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!