A view with histories...
Archive post May 25, 2019…
I published the above photo looking out our main entrance at il Poggiolo on Instagram the other day. Miraculously, it got 21 likes. No one bothered to comment beyond liking. Naturally, this tally pales considerably against the 10,723 likes for an Instagram post the very same day of a red Vespa parked in front of a contrasting wall of ochre stucco, probably last slapped-on 250 years ago. Degrado fa bellezza. Might it be more the wall than the Vespa? Chissa? Does rather indicate what people are keen on. Stone ain’t it. But, hey! There’s a lot of histories in my photo…
Hundreds of years ago, Our Favoured Village of Codiponte was nestled on the other side of the Aulella River from where it and Our il Poggiolo stand today and where now stands the Pieve di Codiponte… AKA The Village Church… and a row of houses, one giving refuge to the Scuzzy Bar… at the base of that big, lumpy mountain in the background. That Big Lumpy Mountain… no one has ever mentioned if there is a name attached… is missing good part of itself. Long ago, perhaps at the beginning of the Christian Era, though certainly after the Fall of the Roman Empire, the mountain’s mass above the tree line of olive groves and forests slid down after days and days and days… and days of torrential rains. In a jiffy, old Codiponte was wiped out. Obliterated. Gone. A truly catastrophic occurrence.
The mountain is kind of bald looking, isn’t it? The forests below the tree line, apparently, are inhabited by cingiale… or, boars. Hunting is very important in these parts. A sport every Wednesday & Sunday of the weeks between October & February. Occasionally, a hunter and part-time pyro-maniac, sets fire to those forests to flush out the cingiale from their dark eyries. These jerks… for lack of a better and gentile title… never take into consideration the local winds. The fires do not destroy the forest but, rather thanks to the local winds, burn up and incinerate what greenery has cropped up above the mountain’s tree line since the last incendio… or, forest-fire. Lots of excitement though when a fire erupts. About every two to three years. Helicopters, Canadair turbo-props and lots of fire trucks & vans from Aulla… 30 minutes away… arrive to combat the fiery menace. These various services create a kind of wonky ballet on the ground and in the air but, they do save the day.
Codiponte is in a nearly enclosed valley but for the Aulella River. It meanders to the Mediterranean Sea through a species of canyon the locals refer to as la Gola… or, the throat. A dirt track which follows the river was transformed into an asphalted provincial highway in the 60’s after the devastating floods of ‘66 & ‘67. Are you old enough to remember Florence in 1966? The government sagely saw fit to bring the Lunigiana into the Modern Age with the new infrastructure. Before, you had to drive twisty-windy roads, often only well worn dirt roads, over the mountains between Codiponte and the Mediterranean Sea. The village’s valley makes a wide open bowl. The part towards the course of the sun has olive trees, as shown in the photo, and the part in the shade, chestnut trees. You made you money off the former and lived off the later. Both important for the folk, once-upon-a-time. Not so much today.
The closed up stone house in the photo and opposite our entrance arch was not always so spiffy. Typical of Italian village houses, it’s on two floors. The Ground Floor for the animals… out of view and now has the main entrance to the house, its kitchen and a microscopic seating & dining area… while the Second Floor… its secondary entrance gate is seen in the photo, which today has the house’s only bedroom & bath … is where the inhabitants lived, ate, slept, other. Before the current owners… a unpleasant couple who begrudgingly say Buon Giorno to You & I, if they don’t bolt in the opposite direction when they see us!!!… bought the place and spiffed it up. Sometimes the owner’s grown son from a previous marriage comes with his dog for long holiday weekends and for Codiponte’s sagra in September. He’s nicer. Way nicer, thanks to his Mother. The previous inhabitants were a woman who raised her two children in the house. It was a dump. Dilapidated, leaky roof, cardboard stuffed in the windows, dirty and unkept. Gossip describes her and her family as the poorest in Codiponte. Hard life. Not helped by a job-less, ignorant AND violent husband. He took His Stuff elsewhere.
The ramp, which climbs past the spiffified house and il Poggiolo’s rock retaining wall on the right in the photo leads up to the Borgo Castello. The Codipontesi got smart after the disaster of the sliding mountain and built the new town of Codiponte on top of a hill behind il Poggiolo, along with a castle and a perimeter wall. The later maked up part of il Poggiolo’s courtyard. Over time, the village outgrew its perch and slowly built down to where the village stands today. Progress. In stone.
That’s about it. Now you know more than you did before. Isn’t history fascinating?
Our weather in May...
Archive post May 21, 2019…
We have had the most boring weather this month…
Days of heavy grey clouds. One would have thought rain or, a thunderstorm might erupt. Mostly just spray. Left the garden unworkable and the streets slidey slick. I can count two days when it actually did poor down water. One of them was last Sunday. Spent it curled up in bed with a good book. Nice ambition. T’was ruined periodically by two cabin-fevered Weimaraners. They hounded me to go out. Once out, they hounded me to come back in. The humidity has been exceptional. And lingers still.
Unexpected cold hit too. Not only low-low temps in the early morn, a couple of notches above 32F. Freezing. But at mid-day? There were a few mid-week days when the thermometer struggle to even reach 50F, at 2PM!
Winds blew in and stayed. In all directions. From the mountains and from the sea. Did you know the Italians have a unique name for each wind direction? Yessiree. None use the name, Mariah. And, Thank God. What blew our way bent trees at 45 degrees to the horizontal with huge gale-like gasps. Explosions, comes to mind. Trees would gently sway with a benign breeze and then, suddenly, rip and tear at themselves and each other from the violence of a lengthy gust. Some tall leafy giants did come out of the ground. The Dogs & I saw a few on Our Morning Walks in Nature.
The Loggia of La Casa Grande is a fairly protected space… warm too… and a nifty one to watch Mother Nature do her thing, caused by or despite Global Warming, while not suffer any untidy consequences. The show beyond was often way more interesting… also slightly disturbing… than the Internet.
Not so inside La Casa Grande. Historically, at Easter-time, I transfer myself with the canines in tow from La Casetta, Our Heated Winter HQ, and set up Summer Base Camp in La Casa Grande. 2019 was no exception. The Bunny Holiday has often been the kick-off for warm Tuscan and Spring-like weather. Blue skies, big puffy clouds, birds tweeting, bees buzzing, You sunbathing out on the aia. I think after 10 years of this seasonal re-location, I may use the word historically rather than say, habitually. Both would apply, however. Oh, My Lord… I came so very close to chucking the interior high temp of 50F and returning below to La Casetta. 65F is ideal. I could see my breath. The Creosus-person would have been ecstatic had I done so. He slept under wool blankets or my feather comforter. Absorbing my body heat underneath with him. Nina-beena curled into a tight ball in one of the ratty poltrone to gather a modicum of h-e-a-t. It’s been tough. But we are toughing it out.
Manna . from the EU...
Archive post May 12, 2019…
Mentioned a few times before…
Codiponte is the local dialect for… At the head of the bridge… notifying travelers, pilgrims & merchants in the post-Fall-of-the-Roman-Empire of a toll to pay at the village’s singular & important bridge. It was the only one around allowing folk to continue to the Garfagnana, Lucca and on to Rome.
There have been several Codiponte bridges over the last millenium and a half. The last was built in 1978 and is referred to as The New Bridge. Or, at least, that is how You & I call it. Others say, The Casciana Bridge. Casciana is the town with a scenic overlook of Codiponte way down below. The New Bridge is a typical ode to 70’s heavy concrete and enormous I-beams spanning the Aulella River. Saves people from driving or walking over the next-to-last bridge erected sometime in the 17th Century to reach the villages above Codiponte, i.e. Casciana. It is the very one You & I and Our Neighbors use to get to the proverbial other side or, the parking lot. There is the vestige of a yet another bridge, the Before-the-next-to-last one, today acting as a terrace to a neighbor’s stone batiment of a house. They rarely use the it.
Today’s Next-to-last-bridge has two lovely stone arches, a Madonnina in the middle to commemorate one span swept away in the devastating floods of 1967. The 1966 flood which swirled Florence to Nightly News destruction hit Codiponte too, but town & bridge resisted. Not so the year after. The bridge is a sure-shot to car or house. Old ladies with canes, three-wheeled Ape’s, FIAT Panda’s and tractor’s often cross over it to fast-track into or out of the village. From afar, it is a pleasing monument in weathered stone and lichens. Walking across it is a reminder of how ugly asphalt can be. Well, no more…
A Young Citizen of Codiponte, a recent graduated from Parma University in the management & safe-guarding of historic monuments & stuff, found gainful employment to do just that at our City Hall, in Casola in Lunigiana, Our Mother Capital. One fine day, tending to her duties, a letter passed across her counter from the ministry of the European Community concerned about the continent’s vast array of historical & cultural monuments, small or large. The gist of its communication was, the ministry was disposed to launching a whole bunch of Euro funds in anyone’s way, if they/it could demonstrate a worthy cause, small or large. Our Young Citizen got fast to work. One of her proposals was our Next-to-last bridge in Codiponte. And, it was accepted.
You & I knew nothing of this until one day last summer, a Committee of Suits was seen gathered at the Next-to-last bridge, along with Our Young Citizen and others not in suits but, jeans & giubbotto’s from hailing from City Hall.
Then, last week, we could not leave our cars at the parking lot before the bridge. Its space consumed by large equipment, a portable latrine, scaffolding, an aluminum sided-shack, other. Some things were later moved. Quickly following though was a sun-glasses clad hunk manipulating a ditch-digger. Here is what they dug up…
A Medieval stone roller-coaster.
Our First Reaction was… Oh! Che bello!!! Second Reaction was… How in the Hell is Terasina going to cross the bridge even with her cane? Third was… How in the f**k are we going to cross with our groceries? The Dogs love it. New earthy smells. The best avenue was to move onto hypothesis of the bridge’s history according to Our Esteemed Local and historian…
Originally, the bridge was shorter and with only one arch, the one nearer the houses along the banks and below il Poggiolo. The Aulella River was not as wide as it is today. Problem with rivers and flooding is the flood waters often alternatingly ricochet off its banks. Someone got fed up with how the river was managing flood waters at Codiponte and changed the river’s flow. And, a second arch was added. It got washed away in 1967. A Madonnina was built in the arch’s reconstruction to commemorate the event but, you had to step up to leave flowers or a lighted candle.
Forgot a Reaction… They can’t leave this roller-coaster pavement, can they? We will know soon. Met another Esteemed Local, who told me a meeting of Suits and City Hall senza is scheduled for tomorrow to find out what next. Another bridge?
Spring improvements...
Archive post April 19, 2019…
Our Spring Home Improvements campaign continues apace…
Our painter, a diminutive & congenial fellow, came and tackled a peeling wall from humidity and/or water infiltration, filled in several cracks never repaired after the earthquake of 2014 in the Salotto of La Casa Grande and one nasty issue of…? Issue of…? An issue of an unhinged paint-job up in the MBR of the Appartamento Azzurro. The first and last are the most annoying:
we have a mystery humidity issue on the wall at the corner of the stairs in La Casetta. I thought water was a trickle down effect. Ronald was wrong and so was I. Apparently not always. The hypothesis of Our Painter for the flaking paint and rippled plaster & paint is caused by a sub-terranean drain pipe, and one not part of il Poggiolo’s drain infrastructure, which passes along and well below the wall of the stairs from our neighbor’s aia… or, courtyard, to the sewers below us all on this side of Codiponte.
I remember, way back in aught-9, while the Builder Guys were re-building Our Collapsed Great Wall at the entrance ramp to il Poggiolo and digging the trench-to-China to isolated the complex from the muggy soil around it, of discovering a vast and layered network of water pipes running below what would eventually become Our Terraced Garden… filled with olive and flowering fruit trees. Sorry. Sounds like an advertisement. It is. The weaving course of pipes looked more complicated than the LA interstates lacing through that city. The painter sanded, chipped, and dug out the disturbed area of wall, administered a sealant, plastered three layers of nylon netting and stucco, followed with You’s adore Sage Green paint color as the finishing touch, once the plaster had set & dried. The next day, a stain of humidity. Better but not best. We are now obligated to watch for further signs before re-addressing this issue. The Official Speak.
The latter is the sad & confirmed result of doing things on the cheap, gainfully aggravated by a collective ignorance and time worries from both myself and an available handyman commissioned to… do… The… Job. What’s the ol’ adage? Beer before wine, you’ll be fine but, wine before beer, and you’re sick for a year? Well, for paint, the admonition is… nothing catchy comes to mind… Don’t EVER mix paint types. The walls were originally covered in a lime-base paint… calce. A near perfect & natural substance which allows i Spiriti e l’Anima delle parete to breath. A fact I did not retain. It was many years ago. In came the handy-man to re-paint the Apt. Azzurro, post-earthquake, with Our Gorgeous Antique Blue in an acrylic-based paint and what happened? The calce rebelled. Like the walls are busting out underneath from suffocation. One entire wall’s paint-job of acrylic is lifting up AND off, for cryin’ out loud. Cannot tell you the embarrassment when I showed Our Painter the situation. Another adage and entertainingly explained by Cher’s pumber father in Moonstruck… You have to spend money to save money. Got that lesson down now. The painter and I have postponed this last Paint & Paste Project until the new windows of the Azzurro Apt. are installed.
Il Poggiolo is missing it eyes! Blue, they are and will be once again. A couple of windows & doors of La Casa Grande and Azzurro Apt., in all directions but, most evident from the aia, are now boarded up with plywood panels awaiting the restoration of their original structures. Two operai came last Monday and carried off the near-death array of windows & doors away… from the effects of wind, rain, cold and searing heat off the aia’s stone in our Summer heat-waves. Il Poggiolo now looks like it’s been in bad fight. The house will have to stay that way until after Easter. It will not be at its best for the On-the-aia Pasquetta Picnic on the Monday after Pasqua. The good news is we will be set up for that Commie Holiday, May 1st. At least that!
Hurtling towards Easter...
Archive post April 12, 2019…
Two thing are heading for a collision in these late days of April. One is Easter, which lands on our 2019 calendar’s doorstep on Sunday, the 21st of April. Rather late. It’s a problem.
The weather gets weird around Easter. Always has and always will and no matter the date. The contadini here in Codiponte do fret over the late planting of their orto’s. Avid calendar watchers. They and everyone else also fear a sudden and severe Easter cold snap. Worse still, rain could happen. Keep in mind, Italians are not keen on sudden, cold, snap, and rain. They are for Easter. It was once the top on the Christian religious charts. It’s been displaced by overwhelming commercial interests promoting instead Christmas. Spirit & mystery against the almighty dollar/euro/peso/other. A sad commentary.
Lot of days to muck-up too for the long Easter weekend. Il Venerdi Santo on Friday, Saturday to scamper to the grocery store to load up, Pasqua Sunday for Mass and un pranzo con agnello coordinated with dishes full of artichokes, peas and potatoes, and finally, La Pasquetta, on the Monday after Easter, for a picnic outdoors. What a boon. A Monday off. Doesn’t happen in Italy unless Christmas falls on a Monday. The day after Easter is the most problematic day of the long weekend holiday. The gents here want sunshine & warmth to eat un panino con prosciutto crudo, lay around in an lounge chair soaking up the beneficial rays from Sig. Sole and be left in Peace… outside. A sudden or even consistent rain shower would ruin la loro pace pasqualina. The later for sure.
The other is the developing 10 day weather report. The first is unavoidable. The second is a product of prediction which, as my Mother always said, is a false art. False art or not, the current forecast does seem a bit uncertain. Mildly said. Pretty shitty, in others words. It depends on your interpretation and import you’d give to the little icons running down the screen of your iPhone. I have a weather.com app which tells me the weather for the day and for the next 7 wherever I am to be found. Don’t you love to be surveilled? Or caught? And by a gadget? Numbers run down the blue screen and are matched by the dates of those 7 days. Not good. 90% of the icons are puffy white clouds with slanted blue lines… meaning rain, how cute!… shooting down from underneath for today through Easter. The 10% is for today’s weather. The sun was only out in the first hours of our day today. Here is the later story…
What to do? I don’t have pop-corn OR, a good movie to watch. HATE my books too. You’s coming to Codiponte for an extraordinary 13 day It’s-Easter holiday. Days off slung between the bridge of the two weekends. Those slugn holidays are Liberation Day from the Nazi’s and Commie Holiday of May 1st. You may already know the grim news. I ain’t telling him. But, if it’s crummy outside, I won’t be able to endrenture him to yard work. He’ll just have to settle for putting in order the La Casa Grande or other locations, like his Kingdom. His BR is a mess. Then, guests are due in too. Why didn’t they book Sharem el Sheik? So terribly inviting to say… how about if we just hang out?
Nostaglia...
Archive post April 5, 2019…
Met friends for un pranzo di lavoro. Euro 10. 11 bucks and change. Can’t beat it. Two options for each course: il primo piatto… THE PASTA DISH!!!… A or B, il secondo… THE MEAT DISH!!!.. again, an A or B, un contorno… THE VEGETABLE DISH!!! which can run from white beans to an actual veggie… vino, acqua & pane. A nap afterwards. We all chose spaghetti with muscles, then went our individual ways for il secondo but, we all selected meat. No other choice. Fish is rarely on a menu in the Lunigiana. One ristoratore told me to go hop into the sea if I wanted fish at his establishment. Sorry. We are in the Lunigiana. Pork, beef, veal, lamb, in any form, are the mainstay of the diet here.
Requires a knife. A serrated, pointy one. Not too short nor too long. No Williams-Sonoma cleavers, please. Adore the old type of a wood handled knife with flat-head steel nails to hold the complex of blade to handle. Black, of course. There’s something cheesy about a natural bleached-wood or stained handled knife, particularly for dining. Props for too many photo-styling sessions. Bet they never knew what they were really intended.
I love the art of manipulating a knife and fork to meat, especially when attached to a bone. A challenge. Often an adventure. So civilised to use the point to extract to taste by what was formerly attached by grissle. It’s what has a lot of flavor. Took a bit of practice when I was a kid. Wanted to go straight to eating with my fingers. My Mother was vehemently contrary to that tendency.
Learning the use and occasions for cutlery in Italy was my first embarrassing moment upon arriving in my adopted country. We Americans, I’m sorry to say, are barbarians, when it comes to when or, upon what you use a knife. We just attack. Questions, which rarely come, are for later. I was seated at a long & lovely table with eleven other folk of various grades, inclinations, occupations but… ALL ITALIANS!!!… in a magnificently vaulted ceiling Sala da Pranzo… or, Dining Room, in an apartment high above Lungarno Serristori, FIRENZE!!! Forks to the left, knives to the right. Cannot remember the actual order of the numerable and delicious plates, well beyond A or B. At a certain moment a kind of luxurious multi-layered frittata landed before me and as soon as our Hostess began, I dove in by cutting with a fork AND knife. Everyone came to a stop. Complete silence. All eyes on me. The woman seated to my right lent quietly toward me and gently suggested ditching the knife. Solamente la forchetta, caro. I did. Dinners resumed. My brow beaded with sweat. The dictate learned? In Italy, knives are ONLY used on meat.
I was at another dinner recently and full of bubbling & funny around-30 women. Five Americans. I started to translate the waiter’s discussion on the night’s menu when I was detained by raised hands and voices… I’m a vegan… I don’t eat meat… I can’t eat cheese. All news to me. Five raised hands wiped out 80% of the Italian menu. Few options left. The ristorante’s forte are a simple bread one eats by filling it full of fresh salumi and/or cheese and the other is a slab of meat seared & served. The creativity of the five plus the waiter, we managed to avoid a culinarily sad dinner.
Two thoughts came to mind… the knife is a has-been, if the overwhelming consensus at a dining table was for vegetables. No more challenges. No more adventures. No more Civilisation??? Only hope is to classify la scappetta as di rigore politesse with a piece of bread, like we Southerners do. And the second was… do we just chuck into the garbage pail l’intera cucina italiana??? I was in shock. Now, days later I am reverberating with nostalgia.
Now to the birds...
Archive post March 28, 2019…
Our clocks have lately sprung forward for Daylight Savings Time, the Euro-version. Ore legale in Italiano. The EU wants to eliminate it as a community-wide thing in 2021. Let each country decide to keep it or not. Could be kind of like the entire US has Daylight Savings Time but, Arizona does not. Minor amount of confusion when flying into Phoenix from Denver… two cities in the Western Time Zone. You must flip the hands on your watch either backwards or forwards when you are reminded by the flight attendant of the real time. Here in the EU, they fear confusion. In light of Brexit, immigration and new trade deals with China, they may have a point.
That lost hour of sleep this past Saturday night was a blow to You. He gets so little slumber, what with his commute to & fro the hospital at extraordinary hours. He was not a happy camper while he soaked bread into his cafe latte Sunday AM. His grumbling encouraged me to walk the Canines.
For those Canines, the time change is a boon. Means getting fed at the old stomach clock hour but the real one says differently. I am saved from those two’s emotional explosions of hunger as they notice the ding-dong of the Campanile of Codiponte ringing in the 7 o’clock hour.
I too am saved the terror of that campanile. By the way, it is tops on My List of what to eliminate here in Codiponte. Oh, not the historic bell tower… per l’amore del dio… just its incessant ringing. Instead, with the time change, my repose is gently lifted to wakefulness by the soft musical chirping of birds as the light outside rises towards dawn. Sweet, like a tickle at one’s ear, until I realized the chirping is mostly right above my head! On La Casetta’s facade towards the Aullela river, between the BR & Bath windows and the slowly decaying Medici cornice, are a series of built-in holes. About 10 or 12 of them all the way across. Highrise nests for the swallows! Their arrival at La Casetta is a yearly occurrence. They came earlier this year. Probable inducement of Global Warming? Chissa? I rise from the bed 90% occupied by my two splayed-out Weimaraners, open the double sash window overlooking the riverscape and then duck just as a swallow… beak high, flaps down, wings spread for landing… on a straight-in approach into one of the holes above my early morning perch. Gently, dried brown bamboo leaves and odd bits of twigs flutter onto the stone window sill and down onto the floor too. Home decoration. The morbid beige of bamboo leaves are ever so chic. Might as well have a cozy home, don’t you think? The fall-out has abated somewhat. It was pretty fast & furious last week. Finding the bits & pieces of the swallow’s home improvements are an endearing reminder of the passing of the seasons here at il Poggiolo. Another used to be rains in March but, that has apparently been postponed… we hope not cancelled out-right!
My Dogs...
Archive post March 21, 2019…
I would bet you a million Euros I am the only person in all of the Lunigiana, and particularly in Codiponte, who carpools his dogs to go on a walk. After the unfortunate incident of last Summer of that Killed Cat, poor thing…
and please let me say, there is new evidence which has recently come to light regarding various aspects & circumstances surrounding the crime perpetrated by My Adore Cucciolo, The Croesus-person: the true & prior conditions of the Victim Pet, starting with its confirmed feral provenance & wild habits, the neighbor’s real association with the Killed Cat, they fed it on another neighbor’s stoop below their house. What? So as not to risk disease? Soil their pristine confines?… and how these professed owners of the Killed Victim dealt in giving succour to the Poor Animal, i.e. they waited over12 hours before carrying the Poor Thing to the Vet’s. My dander is up.
…I can no longer amble about the streets of my community unless The Dogs are securely attached to leashes, a physical impossibility, thanks to a becoming-bummed left hip and an already bummed lower back. Such happy issues. So, I carpool them into the surrounding wildernesses, i.e. those many, many landscape photos posted on Instagram… forrestspears.
I could gainfully bet you a million-trillion Euros I am the only person in Codiponte and securely within a radius of ten miles too of possessing the only stock of pure-breed dog. All others are bastards, mongrels, half-breeds. This majority are often mixes of Jack Russell Terriers… a highly randy lot… and some other runt breed rendering them short of stature and feisty in nature & character. None come up to even mid-calf on a small child. Quite aggressive too. In an occasional contest of physical wills between My Weimaraners and packs of these canine runtlings… a clear indication of how they automatically tend to form into vicious gangs of four-legged thugs… 99% of the time the folk here condemn My Noble Dogs as the perpetrators of any discord. Issues of their size meaning DANGEROUS. How so very ignorant. Whereas, in Absolute Truth, it’s the runts who 99% of the time instigate a whole bunch of growling & snarling. Nina-beena is especially seccata about these types of encounters, trotting home at il Poggiolo. The Croesus-person follows, stopping every few feet to launch a series of WARNING barks at the recalcitrants then, he too bolts for Home.
This leads me to continue with yet another wager of a million-trillion-zillion Euros MY DOGS ALWAYS KNOW THEIR WAY HOME!!! None, not one, nada of these pip-squeak-divano-dogs could Hope, Dream or, Pray their way home. And they don’t have to be small to be so clueless. The Killed Cat Neighbors have a white-haired Golden Retriever. Why call it a Golden Retriever? A stupid dog. Gets out of his confines, only to wander lost through Codiponte. We of the village are obligated to hear… MAATTTEOOO! MAATTTEOOO!! MAATTTEOOO!!! No reply. 20 minutes later I notice scuffling noises outside my windows, and there below, the neighbor masters are seen dragging the bewildered white dog home. Nina-beena has been know to scappate into the wilderness and is waiting for us at il Poggiolo before The Croesus-person and I have arrived. Ditto for The Croesus-person. I rest my case.
Leaves me only to invoke a declaration of Mary Poppin’s reading her own personal assessment:
Just as I thought. “Nina-beena and The Croesus-person, practically perfect in every way.
Urns...
Archive post March 14, 2019…
Buon Giorno a tutti…
Before I proceed with this week’s blog-post, I would like to ask the 3 followers of this blog…
if there are more of you out in there in the Blog-o’-sphere, please make yourselves known. It’s a Question of Moral Support…
to take a Great Big Sniff of the left-hand photo below. Il Poggiolo was a farm for 800 years, of humble roots, and the house & gardens nearly disappeared into a sad destruction, thanks to the indifference of its previous owner, a woman, who benignly allowed the roofs to collapse and the garden to become a garbage dump for the locals. I was told she NEVER set foot in what she had inherited. I am the Hero here.
There is, however, a person near & dear to me, who believes himself to be il Vero Salvatore del Poggiolo. Much contrary to this Other Person, I feel it’s silly to maintain any pretense that il Poggiolo a Codiponte could ever become a physical kindred & equal to, say, a noble Tuscan villa, such as the Villa Mansi in Lucca, just by planting an urn in the garden. My Barbaric American Voice does not come heard.
Our blog-story harks back several years when You… Dottore You-know-who, to be exact, he who labors diligently to save people’s eyesight, occasionally pointing a laser at them to do the job… discovered with the help of his Hospital Nursing Staff… an unsavory congress of persons, a thoroughly Bad Influence upon Our Dear Dottore… found the urn in the photo on the extreme left on an Italian garden ornament website specializing in historical stuff.
You has not been the same since.
Led him to a career dallying continually on the Internet with that Staff of his. When DO THEY work? Managed to collide head-on with catawiki.com. An Internet auction house. You says it is too much fun and saves him bunches of Euros. (Says there’s a trick to win what you want spending few Euros. I am contractually PROHIBITED from divulging it. Sorry. Those are my Orders.) Anyway, a dialogue… Catawiki? How nice, Dear. Have you found something delectable to bid on? Oh, yes! They arrive on Saturday. And so they did. At the local mechanic’s officina. Two tall, heavy-weight cement statues of Dr. Bacchus and Mr Hercules. Middle 19th Century. Had to pay for their transport all the way from il Veneto. Cost a pretty penny. The Other Person was not carrying his wallet. They now grace certain panoramic sectors nel Poggiolo’s garden. There’s one in the middle left photo. The rather swish stance of Mr. Hercules. Greek. Probably Gay. Lots of trials for it too. Myths are tough.
I declared You insane.
More disasters. Helping a client to dabble with the Italianate for her centuries old tower, now a enormous house, You & I developed a close & affectionate collaboration with a stuff emporium, a paradise of the old, copies of the old and a few things truly antique. Heaven. Ambling around & through the depository during one visit, You happened upon an urn. A terracotta urn. Shortly, money passed hands, the AUDI was loaded with not one BUT two of the things. And, a few hours afterwards, they too graced certain panoramic sectors nel Poggiolo’s garden. Che gioia. One of them is nestling in its spot in the middle right photo.
Thought I might sign myself into an asylum.
Many months passed, the Seasons came & went, the calendar changed years too, without n’er a Grecian urn acquired. Then, I had a moment. Just last weekend. Innocently touring the famous antiques-to-vintage market at the oddly Chinese looking pavilions of the Parma fairgrounds, I came upon love in terracotta. Though mildly unfocused, I panned an impromptu exhibition space outside of Pavilion 5… an overflow of stuff from a stand inside… and there, at my Adidas-clad feet were two lovely, oval, elegant, terracotta vases. Urns. The pair’s faces were quite nicely done too. Love. Big Love. VERY BIG LOVE. Can happen to anyone. Even the innocent. Terracotta Love. At first sight. Alas unrequited. A minor problem erupted. Someone was in rapt negotiations with the Neapolitan owner to purchase & carry away My Terracotta Loves. Seemed a done deed. I walked away and with one last look, I snapped a pic and whatsapp-ed it to My Resident Urn Expert with a sort of an apology… Got bitten but they got away. The End
Mi fa schiffo...
Archive post March 7, 2019…
Il Poggiolo was the unofficially proclaimed Codiponte Community Garbage Dump for the forty plus years of its abandonment. The renting contadini left when the wells had dried up. I don’t blame them. They had a lot of mouths to quench: a family of eight folk, three cows, a couple of pigs, innumerable quantity of bunny rabbits… and we know how easy it is for them to over-populate a place… and a mule!!! Must have something to do with Human Nature. See a spot with obvious signs of neglect and what? A natural urge to let fly over the hedge the plastic bag full of domestic refuse in hand. What dismays is the local citizenry here also threw over…. ‘cause they certainly didn’t scale the hedges to carefully place them… were a Richard Ginori toilet, train passes, shoes, candle-holders, boots, a denim jacket, an iron bed, a tractor hoe… I think that’s the proper term. It was mightily large… nylon stockings, nylon tarps, tons and tons of plastic bags in plastic bag blue, plastic bag white and plastic bag yellow, lighters, twine, a couple of way-gone garden chairs, a light-post, rolls of chain-link fencing, gossip magazines printed on plasticized paper, wine bottles galore… and you get the picture. All was submerged, hidden, entwined in a forest of roving vines, Chinese plants imported as an anti-erosion deterrent by the railroad… another amazing fact is how seeds can float for miles and miles… seven to be exact… from their launching pad and alight in far away soils of disregard, and weeds of every type known to current horticultural lexicon.
Back in our early years of ownership of il Poggiolo, You or I would dig a hole and find more garbage below. Creating a simple hole of modest dimensions in what should also have been a matter of a few minutes became a sweat-drenching chore of struggling with many items from the above written list. We dealt with it. It disgusted me. You-know-who is slightly more understanding. He’s a dottore and confronts Human Nature on a daily basis. Mi fa schiffo!!!
The recent days of February and now March have been sunny and mild. Spring like. Thought it would be a good time to sink into Mother Earth some of her plant-life children in various voids created by the installation of our Dog Fence. Our Privacy Green Wall won’t be private for a couple of years. What happened was a nightmarish encounter with more garbage. The two gems of my excavation? A pair of plastic sandals in a summery salmon color and a non-longer pink rubber hot-water bottle. Both had seen better days. I am sure there will be more to come, of that I have been reminded.
Love of my life...
Archive post February 28, 2019…
I lied when I bought il Poggiolo…
I told everyone, You-know-who at the head of the pack, that I wanted a house: A) in the Lunigiana because, it was my piece of Italian territory and it reminded me of the North Georgia mountains where my family once had a second home; B) large enough to host guests but, not too large to have them perpetually under foot; and C) one with a bit of a garden. It was ONLY about the garden.
Happy to be a property owner of an actual property of l-a-n-d, I dreamed gardening would become the Third Love of My Life. Naturally, You and the Dogs would come in as First and Second. Or, would it be Second and First?
Whilst Our Builder + Crew tackled saving il Poggiolo’s 5,000 dilapidated square feet…
You & I hired this ragazzo, who had come highly recommended by the movie-star handsome owner of the agricultural consorzio down in the Big Town of Aulla, to clear out il Poggiolo’s jungle, keeping any flowering plants and fruit trees for Posterity. By stealth of several early morning forays of slash & burn, il Poggiolo was left with 5 prune trees, 1 mulberry tree and 3 willows. The rest bushwhacked and gone up in smoke. The garden resembled a nuked and/or de-militarised zone.
You & I got to work…
You researched foliage suitable to the cold of a Lunigiana Winter and the heat of its Summer. I was given my purchasing orders. We plundered all the local nurseries. Tears streamed down their owner’s faces, inviting us back at our earliest convenience. You & I furiously shovelled, dug, planted, fertilized and watered. A green privacy screen our main objective and way from the Builder + Crew’s messes. Debates jockeyed on where, what and how. Our attire was essential: to block the sun. You in his funny straw hat a baggy khakis, while I sported a baseball cap and a long-sleeve yellow mock turtle-neck. This went on for the full four years it took to re-build il Poggiolo. Gosh I thought this is Heaven! Not sure this was the case with You. Often he could be found napping in a lounge chair out on the aia, book gently folded on his chest, the straw hat cocked to cover his face from the sun and annoying flies. Good. I’ll just go put that what-ever-it’s-called where I want it and he’ll never know. He always did… damn-it.
Fifth year, I hit a wall. You turned to filling up our renovated 5,000 sq. ft farm-house with stuff, leaving the gardening to me. I was stunned to discover the planted plants needed care & maintenance: pruning, trimming, nurturing, moving or chucking into the mulch pile. Successive years, care & maintenance became Care & Maintenance. Ten years later it is CARE & MAINTENANCE. Expanded task list: pruning, trimming, nurturing, moving, chucking, burning, hauling and yelling This is bloody work!!! You’s reply? What did you expect? Planting perennials for the rest of your Life?
A way was shown to me…
Now I have garden consultants. A lady comes and does our roses. Her husband comes to do light pruning. His best friend comes to do the heavy pruning. Boy, what an art that is. Better left to those who know how to do it. You says I don’t prune, I massacre. A buddy of the best friend comes to do heavy moving & lifting & carting away. I even have a fellow and his cousin who do our pergolas. How about that? And with these helpers I no longer have to yell.
But, I miss the passion of planting. That is what gardening is to me. A bit narrow in focus, perhaps, but it is what it is. And on Saturday and for the next Saturdays through the month of March, I will be planting besides doing the bloody work!!! Got to have the passion.
Unexpected project...
Archive post February 21, 2019…
Like out of the blue!
Tending to the many Tasks-at-hand, and here’s an Updated List:
Dog Fence is in. And it has successfully prohibited any canine escape to sniff & plunder the precincts near about to Il Poggiolo. Nina-beena can no longer trot off to a plot of grass at the end of a neighbor’s courtyard above us and conveniently accessed through a two-way iron gate once a short flight of slate steps have been navigated. Nina-beena is becoming old & infirm. And, in particular, having bowed and unsteady hind parts makes stairs a daunting gymnastic. These denizens of the Borgo Castello toss their pranzo & cena left-overs for the cats. One fears that a chicken bone or two might be included in what was chucked. Meanwhile, The Croesus-person is denied his high-tails in a lateral direction to sniff the lower sectors near another neighbor’s house, tragically painted in a near day-glo ochre color, which will NEVER fade over Time, and where the cats seem to take what was gotten from above to dine upon hidden in Quite & Peace.
Called in our intrepid electrician… 10 years in our employ and n’er the word, No, from his lips… and indeed is a congenial Italian elf-of-a-man given to expressing opinions on pretty much everything, including topics outside his professional competence. Good that his suppositions are often of a sound & practical value… to revamp some light connections, mount a new one, where Darkness & Gloom reigned thick, and add exterior & interior light switches with heavy-duty outlets too. He is still searching for a replacement plastic door to our main electrical box. I had to assault it to Total Destruction with an IKEA screw-driver, when the key snapped off in the door’s lock. All in a nervous attempt to restore ASAP our electricity after it had mysteriously gone off. I am more than content on the improvements.
No word from our Cowboy Builder about coming to construct and install the two fireboxes for the LR & DR of La Casa Grande. The dude is currently working on a house project in some remote place not covered by any telephone network. Only if I am so lucky to remember to try him during the Pausa Pranzo, when he descends into a more accessible area of civilisation or, before he switches off his late 1990’s mobile as he strides into the OK-Corral, where he bunks with his latest girlfriend.
And, I am experiencing the latest chapter… Chapter 29… in a continuing saga to have repaired and/or restored many of Il Poggiolo’s wood painted windows & doors, so sadly ruined by rain, wind, heat and cold in our part of the Lunigiana. I had an appointment scheduled just this morning at 8:30AM. CANCELLED at 8:11AM. No replies to any of my whatsapps expressing availability until 2PM this afternoon. As Scarlet once remarked… Tomorrow is another day!
But onwards with the story…
…You mentioned… No! Wrong verb… INSISTED!!!… on the telephone a few days ago an ardent wish of His that someone come and re-do-nearly-everything about the Grassy Terrace right above the Apt. Azzurro. It’s the one with Mr. Hercules at the far end. News to me. Before I could ask even A Questions like… Are you ready to have a bull-dozer enter the garden and wrought its havoc upon our terrain?… I was compelled to listen to what sounded like one of You’s pre-meditated and extensive programs of rendering our humble home more gentile rather than leave it a farm-house, as it has been for the last 800 less 10 years of its Life. Again, I thought… Are you ready to have a bull-dozer enter the garden and wrought its havoc upon our terrain? Adding… just so you can adjust a slope?
The provocation brought back memories. We had to ask Our Builder… a trans-located Sardinian, who, though bravo in resolving issues of construction, was also a genius for creating new & nerve racking ones of his own making and to our suffering… because the garden actually had become an inclined garbage dump. Builders and staff are ALWAYS & NOTORIOUSLY a messy folk. The Builder’s nephew, a fierce-some kid of 20 decorated with piercings every-which-way and capped by a bush-whacked punk hair-cut, arrived with a mini-bull-dozer capable of swivelling 360 degrees…. in either sense. He joyously careened from one trash-strewn mound to another, levelling, grading, excavating, moving Ol’ Mother Earth in all her Local Majesty to give us terraces for which we might possibly plant grass. The machine, in his adroit hands, was like a joy-stick of movement & glee. In two days, the kid had altered a dump into a gentile cascade of dirt terraces, ready for semination. Done, he drove off into the sunset with his mini-bull-dozer only to be met occasionally again in nearby pizzerias.
Enough of my reverie… You was avid to arrest what to Him appeared to be an unmistakable slant to the slope off the row of fruit trees and assorted clumps of lavender down to the boxwood hedges below. Fine, I said, it goes at the bottom of The List. What? Well, of course, without a doubt, most assuredly but, I don’t want you to forget about it! I had to reply… Bull-dozer, You, repeat after me, bull-dozer. It would be an aid to Our Mutual Progress & Tranquility of us participants, if You would communicate these Desires with a more casual air. I get a Panzer Division. Rest assured, the Grassy Terrace Repair is now on The List, once I had figured out what The Real Truth was: the slight slope of the Grassy Terrace disturbed the distant point of focus of Mr. Hercules, bought at auction at catawiki.it. (Delivery cost more than the statue.) Makes sense, I can see that, quite right, You. If he had only said so at the beginning, I might have saved on tranquillisers. Italians! So un-transparent and hyper-.
Fence is finished...
Archive post February 16, 2019…
And the Dogs just HATE it!!! Are we much surprised? I am a bit offended. If those Two Creatures knew what that Tuscan Green metal infrastructure has cost me, they would have a little more respect. Naturally not. They’re Dogs.
We traditionally stroll through the garden of Il Poggiolo after lunch. I to tremble & shake with with anxiety over all the gardening tasks awaiting my robust intervention. Starting soon after I have pounded out this blog-post. Every year I strive to carry the garden to its prime, say by Easter? Thank God, it’s late this year. The Dogs sniff along the perimeter of their confinement. Then they come to me for an explanation. I give them a resounding… Ha!!!
You is totally bored by the fence. Never asks. And when it occasionally trips into a new-worthy topic on the telephone, the subject quickly slides to the weather… or, his bad back.
You and I do wholeheartedly agree: money should be spent ONLY on fun stuff: furniture, rugs, porcelain plates, objets d’art, boar’s heads!!! etc. The rest, the non-fun stuff of fences, new windows, additional fireplaces, and solar f%#*/g panels, should be gratis. Manna from Heaven. A subsidy by the Italian State. Heck, we live in a country decaying from Socialist & Commie ideals. But surely there‘s still some euros handy? Our little infrastructure WAS a make-work initiative. All You & I can hope for is added value to our Tuscan farm-house. Yeah, right.
The guys did an exceptional job. No doubt about it. The two were punctual, steady, precise. Their fence is regular, well-built, Tuscan Green. There are many good tracks and some others pretty darn unsightly. We pray to Mother Nature to kick-in.
Below is a medley of photos on the fence, in the following order, from left to right: acceptable, ugly, charming, and the piece de la resistance, a new fangled pergola. Enjoy!
Local landscapes...
Archive post February 14, 2019…
Back when You & I first got hooked up… actually, You courted me for a year and until I relented on the 11th of November 1998!!!… and had thought to nest, we canvased the Mediterranean coastline from Nice to back to Genoa for a place to plant our roots. Figured out after the exhausting exercise to find a paradise to locate to that, at the end of the day, You is Genoese and in Genoa he needs to be. Before that realisation hit and somewhere in the mountainous wilderness above San Remo… famous for flowers and the song festival just completed. A kid, Mahmood, won. The victory of an Italianized Muslim infuriated the Italian Northern League’s bully boss, Salvini. Good… You & I surveyed the views from upon high. Roberto staring out at the infiniteness of the Mediterranean Sea. Cats purr. You sighs. How can nearly nothingness inspire evena sigh. A mystery. Whereas my eyes were anchored at the majesty of the Apennines towering in the distance, graced by rolling hills of orchards, vineyards, a possible 2,000 sq. ft. re-do. You the sea, me the land. I should have known what that meant. I’m slow with The Math but, I do get the computation down… eventually. Mr. Sea to Mr Landscape. Mr. Stuff to Mr. Essential. Mr. Ironic… which I think is a total waste of time… to Mr Sarcastic… because sarcasm make you laugh out loud. Irony just make you cough. Etc. Etc. Etc.
Years later, I am socked with the shenanigans of two very spoiled Weimaraners and a 2,500 sq. ft Tuscan farm-house, il Poggiolo a Codiponte. They need to be run, wild as they are. Can’t do that at il Poggiolo. So, I let them terrorise Nature and I photograph it, mostly in the opposite direction. Lunigiana at its best.
The dog fence was finished tonight at sunset. Not the best for photography. A later post. In the meantime, enjoy the photographic fruits of my early morning safaris with the animals…
Not bad, eh?
Garden infrastructure...
Archive post February 7, 2019…
The guys showed up to build our fence. Tuesday morning, 9AM sharp. Three days of work and they’ll still be at it for another two. At least. What delayed the enterprise from the first discussion way back in September 2018 will steal it away again for tomorrow, Friday. A short hiatus skipping through the weekend for the guys to start again fresh and finish… The… Job.
Never thought infrastructure could be so wrought. Nerve-racking. Ups the blood pressure. I had engenuously imagined… hole post cement, hole post cement, hole post cement, string mesh, string mesh, string mesh, done, go home. Nope.
The first shock of my error in favour of ignorance came during a tour of inspection mid-stream Tuesday afternoon. The fruits of You’s and my landscaping labors, lo’ those ten years ago, to create a high & mighty privacy barrier from the greater Codiponte community at large… we’re surrounded, you know… had been bushwhacked… cleanly & efficiently accomplished, as it was… for proper elbow room to lay the fencing. Holy Mother of… one just cannot do, apparently, all the measuring, balancing, digging, digging, digging, cementing for posting, posting, posting an army of Tuscan green metal stakes from hither of our house, il Poggiolo, to the yonder of the legnaia. I felt faint. Nauseous. Had to brace myself by grabbing a cypress for support. I remained mute. Tried to smile. Always helps to cover the facial crinkle of doubt and fear. Big Time. What is this going to cost me?
The second bit of stomach wrenching misunderstanding came yesterday when the Chief Guy… truly and honestly a nobleman of gardening & agricultural expertise… explained that, in order in insure the stakes stay staked, angled supports… longer stakes, naturally, and if any of you have ever studied Geometry, a deplorable yet, fundamental area of knowledge, you’d instantly see the reason why… have to go in between that army. What? Really? What is this going to cost me? I wanted my Mommy. I breathed instead. Then resorted to God. Near & dear Human Beings were not so kindly disposed.
The third item was: I kindly sent an FYI to Dr. You a focused medley of photos to show him the fence work in progress. Obliquely asking for Moral Support too. No. A firestorm. A stun and awe firestorm. Telephone calls. Many, many telephone calls. From You’s hospital. HE HATED THE FENCE!!! Oh? It’s all cemented. Spostali in fretta prima che si asciughi il cemento! Too late. Set forever. I do not know nor do I care to ever know what the man was thinking, conjuring up in his funny little & bumpy princely doctor’s head but, to think the fence would be artfully slipped in between those ghastly prickly plants, for instance, until Kingdom Come… or would it be Came?… with those funny little orange berries on them was… well… let me see? What would it be? Oh, yes… INSANE!!! Costly too. All I could do was hang-up. The network coverage was silent for the next 24. That stunt saved me from posing The Question… What is this going to cost me?
Fourthly, and most of this will have to wait until Monday, is for the guys to string the Tuscan green wire mesh… so cleverly color co-ordinated with that of the stakes… from stake to stake to stake, and then, like a violin’s strings, tighten the entire length until it cries Uncle!!! I will resort to infrastructure rehab from pro-secco abuse. What is this going to cost me? will fade into and disappear into my drunken stupor. I hope.
P.S. The Dog are in for a Big Surprise. More pro-secco, please?
A rainy day tour of the garden...
Archive post February 1, 2019…
Reports were for snow this weekend. Snowed for about 30 seconds yesterday morning. Left a light frosting of white on cars and along the sides of roads. Lasted all of 30 minutes. Temps had dropped. That changed. A few degrees up the thermometer and so long white . It’s raining today. Nice to be inside, warm & cozy. Dogs have already skipped their Noon-day walk.
You is on is way down to Codiponte. Raised the thermostat to 18C from 14C. Meester Freddoloso. His arrival also has meant a quick house cleaning. One item of several on the list was to dump the fireplace’s ash-bucket as fertiliser on our garden’s flora. In the rain. Puppy-dog was ecstatic for the adventure. T’was a hasty tour…
It is only my opinion but, I find our garden beautiful in the winter. Impression of an ever-lasting forever.
There’s a risk of a boring exercise here with this blog. Not sure, but I believe every year I post articles & photos on the four yearly passages of our garden at il Poggiolo… Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. Could be translated to… Prune to Bud, Verdant Union, Burnt Siena Foliage and Dormant Beauty. And some other stuff in between. This is very Italian. The Italians are many things, layers of contrasting, often chaotic elements yet, they are endearingly consistent. They are a seasonal people. Italians anticipate Life’s stages… births, communions, marriages and deaths. Rather corresponds to those yearly stages. Perhaps then, reflecting, it might not be a boring exercise. Could be more a steady, consistent calendar of seasonal occurrences, events and happenings at our 800 year old Tuscan farm-house and its garden posted with happy regularity at Italian House Blog.
An operative interlude…
Archive post January 26, 2019…
In other words, Il Poggiolo Grand Projects are temporarily held up. We hope…
I dottori said the tumour needed to be removed. Located at the nape of the neck. A day- hospital op. Simple. OK. D-hospital was booked until late May-June. No way to bring the op up towards January? February, maybe? Il dottore said… Listen, we do the op as a normal surgery. No exams. Just show up with an empty stomach. Could happen in a couple of weeks. Wait for a call. OK. Call came. Appointment for 9:00AM, Wednesday, 23rd of January. Great!
It was said the tumour was fatty. Touching the lump, I thought cottage cheese. No problem. Easy. Let’s do it! OK. Spent an hour plus face-down on an operating table. Could only see the plastic clogs of il dottore and nurses. Thanks, to the All Mighty God, numbed where I needed to be numbed. Horrifyingly, could hear everything else. The conversations of il dottore and the nurses… and visitors!!! Had heard there was an American in Sala 3. Worse were the noises of extracting what did not care to budge. The tumour. Consistency of cement. Stone. Very hard stuff. The thing had grown off my cranium and around a top bone to my spinal column. Dottore had to dig to China. He sweated. A jackhammer would have helped. Not enough room for that. OK. Ghastly experience. Not what I had imagined at all.
Op done. Il dottore left to do paperwork. The nurses kept me company. Asked me questions of why, how, when I had ended up in their part of Italy. Am used to this sort of congenial interrogation. The entire staff saw me to the door. Gave Thanks. Felt nothing. Drove home.
Two crazed Weimaraners were desperate to see me. Could have nearly cared less. The local had worn off. Can deal with noble stoicism and patience any discomfort. You would disagree. Nobility is not just a tag or title. OK. I CANNOT DEAL WITH PAIN!!! You would definitely confirm this. OK. What evaporated left me with the distinct sensation someone had attempted to decapitate me. It got worse. And who thinks aspirin is an adequate pain-killer should be shot. On sight. No questions. Just shoot. Called You… a general dottore, surgeon, a head of ophthalmology at a hospital… to consult and, more importantly, TO COMPLAIN!!! An aside…
My name is Forrest Charlton Spears, Esq. My father used to say Charlton was another spelling for to complain. Pegged that correctly. Had had lots of experience with Charltons.
The Kind & Goodly Dottore You reminded me that I had in my medicine basket a supply of what is a hydrogen bomb posing as an anti-inflammation drug. Volteren 75. Cryptic name. But all medicines have spooky names. And their spelling!!! Thought to chuck the aspirin down the toilet. Quickly reached for The H-Bomb. Pain didn’t vanish. It did subside. OK. Was able to walked the Dogs without giving injury to anyone or anything, anywhere.
More problems… the architecture of padded bandages detached… thanks to my .003 high five o’clock shadow at the back of my head… and flew away. Into the Winter winds. With it went the silk drainage tube of the incision. OOOPS!!! High risk of hematoma. Dealt with it all night long. Went to the Emergency Room at 6:30AM. No-one around at home to help me. Back of my head thing. Holding a mirror in one hand… etc. The available E-staff could not do anything about the lost tube. They did re-build the padded bandages reinforced with more adhesive tape. By Noon, the engineering had flown away… again!!! I was only getting out of my car. Into the Winter Winds. Got back in and drove to see our pharmacist friend for a big band-aide. No more padded bandages held with tape. Simplicity ought to be a viable medical art. Got a big band-aide. The Hydro-Bomb could not deal with the pain of the hematoma of accumulated blood inside the stitched-tightly incision. No escape. PAIN!!! DISCOMFORT!!! REALLY BAD MOOD!!! Felt my blood-pressure climb too. Sure sign is a frontal lobe headache and icky nausea. Pharmacist confirmed this. Off to my general dottore for new meds on that. Felt everything. Drove home. Exhausted. Hysterical. Called You to…
Dawned on me that there was ONLY ONE TRUE THING TO DO: watch The Sound Of Music and drink white wine. Took more of every pill, tablet and drops… tranquillising drops… in my house. Built a fire, Dogs arrived to share the sofa and off we went…
Worked like a dream.
My Plan was after cottage cheese, I’d begin to hit the list of il Poggiolo Grand Projects. How about the ramp pergola to start? Thought… Sun’s been shining too long, mildly not freezing outside, got all the materials, let’s do it! And I will when the feelings of an axe at the back of my neck takes a hike… forever!!!
Little black hoses...
Archive post March 24, 2010…
Gosh…. will Wonders never cease? And, so soon after My Initial Shock with a paint color earlier in the afternoon. I had no idea that the dangling black rubber tube draped across the facade of my years old Tuscan farm-house is my only access to running water in La Casetta. However, I do have a hunch some clever person will come along & invent another method and/or placement for said tube. Burying it might be an idea, no? So novel too. Gads.
That dangling black tube is our water supply from the source to la Casetta below.
Let the projects begin...
Archive post January 17, 2019…
I am decided: let’s get going with bringing il Poggiolo up to snuff for 2019. Got a list:
#1 re-build the two Big Pergolas and another smaller schiocchezza… or, a smaller foolishness, destroyed by the Hurricane of last October.
I have the necessary essential material: bamboo. Lucky to have passed by while a local Codiponte resident was clearing and burning the infestation of bamboo next to his piece of Italian territory. Seems a tradition of January, as others in the Lunigiana were doing the same. What can one do in January but clear and burn? The man’s property along the road to the natural spring of Acqua Paradiso is graced by one of the trashiest barns around… a agglomerated dump, literally… a few puny grape vines and a bevy of scruffy cats & dogs to watch the premises. The view to the Apuane Peaks, however, is inspiring. That’s Italy for you. The man kindly allowed me to pilfer with the help of my two canine assistants and the Galloper SUV enough bamboo poles to adequately take care of Project #1 and then some.
#2 put in a stone path up the middle of the ramp from the Dog-gate up to L’Appartamento Azzurro and re-seed the grass. The Truth of this task is actually to fare sparire…. or, to disappear, the stones dumped on the back-side of the Esseccatoio… or, smoke house, after the work on La Casa Grande’s addition of two mini-windows in the Salotto way back in 2014. What is underneath by a meter would make a cute little terrazza… or, terrace, for an aperitivo or, sunbathe on terracotta pavers. Please note: Nina-beena and The Croesus-person are My Project Inspectors. They are enthusiastic participants with anything I elect to do.
#3 put in stone before the terracotta terrace at the entrance to L’Appartamento Azzurro. This may be expanded to include the triangular split at the Legnaia… or, wood-shed, and the ramp. Planting grass was a disappointing failure.
One happy Weimaraner puppy carrying his latest stick.
#4 paint the front door to La Casetta and the two wood gates, one at the lower end of the Sottopassaggio… or, our Tunnel, and the other at the Keep-the-Dogs-on-the-Aia next to the Esseccatoio in Our Signature Grey. There is can with some residual paint. But where?
#5 and finally, get the Cowboy Builder to come build and install the two glass-fronted fireboxes for La Casa Grande’s Salotto… or, Living Room… and Sala da pranzo… or, the Dining Room. If only the dude would check his answering machine and call me back!
I may need tranquilizers for this last item. All others will require a strong back and drink after 5PM.
I am going to hold off on the French doors in the Sala da Pranzo. I brought in our Esteemed Geometra to take a look and he immediately embarked upon a discussion of what a pity it would be to remove the original beam so much in the way of this initiative. Let there by sunlight. Probably just as well. I don’t think You has actually absorbed this plan of mine. Better to wait and judge the proper moment before dropping the double-door bomb again.
I have January and February to knock these off. My attention must turn to the garden in March for il Grande Assalto. Needed: a strong body and even stronger drink. Wish me luck?
Italian house...
Archive post January 10, 2019…
I had completely forgotten…
Far before I had thought to come to Italy to live, my dreams had conjured an Italian house. Running an errand in the SUV a couple of days ago, I happened to take an unexplored road to avoid an accident up ahead. Bet a FIAT had spun-out on an icey strada statale. No idea really. The Carabinieri waved me right well before. Italian drivers never learn, do they? What is the rush to get to Aulla before the stores open? Making the right turn and there on the right was a classic Italian casa colonica… an Italian farm-house. Tuscan. A stone and brick box set back from the unknown road. Stopped to stare. The house nestled by some scraggly olive trees. I was lost in my head. Suddenly I saw what I once remembered of my dream-like mind’s eye. Vision reproduced for days afterwards. Then archived under My Italian house. Might have been the original spur to change direction and come East from the USA to the boot of a peninsula surrounded by sea.
I must confess of some need for a change. Summer spat me out unwillingly into Fall. Hollered but, was no help. No time to brake either to avoid colliding with Christmas. Happened quickly anyway. When in this state, My History provided a move to a new city in a new home. Home is the place to start.
Got two. I have been ruminating selling both…
One I can’t. A certain person would invoke Over My Dead Body. The last time he spoke those hardened words I cringed in his presence for a week. Still nurture scares too. Tone of voice thing. No big stick. You’s point-of-view to his insisted statement of No? DIfficult to beat… anywhere in the world… the nifty happenstance of living only a short block away from where you catch the train for work every work-day.. Views are one of a kind from the 25 foot high windows towards the old port and La Lanterna di Genova. I do love the oft apartment and most of the accumulated stuff inside. Pretty fancy. Provokes Ooo’s & Ahhh’s from those lucky to be show photographs. Am waiting for Voice Search… Find me that photo of the LR, please. No, the other one. Thanks. What grates is I feel trapped in our non-neighborhood. I miss the old apartment in the centre of Genoa. A middle-class tenement. Would walk out and meet a friend or two, three… bunches. Where You & I are now is una landa desolata. The only folk who say Ciao! to me as I am pulled along by two crazed Weimaraners are the recovering drug addicts at the Communita’ San Benedetto. Mostly guys. Friendly. Cute. Girls don’t do drugs to excess? Never see n’er una. The guys sang Jingle Bells to me from the balcony of their retreat at Christmas.
The other, il Poggiolo, is rife with ramps and stairs. Near killers. Bad back and the left hip issues. The bain of old-age or, at least an age heading in that direction. More so with bags of groceries or carry-alls of IKEA glass bottles full of sparkling spring water. I also worry months in advance of the Spring & Fall assaults on the garden though what has been sunk into Mother Earth is maturing as desired and contrary to another’s opinion.
I confided to You my deep yearnings for changing our homes mid-stream in our drive to Milan for New Year’s. Ghastly holiday sabotaged by a wayward friend, a bully and about 350,000 foreign tourist in the city to shop and eat the place to suffocation. Couldn’t even get into a museum!!! I was rewarded with a cautionary admonition of a repeat performance of said famous declaration. Gads.
Maybe it’s just a phase? About every two years for twenty years I would masticate the idea of bagging Italy and going back to America. What tipped the chew was I could not dissolve the conviction: You can’t go back. Still here. Changing homes is the same repetitive beast.
What to do? Projects. Already mentioned. Alerted to my malaise, You encourages reports on my progress to coral a builder to construct and install two fire-boxes, one in the salotto and the other in the sala da pranzo. A gardner… and one of the finest men I have had the honor to know and work with… has promised us by the end of January to erect the infamous Dog Fence. Then, and this will require all the tact my Americanized Anglo-Saxon corpuscles can muster with You-know-who, French doors and a iron balcony with stairs off the same sala da pranzo to our Scenic Overlook. There was some noise from a certain sector that eliminating two… only decorative… beams from the pre-2009 roof might be frowned upon. Frown away. They be gone.
But hey! Wait just a minute. Excitement is building. What am I thinking? Il Poggiolo will reach new heights with these Excuse-our-messes. Never mind. Onwards. Just a phase.