My hiatus...

Yes, I have been too long absent from this blog. I do apologize. I am back now. However, I do have A Very Good Excuse. Please accept it.  I've been really busy with Il Poggiolo! 

And, rather than Bitching & Complaining & Pining-away about the travails of my stone farm-house in the Lunigiana from my air-conditioned roost in Genoa, I now have the luxury... perhaps, The Privilege... to do The BCP right on site.
La Casetta is finished. Well, almost. It is missing two radiators & some paint touch-ups. Che sara' sara'! The house is quite comfy, a cool refuge from our 100+ degree heat. 

So, let me start to bring you up to date...

Watering, watering & more watering. It takes over two hours of tugging on a 160 foot long garden-hose over the crap the work-guys insist on littering... it will take all my strength not to mention the quantity of cigarette butts & plastic water bottles presently decorating the grounds of My Property... to sustain the 150+ plants, bushes & flowers I have sunk into the local Mother Earth from our globally warmed weather.  This is the Evening Shift. The Morning is blessedly shorter. The poor plants-in-pots cannot make it to 7PM what with The Heat & Humidity blowing.

My new rock walls... I reached the point when I could no longer tackle the jungle of roving vines, idiotic nocciola bushes... just another weed, in my mind... and other verdant paraphernalia running above the sentiero... or, pathway... up to the Castle in the borgo above Il Poggiolo. I was thoroughly disgusted too in confronting several varieties of wire fencing AND odd lots of tractor parts, mattress frames, etc. used to create a barrier... lo' those many years ago... and mightily hidden in the greenery. I decided to call in the Local Calvary of Luigi & Domenico, two local septuagenarians of Herculean Strength & Ability in the Garden Clearing Department. By the way, it is NEVER Domenico & Luigi. No reason. It's just the way it is. The two men were quite willing to clear away what disturbed me in the matter of two mornings, always from 7 to Noon. 

What remained was a glaring need for new rock walls. This required the stone mason bravura of a cute & gentle young man by the name of Denis. Yes, not a very Italian name, is it? It has been the fashion for the last 30 years to give English names which work with the Italian Sound System of Vowel & Consonant, such as Denis, Cristian (please, note the lack of an "h") or Jonathan (why one name with an "h" and not the other is a mistero). Denis was quite willing to do me two walls without the benefit of cement or mortar. Yep. Fatte al naturale!!! He too knocked them out in the space of two mornings. However, he did have HELP. I played Assistant by transporting the stones in my new fangled heavy-duty plastic wheel-barrow. May I say? I will NEVER do that again in My Life!!! I was so worn out at the end of my day, I could barely get a glass of chilly white wine to my mouth, much less sip it. But, are they not beautiful rock walls? By the way, that fig tree in the background is ladden with ripe fruit just asking to be paired with a delicate & sweat prosciuto crudo di Parma. Aren't I lucky?

I have had many other adventures, but they are for future blogs.
In the meantime, feast your eyes on the work-guys attempting to move out of their way one of the massive tree-trunk beams before proceeding with rebuilding the last of the roofs of La Casa Grande. It took six guys and a complex arrangements of scaffolding to move the darn thing to its temporary home.  For this maneuvering, I just watched, thank you. Gads.