40 acres of Italy - discovering an off-grid cabin & tour of our land
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- Опубліковано 13 лют 2024
- In the summer of 2023 we moved into a neglected farmhouse in a tiny village in the northwest of Italy. The last inhabitants left some 10 years ago, but large parts of the property have been empty for over 20 years.
This week we're taking you on a tour of our 40 acres of land, and we're taking you along for our very first visit to a secret off-grid cabin in the middle of the woods.
Thank you for joining us on our adventure!
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#langheitaly #homerenovation #offgridcabin
I didn't think that you could show me anything that would make me like your place more, how wrong I was. I can't imagine how special the cottage must feel hidden away from everything for so long. There might also be a host of infrastructure that you'll uncover over the coming years. Thank you for sharing, a truly beautiful place.❤
I am well pleased at your caring focus on planting species which benefit the birds and other critters around the area.
Thank you for taking care of Nature❣️
it's part of our responsability to take care of the whole habitat on our land ❤️
The secret cabin is magnificent.
A project and a folly that will give you endless years of toil and joy. Who could want anything more……
I love how close, yet far the village is. Once at your house you can totally forget that there are other people as close as that. Love the hedging idea, it would also make the it easier and more interesting to follow for hikers. I bet you'd have historic, interesting finds along the route with a metal detector.
Love your commentaries on your vlogs. Thank you.
Glad you like them!
Oh my, you must be filled with joy to live in such a glorious setting! Thank you for sharing the overview of the land. It is such a beautiful and peaceful place.
We are, every single day. Living in a place like this is an enormous privilege and we are deeply grateful for it.
People would also beg for the opportunity of staying in such a beautiful place, it could be a great way of paying for other restoration projects. It looks to be far enough away to not encroach on your privacy. 👍
A truly beautiful property with many projects to keep you busy for years to come!
this walk in your Paradiso is so beautiful.🙌 It's especially nice to see your eye for beauty, observing the teeniest of nature's details, showing us the new spring flowers and shoots that are beginning to show themselves, and announcing the rebirth of spring and renewed life1....happy spring!!🙏🙏❤😄
Thank you for sharing this with us! What a special place you have. Can’t wait to watch you continue the transformation!
Being a 2nd generation Italian in Canada- I’ve recently been dreaming of moving back to my father’s region of Abruzzo. Your videos are inspiring and I’m glad I stumbled upon your channel
Thank you for sharing your beautiful property with us!! I had no idea it was so large. You have enough to keep you busy the rest of your lives.
What a beautiful video. Your property is so very beautiful. Those views are so so amazing. Cheers from Sydney, Australia.
So glad you enjoyed it! We had so much fun making this one
Wow is really nice to find an old cavin 😊 on your property.
Suggestion... When transplanting shrubs for hedges etc. always cut them back hard down to perhaps 12 inches...this helps the roots establish as they are not trying to support so much top growth, thickens the young growth than will soon bud out. :). You can goggle it! Enjoy your channel so much!
Thanks for the tip! I have googled it before but for some reason could only find info on how to trim a new hedge one year after planting.
The wildness and raw beauty of your land is exquisite! So much to work with, and you have the rest of your lives to create a masterpiece. ❤
12:41 Le primule!
15:15 Grande ammirazione e rispetto per chi si toglie il cappello nell'incontro con un'altra persona.
Grazie per questo meraviglioso video, ciao!
You have a beautiful home and land. The views are stellar. I think the small roadway will work to your advantage.
It’s also refreshing to listen to your videos. Other blogs in similar situations are constantly complaining about the needed work. If they didn’t realize going in that’s their mistake.
I m much older now but my grandparents were from
Abruzzi and Colabria.
Enjoy!
Richard from the state of New Jersey in the USA
Delightful, thank you for sharing these details, which not only bring surprises but insights. I see and feel the joy of emerging spring throughout and a lifetimes promise of loving tending of the natural and farm areas now in your care.
Heel leuk om jullie avontuur te volgen in Italie en samen te leven met en in de natuur.
This was a special episode. Oh, to be surrounded by so much beauty… Thanks to you both for sharing!
And, white isis seed pods - so apt☺️💮
dear lovely couple, you have no idea how relaxing your videos are and how much we appreciate watching them. the improvements are so well thought of and i'm here for the journey. Wish i could do something like this, perhaps we will in the future.
thanks,
Awsume home you have, land looks like wee pockets of micro climate. Espically like the way, the man of the house lifts his hat off the passing traffic. GREAT VIDEO 😀
I love your property and the way you present it. As a beekeeper, I look at the property you have and just imagine what it would be like to set up a few apiaries on the forty acres.
You are living your best life.
that is definitely the case! life here is something different ❤️
You certainly have a lot of work in front of you!
The coppicing of the overgrown hazel will as you say great poles for fencing and wattling. So it kills 2 birds with 1 stone.
It must be quite a daunting task knowing where to start first, so much has been left to Mother Nature to try and manage. That’s not including the house that you are living in, so much work and too few hours to get it done! I look forward to following your journey, I’m sure it will have hiccups along the way and more than a few disappointments but such an adventure is very addictive!❤
definitely a lot of work ahead, yes! good think we didn't start this adventure with the sole goal of sitting back to relax :-)
I recently found your channel. Your film making is great. Im thrilled you have taken on such a unique project. I imagine the neighbors are delighted you are adding value to that farm. I’ve was an exchange student 30 yrs ago in Italy and have been back many times. I’m always looking for property in Italy. Congratulations.
Hello beautiful people. The walk with hops at minute 13.40 is synonymous with cheerful/joyful. we made them as children when we were happy. Beautiful! And congratulations on your resourcefulness.
i truly believe there should be no age limit to hopping! ❤️❤️❤️
I really appreciate your videos. As you are in Piedmont, a region very dear to me where my dearest friends live, I am sending you a "poesia piemontese", a poem in Piedmontese language poet Nino Còsta (1886-1945). The translation follows.
"Acque dël mè pais, ciàire cascade
ch'i sboche dai giassé, tra ròch e ròch
e i sàute giù dai brich con frange e fiòch
për riposeve 'nt l'ombre dle valade,
acque vive 'd Piemont..."
Translation
"Waters of my country, clear waterfalls
springing out of the glaciers, in between the rocks
jumping down from the hills with fringes and flakes
and then resting in the shadows of the valleys,
living waters of Piedmont..."
Beautiful! Thank you so much for sharing
Watching your life there makes my heart feel peaceful …
Stunning property! Loving it more and more each week.
Loved ❤ this video, thank you.. love seeing your property
Beautiful. Thank you.
Beautiful! Thank you for the tour!
I agree that you have less privacy with the road, but what great access to the rest of your place. I think it adds more positives than negative, but you guys did buy, so you obviously see that. I think that you've found a real gem, absolutely stunning.❤
Definitely! And with the tiny amount of traffic even the privacy issue isn't really a thing - and it's also something that can be easily amended with fencing and hedges/plants.
Bonjour,
Merci pour la visite et à bientôt.♥️😊🇧🇪
Thank you for sharing your thought process re strategic planning taking into consideration the preservation of your energies!
The primrose! So charming. I'm greatly enjoying your beautiful content. Thank you for creating it.
They are so beautiful! In a few weeks there will be carpets of them on the edges of the woods.
Thank you for this lovely tour.
We enjoy watching your progress, and plans, on your property. You live in a lovely area and you are blessed.
Thank you. This makes more sense. Wonderful over view. Love your house and property.
Wonderful. Thankyou so much. Kind thoughts from New Zealand.
So beautiful!
Thank you for sharing your adventures!
I love you guys! Love that you’re into retaining ancient knowledge like wattle fences and also preserving the local wildlife, etc.
Hi Isis & Bertus,Here you have a great deal for the comming to keep in order a lot of work keeping all that land in a natural shape.
thanks for sharing the surrounding areas of your land.with showing the borders where your propperty start and ends.Greetings.Hubertus
Watching your vlog is like a meditation. Thank you for sharing the walk through your magnificent property. ❤
love the hat off salutation - it's something refreshing to see - the old ways are very elegant indeed! 🙏
A lovely tour, thank you
What a wonderful place
Thank you for the interesting tour. Such a diverse landscape, absolutely wonderful. Hard to imagine the man hours, to build so many huge stone walls. Can't wait for your next video post. Enjoy, whatever you do.
Have you considered becoming a Work On Organic Farms (WOOF) site? I would love to come someday and help you work on your property! I am a nurse in the US and am currently in grad school working on a doctorate in nurse practitioner. I will graduate in May of 2025. My dream is to someday live in Italy and be the village "doctor". I love your channel! It is a healing balm to my soul! Thank you for sharing your lovely journey!
Hi Charity! We certainly have. We started out wwooffing too before buying our own farm :-) But, before we can do that we want to create an additional bathroom. If you want to stay updated about helping on the property then be sure to follow us on instagram too @storiesfromthecascina
Good luck with your doctorate!!!
I see those uninhabited lands and think about the amount of population we have lost, and how those places could be repopulated with a motivated immigrant population. Of course now people can't do without the comforts of urban life, but I see you have internet! I also think about the history of emigration that Italy has, like Spain, how many people had to leave their beloved towns to travel thousands of kilometers to start a new life in completely unknown and enigmatic places.
The number of houses in our village and surrounding territory are still pretty much the same number as there were 100-200 years ago, but the number op people living in those houses is much decreased. Whole families used to live in each farm. And yes, we think about the emigration history a lot too. It's hard not to. One of our neighbours returned to Italy after growing up abroad in the 60s and 70s. But also my own country of birth, Belgium, has a large Italian population. I wish more Italians could afford to live in the countryside - but in the absence of jobs it's really hard and only possible when you choose to either farm, or have an online source of income. It's ironic how living close to nature has become so difficult.
Our garden in the Netherlands was 50 square meters lol..
40 acres now.. omg
Beautiful land, great walls all over the place, a little piece of heaven.
the contrast couldn't be bigger, but we have worked on farms (wwoofing) before so we did at least have an idea of what we were taking on :-)
What an amazing cabin. Thanks for the tour.
Glad you enjoyed it! That cabin is definitely the cherry on the pie :-)
Your channel is awesome and inspiring. Hello from New Zealand.
Lots to discover.❤❤
I like your peace people... Cheers
The cabin is gorgeous
What an amazing place! That's a real paradise. I don't say "Schlaraffenland" because the paradise is the place were we can create!
That was a great video!! What incredible property you have!! Especially the cabin!!! Hopefully you get that back in order and can use it the way you want!!!
This was a very nice thing to share 😊🥰 Thank you 😁❤️
You are so welcome! Thanks for watching
Adoro os vídeo que vocês fazem. Obrigado e sucesso! Boas vibrações!
Thanks for posting and sharing. Great to see the aerial views of the land, as well as the ground level view.
Glad you enjoyed it!
lovely!
Fantastische lap grond, veel werk, maar ook veel genieten...!
zeker weten!
I wait with anticipation for each new video and admire your aspirations; wish each episode was two hours long. Best wishes.
Lupe
Sierra Vista AZ
USA
We are planning to do a few longer episodes this year ;-) Probably not every week though!
You have a beautiful property.
What a fascinating farm🍃
Bellissimo
That tour was amazing!!
And how cool is that cottage?!?
Great video !
Gorgeous property indeed!
We agree! ;-)
Outstanding storytelling my friend, this video is beautiful!
thank you ervin!
I like the song selection at the end there ;)
Loved your video and love the wildness of your property. To me a place as big as yours should only be partly tame, some for you and some for nature. Looking forward to your next projects.
absolutely! the wilderness will be allowed to remain in places. it is one of the things that made us fall in love with the house ❤️
Hazelnuts straight long brunches was used by my grandad in Poland to make garden tools like rakes walnut trees was extremely popular for very smooth,flexible,handles love ❤your adventure ….now living in Canada (70 years old) life is so short wish to turn the clock and ..have projects like you ..all the best in magical life..admiring lovely friendships and healthy relationships ❤…..wish more humans could have that in their lives ….your journey brings so much happiness too my lonely heart..thanks for sharing with rest of the world ❤ all the progress gone be amazing to fallow
40 acres..many groves , winding roads , paths for foottraffic , and hilly .!
Mowing and harvest enterprises mean some grazing , some maintenance of fencelines and terrace upkeep...
YOUVE GOT YOUR HANDS FULL..
AND THE BLDGS ARE BARELY HABITABLE..
SO...CARRY ON
what a land? Great!
Hola soy Apolonia de Palma de Mallorca España hoy me visto casi todos vuestros vídeos cantada como habeis mejorado todo con vuestras ideas y tené mucho trabajo para llevar para llevar terreno terreno casas dicho me gustaría reglareis esa parte antigua qué tiene que ser preciosa hasta el próximo video y todo con calma y salud esa concebida besitos UA❤
Hi Apolonia and welcome to our channel! Thanks for following our adventure
Lovely couple living the dream.🌲 👩🏼🤝👨🏽 🌳
Genios!
May be you could get a logging company and make a deal with them and that would help clearing and thinning some trees and some of the paths. You have beautiful pieces of land and yes it is rather big compared to our gardens in the Netherlands and I think how you and Bertus are going around getting the feel of the land and different meadows and pastures is very good. I love your property and it does have a lot of potential and the stone cabin in the woods is amazing. I was thinking if you own half and do not know who owns the previous half (most probably was family each owning half) you could find out by the land registry office. Just a thought. It is a gem though and is beautiful. Have a lovely day and I enjoyed the tour thank you.
Set up swales and ponds! Would be beautiful to have a nice swimmable pond there
Fabulous stone work in the old cabin. If you treat yourself to a small hand held battery driven chainsaw, it may make bits of your clearing work a lot easier. Even two- and of course spare batteries. Just a thought. Best wishes.
Wow wee what a lot of work ahead you have just clearing the foot paths ! I strongly suggest you get a huge work party set up to help in this task 😳
♥ all the trees - there's so much potential
The old roads/tracks are very well constructed - is this normal ?
Sade that the cabin's badly damaged.
Thanks you for showing us around.
The terraces and walls on the hill slopes are typical for this area and are Unesco World Heritage. So "normal" for this area but exceptional still :-)
Wonderful Thanks for sharing this... we are also looking to buy a place near that area too...still saving....CHEERS- JAMES & CAROLYN-USA
You need an electronic hand chain saw. They are very good
What a great overview of your lovely place - such varied and interesting landscapes with hidden treasures! The potential for developing the place is fantastic, do you plan on having any livestock? Goats, sheep, chickens, pigs - or are you more into horticulture? Thank you for sharing!
Hi Tony! Chickens are definitely in our plan for the coming year. I love gardening and so far we've been adding a lot of herbs to the garden. We'll also hopefully have some pumpkins by the end of the summer, but a "proper" vergetable garden will be something for next spring. We'll start small with just a few beds, and then gradually expand over time.
The cows pass quietly by.
Fascinating the patch work nature of you land. It really shows how the geography and the history have shaped your plot. Interesting the courage you only own half of. Would love to know more about what you mean by that. Is half the cabin on someone else’s land? Or do you have joint ownership of it even though it’s on your land. I thought your road was a dead end, good for you it is. Bella. 😀😊
Interesting about the Robina trees being invasive and the Privet you are replanting. Here in New Zealand it is the opposite. We live on land and the Privet is very invasive and also causes hay fever and sneezing etc when in flower. The Robina is sold at the garden centres as a landscape tree.
That makes a whole lot of sense as usually the plants that are native to other parts of the world are also the ones with invasive behaviour :-)
Sara and Luca have a home in Piedmont also.
Haha je huppeltje, zo leuk
Het leven hier is meer dan huppel-waardig ;-)
❤❤❤
I really like your hat, Sir
Thank you kindly ;-)
What an amazing property, such lovely walks and vistas. Lots of work to manage woodland etc. Will you get any kind of machinery in the future to help you? A small tractor or 4 wheel Polaris etc?
Great camera work 👏
a small tractor definitely yes, but not straight away (bc budget). 😊
If you’d like I can recommend a film called ‘Knepp rewilded a short film’ about two people who turned farmland into a nature reserve. They now have their income from it. So beautiful to watch. It’s 18 minutes I believe ❤️🙋♀️🍀
i wonder if you tried the brushes with your vacuum cleaner?
cheers,