Back to Plan B...

One of the ongoing controversies of Il Poggiolo is... where to put the Kitchen in La Casa Grande. I have bruises to show for it. Back when the main house was in the decrepit state shown in the photo below, the Kitchen, as dictated by Mr. You-know-who in his Grand Plan A, was to be built in the Little Room with the prison-like window between the Portico, out of view, and the main Entrance Door to the main house on its right. Preserving an ultra-short Entrance corridor leading to the upper most of the two large rooms of La Casa Grande, destined by Mr. You-know-who to be the Dining Room, we would thus have to punch through an ancient stone wall of not some puny thickness to connect this Kitchen to the Dining Room. The other large room of the house, off the Portico, would be the Salotto... or, Living Room. Decorum is preserved, to the pleasure of Mr. You. Va' beh.
 

Several circumstances lead to throwing Mr. You's Grand Plan A into the trash-bin. Here's the list...

1. The sub-flooring to the Portico was deamed by our geometra & builder to be pericolante... or, quaintly said... highly dangerous!!! It's reconstruction raised the level of the Portico's floor by several critical centimeters, transforming the doorway between the Little Room and the Portico into a thorough-fare suitable ONLY to any elves & dwarfs wishing to serve dinner out on the Portico AND NOT for a 6'-2" American, much less for a 5'-4" Mr. You. Oh... yes... certainly... we could jack that part of the house up, smash through a two foot thick wall at a delicate juncture for supporting the two stories of house above to have a decent doorway for a fantastic sum of Euros!!! No, Thank you. There are other more important uses for those Euro's in the Future Life of Il Poggiolo. And, yep. The Kitchen would have to find another spot.
2. I had become fed up with slaving-away in what I must say is quite a cute little sage-green Kitchen in La Casetta, whilst our Guests & Mr. You have a rollicking Good Ol' Time with their cocktails of Pro-secco, etc. upstairs in the Salotto in front of a fire. I decided I wanted to cook with Il Popolo about me. Enough of this being relegated to a Cut & Chop sort of Siberia. Naturally, Mr. You-know-who never fails to mention that my Hallmark Phrase whenever anyone dares to enter our Kitchen in Genoa is... OUT OF MY KITCHEN!!! Tut-tut, I said to him. No Little Room for My Kitchen.
3. In the meantime, I asked our builder... he's our plumber too... just where might a Kitchen go without entailing much cost & inconvenience to all concerned. He pointed to what was a corner... in the Grand Plan A of Mr. You... of the Salotto. Well, there it is, I said. 

So, I drew up My Grand Plan B. The lower ex-Salotto room of the main house would be a Kitchen, a Dining Room and a small sitting area in front of a fireplace. The ex-Dining Room would be a Salotto & Studio with a fireplace with ample room for skate-boarding. And, the Little Room would be just large enough for a single-bed Bedroom with Bath-with-shower. Ta-da!!! All was well with My World. Secure in the builder's confirmation as to just where best a Kitchen should be, I ably fended off the consistent assaults by Mr. You in resurrecting his Grand Plan B, regardless of who pointed where.

Then, the Winds of Construction changed. It happened during our 2 hour + meeting with our builder & geometra last week about the Big Plumbing Plan for our little borgo. The particular change of direction occurred when it was collectively decided to bury the septic tank under the pavement of the Cortile. Tubes connecting tubes connecting other tubes dictated that the Best Place for the Kitchen would be in the darn Little Room. My Bedroom would have to await the completion of the drying shed. It's anyone's guess when that will happen. I was too stunned to KILL any of the possible candidates.

I mourned the symmetry & society of My Grand Plan B. Mr. You already has his terra-cotta Bedroom & Bath off the Portico. I would have my Bedroom & Bath in geranium red off the main Entrance. A cozy room dedicated to the three True Italian Pursuits of Domestic Pleasure... cooking, eating & talking around a fire in ochre would be ideal in the lower of the two large rooms. And. Mr. You would have his Grand Salon of a Salotto & skate board track, if he so desired, in bordeaux, and where no-one would ever go because there is not cooking-eating-talking done there. Va' beh.

So now... the currents are favoring Mr. You's Grand Plan A. I do not want to surrender... damn it. Stay tune for further controversies. Gads. 

No! Not here?...

Why couldn't have God put Plumbing down on the list for His Seven Day Program and let all of us avoid a lot of inconvenience & money? Well, actually, it was six days plus that one for R & R which, for most of us, was the day one HAD to do homework. Anyway... how hard would it have been for Him to AUTOMATICALLY sink septic tanks, tubes for fresh water in & the dirty water out, not forgetting to have manufactured toilets which do not cost that of a new medium-sized FIAT!!! wherever there would be Human Habitation... hmmm? Probably, God felt we needed to learn some Important Lesson, and mine, apparently, is to await for the cost-estimate on the Phase Three for Il Poggiolo's Plumbing Plant Escapade. This is the result of buying a house in the country with a single spring for fresh water.... now, run d-r-i-e-d... and a single out-house on the Cortile... now o-b-l-i-t-e-r-a-t-e-d!!! When all is finished & PAID for, Il Poggiolo will have a plumbing system for the complex's 4 kitchens, 5 bathrooms & a laundry room to boot!!! Now, I understand why the hyper-decorated  house & ornamented garden was ALWAYS the one belonging to the Italian plumber. Gads.

By the way, before I sign off, the above photo is where our builder/plumber & our geometra deamed an appropriate spot for sinking a septic tank... below the Cortile!!! Gads-zooks.  

So wide yet, so thin...

A demonstration of what plant abuse looks like. Of course, this is said by someone who has broken The Cardinal Rule of Gardening in these parts and that is... DO NOT PLANT PLANTS IN THE WINTER!!! Pazienza. Here are three abandoned-in-a-dump examples, seemingly full & leafy, newly planted in Mother Earth & anxious to find a better home with us than with whomever. Oh! I certainly must tidy things about around the planting site. A low rock wall is tops on the list. Anyway...

change the perspective and they are as about as deep a tacky metal fence. Italians! Gads.

Winter dregs... winter surprises...

Pretty darn dreary... the grey sky... the grey stone of the neighbor's house... & the grey wintered plants. There's hope however!!! 

God... in his Generous Wisdom... invented a plant to help relieve all the grey. It's called Larus... in Italian. It has a large strong green & waxy leaf and its leaves stays just like that for 365 days out of the year!!! The plant grows like an unwanted weed & can do so to nearly tree height. Apparently, it loves everything... sun, shade, cold, warm, rain, blizzards, winds... you name and it will deal with it!!! Not bad, hey? UNFORTUNATELY, most Italians maniacally use this invention as a fence... to separate what's theirs from The World Beyond!!! The poor things are terrorized two or three times a year by a guy on a ladder wielding electric or gas-powered shears. Man dominating plant. It's so Italian. They can't seem to do anything with their politicians so, what do they do? They take it out on a plant. Passive-aggressive wimps. Not us.

Today, on a country walk with the Dog, You-know-who & I came upon 25 Larus surreptitiously unearthed & flung to their Fate in an un-official trash heap along the track leading to the local fresh-water spring, Paradiso. We took them!!! 5 trips in You-know-who's AUDI. Well, we couldn't pick up three largest of them. We can give them Good Homes!!! The spot in the photo above is one. All, however, had been cruelly abused into Life as Regimented Hedge. Conformity Italian Style!!! We will plant them tomorrow and, probably, the next too as barrier bushes too. HOWEVER, we will feed them, water them & let them reach for the sky or, in any direction but down or snipped!!! Gads.

Olives...

Nothing to do with aged-walnut trusses, bathroom fixtures or terra-cotta pavers...

We went on a walk this morning with some Codiponte friends to join others for pranzo... or, lunch... who live in another borgo... or, stone village... above Codiponte. The place, called Luscignano, is situated in a sella... or, saddle... high above the Aullela River as it winds past Codiponte on its way to meet the River Magra at the Big City of Aulla before spilling widely into the Mediterranean Sea near the port city of La Spezia.
We first stopped-off to say Happy New Year! to the folk who run the local oil press in our little town. They have been working steadily since November. Fulvio, one of the owners of the press said they have so much work, he & his sister will be busy until March. 7AM until sometimes Midnight! Apparently, it has been The Year for olives. Not so for wine. The heavy September rains ruined the vendemmia... or, wine pickin' & squeezin'. Maybe olives are impervious to being drenched 24/7. 

Over the holidays, everyone offered us their fresh-squeezed olive oil to drip over pieces of bread made from potatoes. The color is a earthy, rich green, has the unmistakable aroma of olives and a light, sweat taste. The combination is perfectly contrasted... the heavy bread and the easy oil... and is a great way to start a meal or, just as a pleasant snack in mid-afternoon. Chase it down with a red or white wine.

The side of the valley of the Aullela at Codiponte towards the arch of the passing sun are all olive groves. In September, folk spent their time cutting grass around their olive trees & burning it on-site. This is not work with a lawn-mover. No. The terrain is too rugged. Weed-wackers moan from early morning until late at night. Some old contadini... or, farmers... still use the local type of machete or an angled blade on a long wooden pole to cut the grass... sweeping back 'n forth in great swaths.

Once all is clipped & orderly, their next chore is to drape these long nets... the ones from China even look knitted!... underneath the trees to catch the fall-out of olives. They are anchored from short sticks to keep the nets off the wet ground. Then, the locals either hand pick the olives off the trees, one by one and there might be hundreds of trees!... or, they hit them with rakes or bamboo sticks. It is called bacchiare gli olivi... or, batting the olive trees. The olives are mostly mechanically stripped of any leaves before they are carted to the frantoio... or, oil press.
It's work. Tedious work. No helpers beyond the immediate family. And, you ONLY see old folk doing this. No-one under 35 in sight! One octogenarian we passed on our way to Luscignano was on his hands & knees picking up any olives found on the ground! His cotton bag in his lap was filled with the green, brown & black olives. He must have been 80 years old! 

It struck us all after our lazy after-New-Year's walk & lunch that we were... possibly... witnessing the last generation of locals to harvest the olives. We felt sad. And, to think that the richness of this odd & out-of-the-way corner of Tuscany called the Lunigiana was based on olive oil. It was the wealth, the currency, the life of this part of the world. No more.

Il Poggiolo on January 1, 2011...

January 1, 2011... Part II

Il Poggiolo on the first day of 2011...

a hint of sun knocking against the open wooden gate to Il Poggiolo & the Front Door to La Casetta...

sun brightening the Portico, the stones of the Cortile and those too of L'Esseccatoio lately washed by the rains driven in from the Mediterranean Sea on the other side of those mountains in the far distance...

the sunny path up to the Upstairs Apartment's Front Door, the facade above the Cortile seemingly missing its eyes... windows & shutters... due to be installed sometime in February...

an edge of sky reflected in the fish swimming pool... here the sun barely arrives in the short days of winter...

the Upstairs Apartment and the heart of La Casa Grande below it... illuminated in the late afternoon light, smoke from the many chimneys of Codiponte creating a haze wafting across the valley of the Aullela River out of view below Il Poggiolo...

Seeing the house with sunshine in these photographs makes me feel happy & amazed too at how much has been accomplished in the last year... listing the key elements of note... La Casetta finally finished, furniture & furnishings moved in & continually lived in since last May, all the other roofs & structures recently re-built & solidified and the terraces of the garden re-constructed, ready for the real work of gardening to last me for some time to come. 

Now, we can look forward to fitting-out the Upstairs Apartment in the new year, followed by doing the same with the heart of La Casa Grande... the two large main rooms, one accessed from the Portico, which will hold a kitchen & dining & sitting areas in front of a large fireplace, the other of nearly equal size & accessed from a stone staircase off the Cortile will have a Living Room & Studio divided by, again, a large fireplace, and the third room smaller room, which will be a modest bedroom with bath. Another bedroom with bath, off the Portico & painted in a strong terra-cotta red... it rests under the roof of La Casetta and so, was built-out along with La Casetta... is already used by You-know-who. Gads.