angeli

Gosh, if she is really keen maybe a future in advertising could make you 'shed loads' of money....Have tried TC with coffee grounds...definatly a paws down.....maybe wrong type, these italians can be quite particular...........

davehornet6

last few days my reply box has had no smilies, but they are back now?
must have gone on a long weekend
our nutty cat had a good old smell of them then went to nibble a bit
that made her step back a bit. but she had to have a final smell.
dont think she likes the tesco's ones ill try lavazza next time

angeli

Good to hear smiles back....Nutty cat sounds really nutty. Cold and damp here today so nice to be lazy and sit by the fire with N Book and e-mail away...planning my veg garden and ways of keeping TC off it, and Dylan the dog too...he has long legs - a lucher.....so can cause chaos....Back to garden thoughts now .....why do oak tree leaves take so long to turn into leaf mould..will try black plastic bags I think.....

davehornet6

i think all hardwood trees have tough leaves. black bags should work.
have you any olive trees? i hope to move to hills south of modena later this year and hope to get enough land to have plenty of olive trees and some vines.

angeli

Ok, will go buy black bags.....Have 3 young olive trees, planted by previous owner, may be 8 - 10 yrs old, been here 4 yrs and havn't seen a single olive - not even a flower - are they too young, what age does an olive tree start producing olives ? There are olives in field next to us so although highish up 350m's should not be a problem. Have strawberry smelling grapes, small. green, and have pips covering outbuilding, made stuff that looks and has same textue like honey with some this year....just grapes and sugar boiled, call it 'GRunny', watcg out 'Gales'......Any news on the coffee granule loving moggy???

bricwood

my garden has lovely little robins flying around and very tame, today there were a few crumbs on the floor and as its very windy and I felt lazy I swept them outside and he was tucking in, I thought ok I will give you some bread, I am reluctant to put food out here as there are starving cats everywhere, he picked up some bread and flew straight into the house, it took a good hour to coax him out, I think they are smaller than British robins, I would get a bird table but its so windy here

angeli

I know robins are supposed to be ground feeders but I have a peanut feeder filled with 08's walnuts, robin loves them......will have to spend time re-filling now with 09's ones as havn't seen and bird peanuts here....Do buy sunflower seeds from consorzio and get all the usual, tits, nuthatches on seed feeder. Last year had a peregrine sat in oak tree in garden....just another ' nature watch' moment here in the mountains....Have been filling black bags with leaves to make leaf mould...why do they always split ???

Lorna at Vicenza

I saw loads of things called fat balls hanging off trees in gardens in the UK for the birds. My Dad had a sack full of wild bird seeds and he threw a handfull into the garden every morning. He bought some of those fat balls whilst I was there and then joked with the cashier that it only cost Mary Poppins tuppence to feed the birds.

indiebird

You can make your own with a mixture of seeds and nuts mixed with lard. put the lot in a yoghurt pot with a little hole in the bottom with string threaded through it and tied to a pencil balanced on the top. When the lard sets you just unmould them and use the string to hang them from trees or bird feeders.

Lorna at Vicenza

Might go all Blue Peter and make some of them with the kids. I'm sure all the seeds in the box of hamster food will work just as well for the birds.
Hmm don't have any lard though.

indiebird

Hmmmm am trying to think of another fat that will set hard.... Can;t you buy lard there at all??

Lorna at Vicenza

Don't think I've ever seen any packets of lard. Lard at the butcher's is that Lardo di Colonnata or whatever it's called.

I suppose I could buy a block of cheap greasy bacon and use the bacon fat.

angeli

Have tried putting out fat trimmings for birds but the birds here seem to ignore....dont think they'd melt down to lard like liquid to set seeds in pot.... Need lard...but havn't seen any here either....

indiebird

Don't know what Lardo di Colonnata is! Rendered bacon fat would work. I can buy 'strutto' in a packet in the Coop near the butter, but I know that not all Coops are equal!!

Lorna at Vicenza

It's like this and gets sliced very thinly and eaten on bread or toast.

http://images.google.it/images?sourc...ed=0CDIQsAQwBg