

About 2 weeks ago my grandparents arrived back from their holiday in England. When they are with us we do things like play French cricket. In French cricket you have to defend your legs when the bowler bowls underarm to try and hit below the knees.We also play a game called leggy which is a game for 2 players where you stand about 3 meters away from each other with your legs apart and you have to try and throw the ball through your opponent's legs.

A couple of days later we went to Rufina. Rufina is where they make a lot of Chianti wine. We drove up to a view point and there was a lovely view of the town and rows and rows of vines. Then we went and had some ice cream. The flavours that I had were chocolate and crema. Then we went home. We drove for a bit but then we found out that our sat nav was taking us the wrong way. That made our drive a bit longer.

When my dad was in Brussels he bought me a kite. It is yellow, orange and red. When the wind lifts it up it looks like a flying mattress. The strings are about 30 meters long. When you pull on the right hand side string it flys to the right and the same with the left. If you do it fast enough you can do a figure of eight. I have a lot of fun flying my kite. Here are some pictures of the things I have written about.

Rufina

Kite Flying

England

2008-10-06T14:51:00.008+02:00

Two weeks ago we went to England. It was fun because we had a lot of the family there for my grandpa's birthday. The cool thing was that we surprised him with us coming. First Ana and I ran down the garden and my grandpa turned round and said "Is this a dream?" The party was great we had balloons, party poppers, party hats and the most amazing meal. For starters we had smoked salmon and toast. Main coarse was roast pork, roast potato's, mushrooms and Spinach Bake. For dessert we had tiramisu. Unfortunately I did not get any dessert because I was watching a movie. My grandpa got a cool present - it was a glass globe and the countries were made of broken shells.

The next day we went to Borough Market which is one of the biggest food markets in London. It was cool because there were stalls that had lots of prepared meals that you could buy and eat straight-away. There was also a chocolate stand which had a big variety of chocolate covered fruits. I also saw these giant, white and fluffy mushrooms called puffballs. We had breakfast there and I had a bacon sandwich. Here are some pictures from the market.

The day before we left we celebrated my cousin Alexandra's birthday. We bought her a pair of red leather gloves and a red pashmina scarf. She also got a red beret and a PlayStation 2 with the game Dance UK. At the party there were gold balloons and gold party poppers.

While we were in England I swam in the Thames that goes past the house. It was freezing when you jumped in but if you went in slowly you could stay in there for an hour.

Now we are back in Italy in the warm weather.

Beverly's week in Tuscany

2008-10-02T10:28:00.010+02:00

Two weeks ago my Aunt, Beverly, from New Zealand came to stay with us for a bit. It was cool because she played with me a lot. She played soccer, helped me fix my tree house roof and helped me do my animation project for school. My Aunt has also an exciting, cool and wonderful blog of her own and there are a lot of amazing photos on her blog of her time in Tuscany. Here is the address to her blog http://treehousedwellers.blogspot.com/ . She also has another blog for her kindergarten. The children there do lots of cool computerised stuff on the blog. Here is the address to the blog http://manaiakindergarten.blogspot.com/

On the Saturday after Beverly arrived my Mum, Beverly and I went to Florence to have a look around. After we went through the markets we found a walk up about 100 stairs to a fort on the top of a hill. It had a great view of the Duomo, the Santa Croce church and the Ponte Vecchio. All the pictures that we took were on Beverly's camera so have a look on her blog.

The next day my Mum's friend Jenifer and her boyfriend Francesco from Florence came with 4 Florentine steaks a.k.a Bistecca Fiorentine for lunch. For starters we had bruschetta, cold meats and home made bread. The steak was cooked in the pizza oven five minutes on each side. They were YUMMY!!!! Next week we are going to go to Francesco's restaurant.

Another thing we did with Beverly was go to San Gimignano which is a small village where people live in towers. There are 15 towers in the whole of San Gimignano but there used to be 72. Here are some photos of San Gimignano.

On Tuesday, we all went to Florence to the food market to buy a whole range of different Italian meals for a feast that we had in the evening. The starters were, deep fried zucchini flowers with a filling of zucchini and cheese, bruschetta with porcini mushrooms and the other ones with meat and caprese salad. Main course was steak and calamari. For dessert we had a strawberry and raspberry fruit salad with deep fried biscuits and mascarpone cheese. That meal was one of the best meals I've ever had! Go to this address to see some pictures of our feast http://treehousedwellers.blogspot.com/2008/09/florentine-feast.html.

Tomorrow I will write about my trip to England for my Grandpa and my cousin's birthday. That's where we were last week.

Camping

2008-09-18T10:23:00.005+02:00

On Tuesday my dad and I went camping. First we tried a campground in a town called Palazzuolo sul Senio but it was closed. Then my dad stopped on the side of the road and phoned a campground in a place called Firenzuola but no one picked up the phone. So then we ended up camping about 30 minutes away from home and we had been driving for around 3 hours. It was a nice camp ground and there were only 10 cars from Holland and us. There were absolutely no Italians camping and we were the only ones in tents. After we set up the tent we went out side the campsite for a little walk in the forest next door . For dinner we had a 2 meter long sausage and it was YUMMY!! Then we went on a wander through the campsite. It was dark and cold. When we got back we put on some candles and stayed up for a bit longer and then went to bed. Here are some pictures of the tent and me next to the BBQ.

In the morning we got up and it was around 10 degrees. For breakfast I had four croissants. They were delicious. Then we went to the cafe and had a cup of tea. Then we went back, packed up our tent and went home. My favourite thing when we went camping was eating the 2 meter long sausage even though we only ate about a meter.

WHITE TRUFFLES

2008-09-16T09:54:00.003+02:00

Today when we went on our walk we came across a truffle hunter and his dog. We asked "did you find any truffles?" and he said yes. Then he pulled out of his pocket three small white truffles. To me they looked like small round clumps of dirt. He let us smell them. To me they smelt disgusting! Then as we were about to walk away the man said "you can have them". My dad looked very very happy. Truffles are hunted by dogs sniffing around a special type of tree. Then if they smell a truffle the hunter will come and dig it up. Here is a website if you would like to know more about truffles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuber_(genus)#White_truffle. I will put pictures of our truffles up soon.

School

2008-09-12T10:12:00.010+02:00

At the moment I am doing correspondence school. I have just changed from them sending me stuff to me doing it on their website. To get to what you have to do on the website you have to log in to your class. There are lots of different activities like maths, reading and writing. At the moment we are doing a topic called E-electives. You have to choose between making a game, animation or morphing a picture. I have decided to do animation. My class is called Learning Xtreme. Here is a list of where some people in my class live: Mongolia, Sudan, Holland, New Zealand, Dubai, Turkey, Borneo, Spain, Egypt, a boat off Greece, Canada and Last but not least Italy!

Here are some images from Google Earth of my house.

The Thames

2008-09-09T09:41:00.009+02:00

After the Grand Union Canal we went on the tidal Thames to travel up to my Aunt's house. We started at Limehouse Marina which is close to Canary Wharf in London. We had to go through an electronic lock to get onto the Thames since the current is so strong you can't push the gates open yourself.

We saw lots of amazing sights going along the Thames. The first cool sight was London Bridge which we went under. Just after London Bridge we went alongside the Tower of London which used to be a prison. We also went past the London Eye which is a giant Ferris wheel and opposite was Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. I could just see in the distance "The Gherkin" which is a gherkin shaped building. We also went past a giant Navy ship that is now open to tourists. And we saw the MI6 building, which is the secret service for the English government. It was cool! Along the Thames there are a lot of amazing apartment buildings.

The tidal Thames wasn't like the Grand Union Canal as there were waves from the big boats that went past. We saw a very fast ferry which was faster than any other ferry I've ever seen. When we go back we are going to go on it.

As we were getting closer to my aunt's house, we saw Hampton Court which was owned by King Henry VII but is now open to the public. Then we arrived at my aunt's house which is a little bit further past the bridge from Hampton Court. At the bottom of the garden there is a mooring for boats so we stopped there for three days. I went kayaking with my grandpa on the Thames and we also took the dog for a walk in Bushy Park. After the walk, we rode the bikes back to look at the deer and we came across a cricket game which the deer were trying to invade. We saw a giant stag which had 8 branches on each antler. He was the biggest of the lot.

While we were in London, we went to the London Eye and Buckingham Palace and we saw the guards doing their daily exercise. We also went to Madam Tussuad's which is a place that has wax sculptures of famous people inside. They are life size and they wear suits and costumes e.g. David Beckham, Tiger Woods, Shane Warne, Einstein, George Bush, God (but this was Morgan Freeman), Harry Potter, Captain Jack Sparrow and William Turner. I also saw Jamie Oliver and George Clooney. There is also a taxi ride which takes you around the old ruins of London. It's not a real taxi! The best thing in London was the London Eye because I saw everything around London since it is so high.

Grand Union canal

2008-09-03T10:56:00.017+02:00

Two weeks ago my mum and I went to England to go on my grandparents canal boat. The boat is called the Celtic Kiwi and it is 56 feet (17 meters) long. The boat is green and inside there is a bathroom, a kitchen with no toaster, a dining room which can turn into a double bed, two comfy seats which can turn into two single beds in the lounge, a TV and a main bedroom at the back of the boat. There is also central heating and a fireplace for the cold and frosty nights. It is cool to walk along the roof and along the sides. But when you walk along the sides you have to be careful not to fall in. And when you are on the roof you have to make sure you don't hit your head on any bridges.

The first canal that we went on was called the Grand Union canal which goes from Birmingham to Little Venice in London which is on the Paddington Arm. My mum and I went from the Pear Tree Inn Bridge in Milton Keynes to Little Venice. After that we went on the tidal Thames but I'll write more about that in tomorrow's post.

The things I did on the boat was steer sometimes, help moor, push the canal boat off the tow-path (foot path that follows the side of the canal) when the boat got stuck on mud and help open and close the locks. Locks are structures that help the canal boats move gradually up or down the canal because the canals aren't level. If you want to know more about locks go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_locks.

There are a lot of different birds along the canal. Here is a list of the ones that we saw:

Heron

Swan
Ducks

Pigeons

Kingfishers

Robin

Canadian Geese

Coots

Seagulls

Here are some pictures of the boat and the surroundings of the canal:

Holiday for two weeks

2008-08-19T21:45:00.004+02:00

I will not be writing anything on my blog for the next two weeks as my mum and I are going to England to stay on my grandparents canal boat. We are going to travel down the Thames and past the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye. We are back in Tuscany at the beginning of September.

Villa Demidoff Park

2008-08-18T10:43:00.006+02:00

Yesterday we went to a very big park called Villa Demidoff Park which is only 15 minutes away. There were lots of giant statues and the biggest one was about 10 meters high and here's a picture of it.

My favourite statue was the headless Gladiator. There was also a stage where they hold concerts. At the front gate there was a nest with 4 small swallows in it and it was so cool when the mother came to feed them because they all opened their mouths and started chirping. Here is a picture of them.

Bread and Dessert Lasagna

2008-08-14T11:46:00.014+02:00

This post is about all the food we made when Alex and Esme were here.

First we made some bread for a picnic at the lake. I made my bread in the shape of a Frenchman's face! We made lots of funny shapes. Here are some pictures of us making the bread:

The next thing we made was Dessert Lasagna. The cool thing about it is that it is my own recipe. I thought of it when the adults decided to make lasagna for dinner. You make it by combining these ingredients in layers:

thin pancakes

strawberry jam

bananas or berries (we used bananas)

whipped cream mixed with sugar

Here are some pictures and a movie of us making the lasagna:

Siena

2008-08-14T10:58:00.007+02:00

Last Saturday we all went to Siena which is 1.5 hrs away and south of Florence (this is a good website for you to go to if you don't know a lot about Siena: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siena). We saw the old part of Siena. It is a big round wall on the top of a hill and inside the wall are lots of old houses. The streets are made of cobblestones but they don't look like streets they look like pavements. In the middle of Siena there is a big piazza called Piazza del Campo. At the moment it has been set up for a famous horse race called The Palio horse race. We ate ice creams and I had panna cotta and crema.

On Sunday my Mum and Dad went to Venice for a night and Mindy and Sharon looked after all the kids and on Tuesday they left. I will miss them a lot. My next post will be about the food we made while they were here.

Slingshots

2008-08-07T10:16:00.006+02:00

In Italy we eat a lot of ice cream compared to New Zealand. We normally have an ice cream once a day. In New Zealand I had an ice cream once a week. In Italy my favourite ice cream would have to be Panna Cotta. Panna Cotta is an Italian dessert made with cream which is baked with a light sauce on top. The most unusual ice cream I have ever tasted is pistachio. I Hated It!!I have eaten about 42 ice creams since I have been here. The best ice cream I have eaten was in Vicchio. This is a picture of me and my friends eating ice cream in Pisa.

Yesterday Mindy looked after all the children because my mum and dad went to Florence. We made Lasagna for dinner and it tasted delicious. In the morning we went to the playground and ate ice creams. In the afternoon my mum and dad came back and brought me and Alex slingshots. Mine is yellow with zebra stripes and Alex's is green with leopard spots. This is a picture of me and Alex with our slingshots.

2008-08-01T15:55:00.005+02:00

2 weeks ago we saw some squirrels moving their babies with their mouth from one tree to another tree. They went so high that we couldn't even see them. I never would have thought that they would have a nest so high in the tree

The next day my cousins and auntie came over from England. It has been a very lazy, busy, hot week. On the lazy days we have sat at home playing rook, pass the pigs, Scotland Yard and monopoly. My favorite games would have to be rook and monopoly.

On the busy days we did:
Florence and ate tripe
Went on a long drive to a monastery and Arezzo
Had a picnic
Went to the lake which is 2 meters less than it was when we arrived
A train trip to Brisighella

Yesterday I caught a baby gecko. It was cool because it ran so fast for its size.

2008-07-21T11:04:00.002+02:00

Three days ago my grandparents came to stay for 2 weeks and in 1 day my auntie and cousins are coming to stay. We have introduced my grandparents to Italian ice cream.

2008-07-21T10:17:00.007+02:00

Last week we had friends from New Zealand and Holland and we went on some interesting excursions.

We spent a day at Pisa, dropping off Barney at the airport. After that we went to the Leaning Tower of Pisa and took some photos but did not climb the tower because there were too many people.

On another day we went to Florence. We took the train in and brought our scooters with us, we went to look at the outside of the Duomo and this is a picture of the tower

We had a lot of fun on the scooters. This square is called the piazza.

2008-07-09T10:06:00.005+02:00

Last night my dad and I started working on the sign for my tree house and this is what we ended up with.

Yesterday my dad went shopping to Florence. He came back with lots of meat and about ten minutes later he came in with a huge meat slicer. This is a picture of it.

Since my net was broken he got one for me and one for my friend Alex to use when we go gecko hunting. He also bought my sister a barbie doll with the same coloured hair as hers.

For dinner tonight we are having spare ribs marinated in coke cola and honey YUMMY!!!!!

THE EXHIBITION

2008-07-04T09:58:00.008+02:00

On Tuesday my dad and I went to Florence in a train to see the Galileo exhibition on his telescopes. The most interesting thing I found at the museum was how many telescopes Galileo designed. This picture is of one of the telescopes he designed.

Unfortunately we didn't get to see the maps with out New Zealand and Australia in them because they were in the level that was getting restored. So we went to another museum that had them but it was too expensive.

We had lunch in the food market. I ate roast beef on bread with gravy. We sat on a big table with two Italian builders and a plasterer. They were funny because they kept on telling me to finish the rest of my food in Italian.

This is a picture of me on a giant turtle in Florence.

SQUIRRELS

2008-06-28T19:03:00.004+02:00

This is a movie of two very funny squirrels running and chasing each other round the very big tree next to my swing. I hope you enjoy it.

A BUSY WEEK PART THREE

2008-06-26T09:30:00.004+02:00

Last week on Friday my auntie Annette came over from England. She arrived in a place called Fiorli. My dad and I had to go over the Apennine mountains to get there. It took us two and a half hours. When we got there we thought we might have gone to the wrong place. Because the airport was so small we thought it was a restaurant.

On Sunday we all went to a lake called Lake Bilancino. It had a couple of beaches around the edge so we went to one of them. We hired two sunbathing chairs and a sun umbrella. Our ones were right next to the water so it was very easy to swim. I saw alot of grey fish around the place.

A BUSY WEEK PART TWO

2008-06-25T09:16:00.007+02:00

Last week my family and I went to Florence and walked around. These are some of the things that we did and saw. The first thing that caught my eye were the Ice-cream shops. They had piles of about 5-6 kilos each of every ice-cream in the world.

The first thing we came across was a market. Most of the stalls had a lot of leather jackets and wallets. There were also some Italian soccer T-shirt shops around the place.

This is a picture of the Duomo which is made out of different tiles and sculptors.

This is a picture of the bridge that goes over the canal that runs through the whole of Florence. On the bridge there are some houses and a lot of jewelery shops.

Be looking forward to A BUSY WEEK PART III

A BUSY WEEK

2008-06-24T10:00:00.010+02:00

I'm sorry that I haven't written on my blog for the last week. I've been a bit busy.

Last week my dad and I got out the sausage machine and made some salamis.

First we got some of the shoulder meat and some belly then we slowly minced it up.

Next we added some spices and slowly folded it in.

Next we put the salami mixture into the sausage machine which pushed the mixture into the salami cases.

This is what we ended up with.

Now they have to hang for eight weeks.

I will write about the rest of my busy week tomorrow.

2008-06-16T09:04:00.009+02:00

The tree house will differently be able to hold Grandpa's weight.

On Friday my dad and I made some pasta dough then we let it settle for a bit in the fridge.After that we took it out and started to roll it through the pasta roller. First you adjust the pasta roller to the first stage then you roll it through. Next you adjust it to the next level and roll it through etc etc. Then you roll it to as thin as you want it to be. Then you cut it to whatever shape or size you want it to be. In the evening we boiled them and ate them.

On Saturday afternoon my dad and I caught a gecko. These are some pictures that we took of it in the roof of my sisters sandpit.

On Sunday my family and I went to a festival called The Bread and Soup festival. The first picture is of how they used to get flour out of wheat in the olden days. The second picture is of how people used to get around in the olden days. The animal that is in the picture is a giant white cow.

This picture is of the scorpion that my dad caught yesterday.

Tree house

2008-06-13T10:09:00.005+02:00

I took these pictures because on Wednesday my dad and I built a roof and a bench on my tree house.

This is the view from the bottom of the tree house.

This is the view from the floor of tree house to the roof.

This is the bench that we made.

How to cook in a pizza oven

2008-06-11T18:28:00.007+02:00

This is how you cook in a pizza oven.

First you make a ferocious fire in the middle of the oven then the fire has to calm down. Then you move the fire to the side and you sweep the bottom of the pizza oven.

Then you put what ever you're making in and wait for as long as it takes. When it's ready you take it out and you eat it. Buon appetito.

YUMMY!!!!!

2008-06-11T08:49:00.003+02:00

YUMMY!!!
That was one good chicken but unfortunately we didn't get to cook it in the pizza oven because it would have taken to long to heat up.

These are some of the other things you can cook in a pizza oven: pizza obviously, bread, baked beans and roast chicken or rabbit (but not Massimo our favourite rabbit).

I'll tell you how to cook in a pizza oven when my dad gets back.

CHICKEN

2008-06-10T09:49:00.004+02:00

Today my dad and I are going to roast a chicken in the left over hot ashes of the pizza oven. I am looking forward to eating the juicy meat off the chicken.

Yesterday I started my school work but unfortunately not my correspondence school work since its not here

2008-06-10T09:36:00.002+02:00

In the veg garden there are tomatoes, lettuce, beans, onions and zucchini. The veg garden actually belongs to the gardener Mario but my dad and I are growing some zucchini and radicchio

2008-06-09T09:32:00.006+02:00

This is the view from the veg garden

to the house.

This is the view from the gecko bush to
the garage

This is my tree house

2008-06-09T08:53:00.000+02:00

I am doing this blog because I am in Italy for 6 months. I am here with my mum, dad and my sister. We are in Italy for a great holiday. I like it because it has got snakes and geckos.