Weather Gone Mad...

Twenty days of rain and one a hurricane... 

...or, at least, The Dogs & I thought it was a Katrina savaging Codiponte in the early hours of this Tuesday in late April. The rush, the whine, the roar!!! of the Wind & Rain was...? Was...? Well, it was frightening. Really. Nina jump into bed with me. Moses elected to stay curled in his poltrana. Smart boy. If he had relinquished the soft cushion of the wing-back chair, Nina would've jumped on it. Nope. He stayed put. A well placed paw covered his Weimaraner face. The Dog gave me a look of imminent DOOM!!! when I walked in to check on him. The Appt. Azzurro shook. It rattled. It rocked. It heaved with every blast of W & R. So much for Our Morning Constitutional. 

The Good News is Our Goddess remained at Her Post. This will lighten the heart of You. He called me several times for a Codiponte Weather Update. He had sun over in Savona. We will all have sun tomorrow!!! A Heat-wave is due in. They have already given it a name... Hannibal. I've heard of A Wind Named Mariah. But, a Heat-wave named Hannibal? Well, it's an export from the nearest North African Hot Spot to Italy... Tunisia. Thanks, guys. This is one revolt that could've stayed on your turf.

I need not care. I will be off to Amsterdam on My 60th Birthday Trip 2012. The Five-day Forecast is for showers. Fine. I'm used to the rain. All I ask is for the DDA DC-3 gets airborne long enough for me to enjoy the rumble of its two Wright Cyclone engines. They may be Pratt-Whitney. Yet, why quibble? Sorry though. The noise of a B-747 just ISN'T music to My Ears like a piston engine.

While aloft... hopefully... You will be bringing Order & Style to La Casa Grande. Can't say what kind of fun he'll have with all Our Stuff piled high in the two large rooms. He's so used to Pointing & Commanding, My Absence may diminish the exercise. But, Hell! Instead, he can bag-it and sunbathe in a deck chair in the Garden warmed by the Hannibal Heat. Gads.

Never How You Imagined...

I must admit to an acute case of House-Renovation-Exhaustion. The major symptom of this disease, in all its discombobulating manifestations, is an overwhelming Desire... and we are talking way beyond a Greek-pull-your-hair-out-flail-your-body-and-throw-yourself-on-the-ground sort of Despair... to just have anything/everything/all-of-it Finished & Done-with, kicking to the winds any worry of what The World... OR, Dr. You!!!... might hazard to say regarding the End Result!!!

Before we venture to Our Main Drama, let's first turn to La Nostra Cucina... isn't the A+++ frig nice? Very Silver AND energy efficient. Uses nearly ZILCH electricity. You & I love it!!! I could not imagine how much the half-walls to support the marble counters would eat-up the Kitchen's space. Glad I did not buy that haus-frau table from Our Esteemed Antiques Dealer. Forced to take one of those Crucial Choices... It's either The Table OR the Kitchen!!! Fine. You & I opted for La Cucina. But still, seems to be much less space than what appeared on Kitchen Drawing #478-C!!!

OK... I feel brave enough now. Notice anything different? Yes, a darn door!!! Not the Official Front Door to La Casa Grande but, it will be the one we'll use the most to get inside La Casa Grande. So, are you all up for it? Let's go inside...

Oh... My... God!!! The windows are so dinky. Something copied from the Dwarf's Lodge in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs? Gosh. Well, Our Windows are in. Moving on...

let's dance out to the Garden to see if they look dinky from the outside. Golly, they appear almost quaint. I hope quaint in Italian is something like carino for Dr. You. It's A Concept he can understand.

Yep. Pretty darn quaint. And funny-looking too!!!

Ohhh! Real quaint. Yet, it's kind-of cute. Cute is nearer to carino than quaint. No sense in scaring the Poor You that... suddenly... Our Poggiolo looks like a Hobbits hutch. He's an Italian. They do NOT understand Our English Sense of Quaint Design alla Middle Ages. You does not vibrate over thatched roofs. Brick & Stone & Terra-cotta, yes. Hay to keep the rain out, no. 

On the other hand, whether Our New Windows are cute, quaint or carino, they will keep out the heavy rains due in tonight. Big storms are in the immediate Forecast. Day 20 of incessant O2. Gads.

Hands-on...

My Left Hand...

and, My Right Hand.

Yesterday, both were an earthy Green from pulling out sodden cut grass out from underneath the lawn-mower. It was the cause of the machine from stalling regularly. Touching sodden & stuck grass is an unsettling sensation. It's akin to coming into contact with what one fears lives at the bottom of fresh-water ponds & lakes. Euw... yuck!!! for starters. I had to scrub both hands with one of those probably-dangerous-to-Our-Health corrosive sponges and lots of dish-soap. That for its Grease & Grime Action. Seemed to work. They ain't green no mo'!!!

But, look at all those lines! The creases!! The wrinkles... for cryin' out loud!!! Many are newly made, thanks to the 5,000 square feet of garden at il Poggiolo. I HATE to wear gloves. Prefer to get My Hands dirty. I don't ever wear a watch, rings or bracelets... except the sterling silver one I bought in Denver, CO to celebrate one of my birthdays... so, it's paar for the course NOT to slip on even gardening gloves. I also dislike the sensation of being separated from what I am yanking, pulling, extracting, gathering, clipping, digging, moving and so on and so forth. I'm Hands-on. But, not anymore. I inadvertently grabbed a snake!!! while picking up a pile of cut grass from the stone & grassy path around My Garden on its way up to il Castello yesterday. The thin, long thing slithered away, more shocked than I was. For a second though, I thought it was a dreaded viper!!! Instead, it was an ordinary garden snake. How appropriate. Nonetheless, handling a snake merited much more than a sedate... Euw... yuck!!! No. More like... Euw-[0q89375bfv197y3 f4!#$##p8q23!!!@####bcr088tqw-987-yuck!!! That will be the last time I ever go ungloved, when preforming A Task in My Garden. Gads.

Un-cut Or Cut...

Un-cut grass...

Yesterday, Saturday, it... did... NOT... rain!!! Managed post-haste to start the lawn-mower to cut the Garden's grass. Damned if it wasn't nearly 9 inches high, so well nourished from 19 days of incessant O2. Normally, I can knock-off from My Task List The Cutting of the Grass in an hour + something. Saturday's adventure took me three hours!!! The machine kept conking-out. So, I... had... to... go... very... slowly... and, I also had to jack the machine up to its tallest setting. A strangely hillbilly looking sight... like a FORD truck with an enormous basket on the back. Though I sweated up a storm from the exertions, I am always well satisfied by the result...

cut grass!!! Love the uniformity of it. Don't you? So orderly too. Gads. 

Hail, Mary?...

Poor, forlorn Goddess of il Poggiolo. Pitiably treated by the local Elements. In this latest case, hail. It's all that white stuff at the base of Her Column. The frozen stuff even chipped-off a bit of her terra-cotta veneer. Now, a poor AND flawed Goddess. Gads.

Roaring River...

Some late Thursday afternoon shots of the Aulella River. It is due to rise considerably in the evening & night-time hours. As You says... Eeets beeen raynningg!!! I and The Dogs, however, will be High & Dry up in the Apartment Azzurro in front of a warm fire. The weather can do whatever it wants to. Gads.

Downpours...

The ONLY weather phenomenon not seen today has been a tornado... Thank God!!!

We have a near-infinite run of thunderstorms from sunrise to now, a late Thursday afternoon.

Besides lots of O2, hail, snow, sleet, cold AND wind have assaulted My Little World of Codiponte. Even the sun showed itself for brief intervals. Very brief. Under a minute each... darn it!!!

Look!!! Even the poor lilacs are drooping heavily from an over-dose of rain. Good crop of flowers though.

I think I can survive another few days of this. The Rai-TV Weather Colonel said we are to be socked-in with rain, etc. until Sunday. Then, vamoose the Crappy-weather, please. I've got a ton of yard-work to do. Starting with cutting... The... Grass!!! Gads.