My Rant About No Rain...

I'm going to regret this, but...
I hate uncertainty!!! One day, the Weather-man says, rain for the Saturday before, the Sunday of and the day after Easter. Then, he diverts to rain only for Saturday. Followed by retracting all with NO RAIN at all... for cryin' out loud!!! 

Who's hand is on the Weather Power Lever here? Global Warming? God, and his Infinite Environmental Wisdom? Barak Obama? Poor guy, the Republicans are blaming him for the high gas prices in America. Tut-tut. Send those R-jerks over here to Italy to really feel the pain at the gas pump. We pay more than America for 1/3rd of an American gallon too!!! I wouldn't be surprised if the same Rs don't blame Our Current President for all else they are unhappy with... drought included. Where? In Arizona? Why is it that the noisiest Republican enclaves are the same ones which have 250% more residents than the land AND available water can handle? Hmmmmm???
Yet, You & I are in Italy and have Mr. Monti, an easy target for what ails us. At least for me. I also HATE do-good-ers. Mr. Monti could care less for the drought, however. He's way more interested in impoverishing this country by increasing taxes... VAT now will run at 23%!!!!!!!!!!... to pay a debt created by others, only to satisfy the European Community Gods up in Brussels. Go tell the same Rs to chew on our VAT to what in the US of A? 11.5% in Illinois? Gosh. Heavy load there.
But, I digress... a bit too much, I'm afraid...

VAT & all else aside... I want a definitive Five-day Forecast calling for abundant rain. Is that too much to ask??? We can make bombs to obliterate Mankind, subject Chinese Folk to make ga-zillions of iPads... now, I don't know about Americans but, only about 5% of the Italians really know how to use one though it looks REAL COOL & COMPETENT to have one in hand... aren't we at the level to manipulate moisture droplets in the atmosphere to make rain... wonderful enriching rain... where, when & how we want it? 

The Summer of 2012, I fear, will be spent holding a garden hose pointed at the 500 plants, bushes & tress we... yes, because, even You got out a shovel to dig holes for plants... have planted... for hours & hours on end, when I would rather be on the Terrace drinking a chilly white wine with You and The Dogs while admiring Our View... of Our Garden del Poggiolo. Gads. 

   

Hopes For Rain...

Rain. My plants need rain. I'd say a good soaking once a week for what remains of our 52 weeks ought do it for them. This wish of mine, however, does not correspond to the Italian climate. Nope. The rains rain in Italy in the Fall & Winter. Then, n'er a drop for the rest of the year. Well, baring some freak 30 minute thunderstorm in August. But then, that's it!!! This year, no rain, except in localized spots like down in the Big City of Aulla which, tragically, got doused with way more than the local Mother Earth could tolerate. They are still cleaning up the place still to this day!!!

Every day, I consult the local weather report for some hint of imminent cattivo tempo = pioggia = rain. Nothing to report, except Blue Skies & Heat. 

One evening, a couple of weeks ago, stationed at the dining table of My Dear English Friends in Codiponte, a delicious array of foods prepared & spread before me, their nicely chilled home-made white wine glistening in the goblet at My Table Place,  and accompanied by two lively personalities with lovely accents beside me, the conversation swerved to the weather. My part of the confab was to bitch/moan/wail about NO RAIN!!! MY POOR PLANTS!!! AND, THE GRASS!!! etc. They chimed in too.  

Now, since we are rapidly approaching My Favourite Holiday of the Year, Easter, when there is normally a dip in the temperature coupled with a threat of O2, the Cook of the Household mentioned a local Ol' Wives Tale. Here it is...
if Palm Sunday is lovely, Easter will be miserably wet... I had previously thought just COLD... 

and, visa-versa...

if it is stormy on Palm Sunday, it will be glorious on Easter.

I left the dinner soon after the grappa was served to consult the weather oracles on the Internet. On that particular night, the local weather report predicted a dreadfully dull Palm Sunday. Lots of grey clouds and a mild... very mild... threat of water droplets. OK. I won't quibble when the rains come, I just want enough water for my plants. 

Since that dinner, twice, sometimes thrice a day, I have returned to meteoapuane.it for the latest Bollettino Meteo. The forecast has changed!!! Palm Sunday is destined to be wonderfully Warm & Sunny... temps in the high 70s, not a cloud in sight, nearly Beach Weather, Friends... while Easter is due to have consistently heavy rains AND snow!!!... even at the lower elevations. Now, now, now... let's not exaggerate with the snow, signori... per favore. Just the rains are fine. A good soaking, Thank you. Gads.  

The Garden Math Says...

I did The Math on The Garden. Math's not my thing. Numbers are obstinate. They stay as numbers. Not like History. It can often be a maybe/but/perhaps. Anyway...

for the past two weeks... and this explains my absence from this blog... I have planted over 100 plants, shrubs, a few bush-lettes and a tree too... without the darn partridge OR the pear. Here's A List...

30 box-woods

32 lavander

6 viburnum

2 corbezzolo

1 alloro

1 olio fragrance

1 ligustro

1 nespolo

18... name escaped me

2 lillac

1 hydrangea

1 boule de neige

5 conefirs 

and...

1 cherry tree.

TOTAL = 102
My destroyed hands can show much of this trial. One with Corn-husker's!!!

I have also yanked, re-planted or, potted over 30 plants. Many COMPLETELY incinerated by the EXTREME COLD of last February. I'll dispense with The List of the Victims. 

I've a been furiously working to finish this Spring-time Task before Monday of next week when, I will climb a scaffolding to paint Our New Blue... a lovely Han Blue in the Salotto & Sala and a water repellent Cream in the Cucina. I suspect a week and a half will be necessary to do The Job... if I can manage to NOT FALL OFF the ladder. 

Not a day after The Painting Chore has been stricken off My Task List, up will come The Time to Move... furniture from the antiques dealer, even more from our two jammed-packed garages in Genoa and still more from a friend's house after an estate sale she held.

The rest of the Summer, I intend to read books in My Garden... something I feel I deserve... surrounded by...

A) My Dogs

and...

B) You.
It is this that I bought the darn place!!! Gads.

The Latest Plantings...

While the Work-guys were COOL inside laying pavers, I fried outside in the late March sunshine, a prematurely August sort of heat, to plant 20 box-woods. We need RAIN, Folk!!! Since we skipped Spring, I guess the lack of water is a foregone conclusion but, the lack is worrisome. Gads. 

We're Almost Done...

By today's end, il Salotto's terra-cotta flooring...

and, la Sala da Pranzo's.

Tomorrow, the Cucina, then the grouting finished by Friday and we will be done!!! Gads.

Fast Tour Of The Garden...

On Tuesday, March 27, 2012... as You commanded on the telephone earlier this morning. His wish is ONLY My Command, or so the saying goes. Gads.

Flooring Emotions For Tuesday...

March 27, 2012... and OMG!!! Il Salotto has been layed!!! All it needs is the grouting. But first, the Work-guys must finish the center field in the Sala da Pranzo and to lay all the pavers in the Cucina. 

Progress is beautiful!!! Gads.

Another Day of Flooring Emotions...

Tut-tut... another day of laying down the terra-cotta flooring, now in the Salotto. This room is a kind of one-sided trapezoid. Does that make any sense? Anyway, we ran into A Tech-Question... to follow or not to follow the shape of the room for the interior field... or, the carpet? If we did, then both the outside & inside fields would be full of chopped up little pieces of terra-cotta, thanks to the rather rakish angle of a wall. These itzy-bitzy pieces are because the outside field pattern I chose... straight alternating pavers works well AND simply, if the pavers are layed at 90% angles to whatever they butt-up against... wall or border, etc. Creating a square center field solved the outside field issue EXCEPT that...

over in the far right corner in the photo below, there would be a whole lot of outside field. Fine. 

The Work-guys & I did several trial runs and My Vote went for how you see it. A carpet effect which is in the center of the room... ditto for the Sala da Pranza. We have obeyed the Law of Uniformity!!!
But, don't it all look nice? Gads.

The Beeg Myyysteryy...

There was an old wooden stairs which, once-upon-a-time, connected the Terrace above to the Loggia below. It was a typical model for these Lunigiana parts... 2" thick planks of fir as struts cut with angled zig-zags to place the steps. It was painted in a local signature Bordeaux, a color long since dried to the end of its Life by Sun & Rain & Wind. I loved it. And, I saw a Future for it too. In the meantime, and without asking, The Work-guys took the better part of the wooden stairs and parked it inside the Esseccatoio to await its Future, when they demolished the old terrace to build a new one. That was very nice of them. Faced with ever escalating costs, with much dear thanks to the Monti Government... an unelected entity, by the way... raising taxes, which, naturally, causes prices to AUTOMATICALLY go up. Is the Monti Government... or, any government... so stupid not to know that raising taxes is INFLATIONARY???... I had decided for adapting the old wooden stairs as a temporary solution to get from the Cucina to the bathroom in the Lavanderia. It would be a four foot jump without a ladder/stair/slide and, sadly, I can no longer take jumps of over six inches. Well, on Friday, when I left for Genoa to check on You and the Tuesday of my return, that Future Use vanished. The stairs are gone!!! Ripped off!!! Stolen!!! Kidnapped, even!!! 

Now, who, much less why, would anyone steel an old wooden stair?   

Whoever the culprit is, and for whatever reason for this crime may be, it had to be...

A)  someone who knew my Comings & Goings...

B)  someone who knew where the keys were kept to the Esseccatoio AND the Back Gate... for a quick and, undoubtedly, unseen get-away...

and...

C)  someone who knew that I was quite attached to the old wooden stairs... dammit it all to Hell!!!... and had envisioned a Fine Future Use for it too.

Smacks of an Inside Job, no???
After Searching & Investigating High & Low...

1)  the Work-guys claimed to be totally in the dark...
2) ditto for the cabinet-maker, present at the time of the stairs' disappearance, Our Builder, the neighbor's son-in-law, who likes to hang out at My Building Site since, he has nothing else to do.
So, $1,500 later, I'll have a new & spiffy wood stairs, as per My Own Personal Design. And, I could care less. I want My Old Wooden Stairs back!!! Gads.

Before & Afters...

Memory Lane versus Today's Reality...
Sala da Pranzo in 2009...
 

and last week... 
More of the Sala da Pranzo in 2009...

and two weeks ago...
Salotto in 2009... 

and two weeks ago... 

Salotto in 2009... 

and last Monday... 
Very satisfying, no?
Fasten your seat-belts for Our New Blue on all these walls!!! Gads.

2nd Day Of Flooring Emotions...

Friday's Progress... border & outside field of alternating pavers in the Sala da Pranzo is DONE.

Monday & Tuesday will see the same DONE in the Salotto. Then, another day and a half to do the herringbone pattern in the center fields in both beeeg rooomz before the Kitchen gets its terra-cotta flooring. 

Naturally, You has been pestering me to post these photos so he can do Show & Tell with his nurses. Like they don't have enough Important Things to Do down at the hospital!!! Gads.

Terra-cotta...

Flooring emotions!!! The Work-guys started laying the terra-cotta pavers in the Sala da Pranzo this Thursday afternoon. 

What you are looking at is the traditional alternating pattern from the wall to a straight run of pavers for a border around what will be a field in a herringbone pattern.

I just stood in a daze that... finally... what was a hay barn is now nearing to being Our Dining Room!!! Gads.

You Called...

...to say that Our New Blue would be less banal than a soft, creamy white. He followed by invoking... It's Been Done!!! You said he liked the photo with the little panel of Our New Blue. I had to remind the Dear Dr. You that ay leeetle panl ovv blu reads as a painting. It would be an entire other affair to see EVERYTHING in Our New Blue. There was silence on the other end. Then, regaining his debating momentum, You did concede painting the Kitchen in a soft, creamy white. I told him to chew on the idea of PAINTING the other twew beeeg roomz in the same. Our Paint Conversation ended when he said he had to go help the Blind & Sightless & clicked off. Gads.

I Like This White...

Photos do NOTHING for the LIVE effect of the last layer of stucco smoothed on the walls by the Work-guys in La Casa Grande. Our New Blue looks all WRONG... too heavy, too thick, too much like living inside a Fisher-Price toy!!!

Whereas, the soft creamy white of the stucco is so light, sophisticated AND our collection of deer's horns will look stunning against its gentle tone.

Do you think You will let me CHANGE My Vote??? Gads. 

The White Wall Test...

Yep. Time for the White Wall Test with Our Two Blues contestants. On the right, Our Old Blue. And, on the left, Our New Blue. Let's take a look...

The New Blue wins!!! Gads.

Time For A Sub-flooring...

When the Work-guys go away, I NEVER know when they'll return. Today, I was yelling for Nina... Dog #2... all over the village. No Dog. Then, a voice rang out from a window of La Casa Grande... She's here with us!!! I figured it out that it was one of the Work-guys. Yep. They came back to do the Phase IVB sub-flooring for the terra-cotta flooring!!!

It's the third sub-flooring for La Casa Grande. The first, of WWII vintage and made of iron I-beams & terra-cotta bricks, was observed by Our Geometra to be a disreputable construction. The I-beams weren't run into the stone walls to insure its solidity & resistance to E for Earthquake. So, he commanded another second sub-flooring using a special material which looks like cement but, is molto lighter and molto stronger. MOLTO!!!... and more I-beams. However, this second sub-flooring was poured ONLY to re-inforce the first sub-flooring, not to install any kind of flooring on top. Nope. The terra-cotta needs a denser sub-flooring... for gluing purposes... AND one which is level. S.F. #2 slid towards the window walls by about 13 cm. Not good. The above photos are of S.F. #3 in the Sala da Pranzo and the Salotto.

Please note how white the grey base stucco has dried out to be. We are on the verge of The White Wall Test for Our New Blue. We are excited. You is more than excited. He has already hit the flea market across the street from the hospital where he saves people's eye-sight, scouting for new treasures!!!

Meanwhile... outside... the photo below shows the after-effect of cleaning the cement mixer at The End of a Day's Work on S.F. #3. My beautiful verdantly grassy ramp is now burned all to Hell with cement. I knew better to re-build the ramp after Phase II - The Roof... and Phase III - The Upstairs Apartment. I'm going to live with it... for now. Gads.