At 3am the deafeningly loud crack and rumble of thunder woke us bolt upright. The house shook for quite a few seconds, and we wondered for a moment if we had been struck (we hadn’t. And nor had any nearby trees, thank goodness). DH leapt out of bed to yank the phone cords from the wall so our computers didn’t blow up if it happened again. Then the rain absolutely pelted down, and the wind howled, and it took me forever to drop back off to sleep.
We awoke at 7am to perfect calm, and 7.5ml in the rain gauge (which even such a small amount, at this point in our driest winter for a long long time, is a godsend) and blue skies. So we cheered because we got some rain, AND our truffle hunt booked for this morning wasn’t going to be a schlepp in the rainy mud. We have had to wait 3 years to do this tour (for one reason or another), so you can imagine our delight at a fine day.
90% of the tour was pretty much waffle, but the other 10% (where you get to go out with the dog and sniff around under trees, digging up the lovely black things with your bare hands) was fun and very instructive. We asked lots of technical questions because we are growing our own crop and want to see what environmental conditions we ought to be creating at our place. By lucky happenstance we met a visiting Hungarian expert and DH picked his brains over lunch. The Hungarian was very doubtful we could get the white Italian Alba truffles to grow here (but we are giving them a bash anyway, along with the more common, and cheaper, black variety). [I am going to try and organise a trip to Italy and call it research and see if the accountant will let us write it off as a tax deduction!] I think we have decided to hunker down and make this venture our retirement fund. We can sell directly to the Truffle Co, which would make life very easy.
Having learnt our lesson at previous truffle lunches, DH and I shared one entree and one main, and we were STILL too full for dessert. The main truffle hunt lady (Fran) sent us home with the smallest truffle we found that day (just under a gram) which was cool. Not sure what I will do with it. Might infuse some honey.
We learnt some new things about soil preparation and conditions, so before we plant the 17 extra trees I bought last Friday, we will get the plot ripped and limed by a local contractor. That is DH’s job to organise. He has also prepared a soil sample to send off for testing, so we can be more accurate with supplementation. Plus he is booked in to meet with the accountant next week. No flies on us.
My job is to lock in a date/time for the plumber to come around and fix our leaking pipe issue that is causing us not to be able to use the coffee machine. (Quelle Horreur!).
And so, despite setbacks and disappointments, life goes on.
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