the summer is here

this was a month of planting, seeding, transplanting, soil preparation and the BIG part: the water system for the veggie-field. we got the whole place surrounded by an electric fence - for/against wild boar and porcupine. Jon just worked and worked. he even got an old bale of hay pushed in our brave car and mulched around the plants. my job is more the beautifying of the place - outside - the inside is getting sloppier, more every day of sunshine. we were soo hungry for this italian spring days, when just everything in this little world feels right/light. i got all the seedlings who decided to give it a try, in the ground and if this silly white ducks stop eating them, we will have a lot of little poppy heads winking in the sun.
we harvested our fava beans, had a wonderful meal with them al fresco and ate the peas fresh out of the shell. they were already wilting, we had temperatures in the 90F/30C. the greens in front of the house are doing very well: arugula and head-salad, spinach, garlic and cress and yesterday we had a sorrel/sauerampfer soup/suppe with potatoes. i never thought i will ever cook so much:-)
the first guests at the neighbor house came and left after 10 gorgeous days back to cold and rainy hamburg. very nice people, i was happy to be their housekeeper and the dogs were as nice too. we had them over when i made "hollerkücherl", baked elderberry flowers and we had a lot of fun.
but the very best day with this fantastic weather was in the mountains. we could not beleave that we are here since last july and made it the first time in the sibillians, it is just 40 minutes away. this was just breathtaking beautiful:orchids mixed with daffodils and flowers i do not know, perfectly colored blossom sprinkled meadows to the horizont and now this: WE WERE ALL BY OUR SELF! how is this possible? in usa would be thousands of people, huge parking lots with over sized vehicles/drivers, a stand with soda machines and signs with cautions. this is how the world looked like and still does in this corner, we are so happy we found this.

new family, nuova familia, neue familie

seit 4 wochen haben wir 3 laufenten. lange, lange haben wir gesucht. and found the ducks at a farm fair close to perugia. 1 male and 2 girls. they were sooooo frightened when we got them. all stiff and straight up like a stick. the italians call them pinguini. but our neighbors have not really seen any of this strange looking creatures. the duckies know now their place and explore every day new territory around the house. we had to get a fence to keep them from going on the road, what would not be a problem, until a dog comes by......
i expected to get some easter-eggs from them. and the ratings for their egg-production is (depending who you ask) from 30 to 300 eggs a year. we want the eggs and their immense hunger for snails and bugs. i got worried about our fresh eggs, but today it happened: in the morning when i let them out i found 2 eggs laying in the straw, no real nest, just laying there. another first time for me: picking up fresh laid eggs from my own happy little feathered friends. how wonderful.
but the B I G family we got last weekend. they say 5000, who knows, no way to count them, they go normally by weight.....
we drove to st maddalena and got our 1. familia di api. in a travel box and we will move them (unbelievable - after it stops RAINING) to their new orange painted box. Jon had a hard time to explain the way he wanted to keep the bees, a more logic and easier way for the bees and for us. but the italians have just one system and stick with that.

there is one more winged friend we have. a little blue-headed-chickadee. i saw him the first time flying in front of the living-room window and thought he is looking for little flies. but no, he is just coming back and again, again and pick on the window. i realized he is picking at that proud male in the reflection. that was too cute. but we do have a really nice place for a little bird to see himself/the other guy: 2 mirrors on the car!
good we love birds more than cars. he is also using it for a bathroom ....

magnitude 6.3

um genau 3:32:42 italienische zeit habe ich noch ein erstes mal erlebt: erdbeben in italien.
at exactly 3:32:42 italian time i had another first time: earthquake in italy.
i did feel the earth shaking before: on hawaii where we got married, comically i sat on the stool when this huge noise rumbled in that little shed we rented for our honeymoon. i thought a stupid pickup could not make the curve and hit for our little place. no - earthquake! but this was all, when i got my pants on and run to the door all was over.
but last night the bed was rattling and rattling, i figured this was not still my dream, this is real, i screamed "earthquake!" to my Jon, deep in sleep, the rattle continued, a bid glass scattering noise made it even more real, i run, down the stairs, out of the door ...... the shepard dogs were barking excited. that's all - no Jon following me. did i overreact, be too worried? a bit i guess, but there were 2 more shaking's and i was out of the bed, and my sanity gone.

the cracks in the house opened up again and paint/mortar/dust everywhere. pictures tipped and a stack of bricks outside felled over. the most damage is to my secure feelings, i suppose. the last one this strength happened 1997. there are many losses, i am scared to look in the news......

1 year ago

it is 1 year ago that we came to sign the contract and we managed to come so i can be in our new house for my birthday. so this was my 2nd time to celebrate. i remembered when we were here march 2008, i was so sad that i had to leave for the usa and had this H U G E burden in front of us: finishing the house in iowa, selling it, get our stuff sold and than pack the container, boy i am glad i do not have to do that again. i am kinda saddled in, adjusted to the unfinished cracked walls, chipping paint, dust where ever you look on the cracked floor tiles.
but there are much more important things: digging in the soil, watching the first bugs crawling in the sun, rescuing little snakes - disturbed in the field, planting 1000's of seeds and look at them twice a day. learning from the internet how to do the bees the best way - for them - so they can be happy. finding crop what is good for the soil and has flowers for the bees. there is so much to learn. and of course learning about ourself and find better ways to communicate and to be happy with ourselves. we are meditating much more and i am getting more relaxed with it. it feels so good sitting together in stillness and be aware about the moment and nothing else.


so here are 2 pictures with exact 1 year in between. both times with little green vegetation appearing; less trees on the newer/right one.
Jon's firewood is now at a different place, instead of the fire wood on the left one, there is a bed with fava-beans coming up. but both have SNOW on it!!! it is official spring: 21. of march, in italia! i did believe people that that was an unusual snow last year, but again, at the same day! i am still learning to accept the unchangeable, weather for sure is one of them.
the most important things the last 4 weeks were the greenhouse and the plowing. and seeding. the greenhouse is big enough for all the seeds i ever collected and thought i should at some point plant them. i did. and Jon got more tomatoes planted we will ever get eaten. but it is so much fun. at that time the sun was out, the greenhouse warmed up to 29 c degrees and the vents were still in the making. i had to take my woolen sweaters, pants, socks off and still too warm: my 1st day in bikini!!! how wonderful, another dream fulfilled.

and we did plant our potatoes, the soil was toooo wet, the last snow melted (view from the kitchen-window towards the field) but more rain in the forecast. that made us getting them in.
the sheep were watching us, they are now next door on the field and grazing happily the juice herba. Luigi had to get a mother sheep and the lamb out of the flog and i had the chance to hold that soft furred little thing: HOW DARLING! it just becomes totally calm and everything relaxed and lays the head on my arm. i do know now it did not fall in love with me, it just did what lambs do when they are caught. now i do understand the religious term: lamb of god or: completely give in.
finally we do have our 3 new little friends: coming soon, with pictures....

easter is coming and my summer job starts.

S P R I N G - P R I M A V E R A

it is the last day of february and - we heard it from some italian bee-keeper - the last day of inverno/winter. it was a gorgeous day today, just right to make a 1-hour trip further into the mountains to meet Alvaro from the Cooperativa Monte Azzurri. we learned that the bee-hives are quite different than Jon knows them. but nevertheless we ordered 2 "familia" and the hives, all with the help of the cousin who was happy to help us out with his english knowledge.

- i know we are too lazy with our italian lessons -.

so, in 1 month we will have our own bees. here in le marche is also the bee deaths syndrome, we just hope our environment is healthy enough for this busy workers.
we drove like always the road passing "san angelo in pontano" and there is the most beautiful view down towards our valley. the mountains are still white sugared and the fields are turning quietsch-green. our house is always easy to find, because of our glowing white gas tank, tiny in the picture. (click on the picture and it will enlarge) but visible. look down at 2/5th from the right upper edge. where this little flat, dark caped mountan is. look down from there for almost the half of the picture, there is our house.


i started to find evidence for spring and there are little flowers poking through to the sun, the chickadees sing their special spring songs and we saw many old guys in the trees pruning the heck out of the branches. (they do have a strange way of pruning/butchering) they cut off almost everything growing and leave 20cm stalks, also cut, they do this with street trees, fruit and whatever. i will check what happens to this amputated branches. i still go with my learned german pruning. will see. the trees we pruned so far were soooo overgrown that we will not have much of anything the first 2 years.
we had a nice walk yesterday down to the creek, with the help of a tree trunk to the other side and than through the wilderness, on trails more for the wild boars than people. but we got up on the other side of the valley (the house is in the upper/middle of the picture) and found our waterline!
or the one that was in use? or will be? coming from gualdo and there is also path - Basilio drove it regularly with his motor scooter - from our house down to the creek and up the hill. there are 300 meter difference in elevation to climb up. a total mystery how he did that. but he was telling he was the only one that time who had such a wonderful motorized vehicle and helped the neighbors with getting stuff from town.

PAZIENZA!

nach, es scheint mir, fast monaten, hatten wir 2 tage keinen regen. 2 days of sun, or better - NO rain - made Jon very nervous, especially the delivery of the "trinciaerba e sarmenti" "Gras + Rankenschneidemaschine" the delivery guy told him not to use it before 3 full days of sun..... but 6 hours with warm radiant sun on the soil and Jon got on the tractor and in the field north of the house. this land will be our veggie garden, the potatoes are already bought, the asparagus is waiting in the dark and huge bundles of onions are ready to get planted. but .... the soil has to be turned over to get the weeds down under, for that it has to be plowed. and this kinda soil is right now perfect to make roof-tiles off, or probably nice shaped vases or huge clumps when you go through with a plow. pazienza, geduld, patience. it must be similar to the soil in iowa, the wrong time in the field and you make rocks. Karen Strohbeen said once: work in the soil when you see the farmers do. may be that is the right advice.
now you look at the tractor picture and ask yourself, this machine is red, not green, what happened? we gave it back, the wonderful roll over thing would not go through the garage door and the tracks of the red one are 8 cm smaller - helps to keep the posts on the garage too. i was hoping this one would cost us less. but the price we got on it before, was without the IVA, the other one was included. that is how you confuse and frustrate customers. and than there is the thing with the 2 different payments, someone has to explane that to me.......
there is another story with the IVA, we thought our membership at the "coltivatori diretti" make us able to have this busyness-tax-number, but pazienza! another copy of the same paper might do it in another 2 weeks.
we just got our wonderful health-insurance card withdrawn, because we still do not have the IVA.
PAZIENZA!

we got the tractor

today is/was a very special day. the tractor arrived! how long were we looking for the right one, took us a while,actually Jon started looking in march last year, many tractors got rejected- even for very good prices - but this one has a joystick! i have not tried it - yet, but that was one of the main reasons we choose this one. the 2 tracks can be moved with !1! handle. all the other crawlers need 2 hands (right/left side) and a third hand for the clutch. our neighbor has a very strong arm, because he pulls the 2 handles at once while he moves this clutch-stick with the left hand. i hope i will get used to all this. after all this is another life-time-dream -- to drive a tractor up and down the fields.

we started the day with a long quiet walk off our strada bianca and found some hidden waterfalls and gorgeous views to the mountains. as soon we were home and Jon started the sourdough, the wonderful couple from the close-to-us-house came to prune a big maulberry tree. before we realized it, the 75 year old Giovanni was up in the tree with a chainsaw and cut the leg-thick branches off. the rubber boots he wore he kicked off for better traction in the tree. and Erminia was pulling this heavy branches aside, with getting hit here and there. Jon could not get fast enough in his overall and shoes to help them.
Luigi our helpful neighbor from the other end of the road came over with his tractor to give us a hand/scooper to help move a stack of wood at the bottom of the trail. that was a big thing to get taken care off. right after that our new/old trattori arrived and we got a picture taken.
after a very fast cooked italian pasta dish, enjoyed together with our adopted italian parents, we got the branches sorted and cut in pizza-oven sized pieces, Jon got somehow the bread raised and baked and it tastes fantastic. a long wonderful day.