F L O W E R S !!!! S T I L L in our garden

these photos were taken the last 2 days of november and some even yesterday. germany is having big snows and minus temperatures - we are so spoiled. so i do NOT complain about cold feet and the heating blanket i have to turn on 1 hour before i go to bed. FLOWERS in december. nothing else to say.
and yes these are tomatoes/+flowers.

and the summer is over

this beautiful summer is over - we had already the 1st snow showing on the tops of the mountains and the leaves turn slowly to gorgeous colors.


Dietmar came for a visit and we took the chance to see something in our neighborhoods. we had an appointment with the czechian consulate to get an identification approval (he was not able to help us with that), but it was a fantastic day - perfect for a little trip to Ascoli Piceno. the consulate building was in the old part of the city and we got some history explanations from him. roman stones/walls at the bottom - medieval build on that and the top just 200 years old.

here is the entrance door and the hallway behind it

we were also at the "big" castaniata in our hometown gualdo and got fresh, hot marron out of a paper-bag and new wine-for free!

our runner duck parents Nancy&Udo found a new home. i put a little paper at several locations with a photo of the 2 and a very nice young man - who spoke wonderful english - wanted them for having different breeds. he has already the wild mallards, white ducks and geese for company. since the 2 are gone it got so much quieter out here. i could not hear the little noises, birds, insects with the constant quaking of Nancy and the back chatter from the little girls.

Jon is getting really serious about the reconstruction of the little house. after the filling in the old doorway he rebuild the little entrance. he got the ugly cement and bricks off and filled in with stones:



this is what weakens the walls a lot : ants building in and with the clay their nests and make big hollow spaces in-between the rocks.

after this last test Jon decided he can take down the wall and rebuilt it new:



the front part of the roof had to come down and supports up underneath the beams to hold it up strongly. the inside of that wall will be built with normal building bricks and the space between them filled with perlite to get a good insulation. the delivery of the blocks in my flower garden ;-)

this kind of walls was built like this for ancient times are called muro di sacco- yes- a sac-wall!!! 2 sites of stones act like a sac and hold the clay and stones and whatever could be filled in between. here is the stuff out of the sac laying on the ground:

i hope we can keep this little niche



and this is my project, much easier to deal with - on solid ground - Jon has no thoughts to stand on a pipe 3 meters high and lift huge rocks at the same time, he is so flexible.



i fill in all the cracks and gaps with mortar - so this wall will be there also next year and we will be sure no rocks falling on us while doing yoga, other things will still come down, chestnuts ...

and this is a maremanno girl at the sheep barn with her little puppy

no post in september

toooo late - did not make it to write in september once, that might tell you :
we are B U S Y around here and even the october is already quite old. but the 1st rain and autumn fog brings me back to the keyboard and resume what happened all this weeks.

there is the finishing of the wall/ceiling we started 1? year ago. time goes fast when you have fun- says Jon. the stove and chimney

got cleaned and we started our loved stove last night and it is sooooooo nice to sit in front of a fire. the best channel ever to watch, highly recommended and N O !!! commercial breaks.



there were wonderful hikes in the marchigiani
country and towns.
this is a hidden gorge with crystal clear water:

the most amazing flowers in my new gardens:
a tithonia torch over 2 meter high:


the fun times at festas in the neighborhood villages, a midnight firework and strolling through very old cellars. Jon is trying a vino cotto from 1956:

many happy guests and dogs from germany in the 2 guesthouses i am involved in.
this is at the next neighbor on their wide open pasture:

veggies in fantastic colors meet jefferson - iowa

and progress on our little house, watched over by the queen:

Ferragosto

we did not know what Ferragosto is, everybody is talking about it. it is everywhere in italy in august. we figured it out - here some smarter writer with their explanation:

August 15th is Ferragosto in Italy

August 15th. It’s got to be the most dead moment in any Italian city. It’s the national holiday particular to Italy called Ferragosto. Everyone is at the beach, preparing for the night’s feast, fireworks, and camp-out under the stars. For an Italian, it is truly offensive to work on this day. When I was in grad school, my father in law once caught me trying to study on Ferragosto and I got in a lot of trouble for this. It’s not that it’s a religious holiday – it is ALSO the assumption of Mary – but rather it’s an instituted moment of rest that has roots in Ancient Roman culture. It’s the height of summer, the hottest days… Before Italy picked up the pace and joined the world economy, almost all businesses closed in August, probably because before airconditioning it was too hot to concentrate. You will find that many small businesses and stores still do close-, if not for the whole month, at least for the two central weeks that include Ferragosto.

look at these photos in this article:

http://www.romeartlover.it/Ferragosto.html

und die deutsche erklaerung:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferragosto

wir haben also gar nicht erst versucht irgendwas zu kaufen was nicht essbar ist. alle repararaturen sind auf september verlegt :-)
the august is definitely the hottest time here, african winds are wilting the plants even the soil is moist underneath them - i spend long time to mulch around them. we got from our dear neighbor 2 old hay-bails and Jon drove over the unrolled hay and chopped it with the motozappa to pieces. wonderful stuff for mulch.

this are also the places where chicken prefer to scratch, when they can dig up something. so i put the strew underneath and they get it out again- of course they do not dig the plant out on purpose ;-( . the ducks make holes into the strew cover much less damage. but they DO love to eat my sorrel- almost gone - and they ate the tiny leaves from my rooted bougainvillea. but they are also much fun. we discovered the ducks forget everything when they have a chance to dig in a tomato. everything will be red after that. Jon thinks it's a bit like feeding sharks: red stuff flying around everywhere - the good thing is they do not have teeth and it does not hurt at all when they try to eat my fingers. so this is a very good recycling to give the old tomatoes to the bibies.

Jon had his 1.gig . he played at our contrada festa at the neighbors. it was a big success. the people liked the music, the setting was easy, so they could still chat and some got even to dance to the play. the food was great german potato-salad and american sweet corn and italian wine. Jon said after some german sausages: who would want to spend more time with eating, if he could play music. that's devotion. he got even compliments for his singing. well done. now he is learning italian songs.

in this time are all the festas, sagras und pallios, we went to some of it. the most visitors are italians watching the people playing in costumes, children dressed ancient, horses, flag thrower and of course, may be the most important there: food.

the marchigianer love what they eat. somewhere it even says they eat the most meat in italy?? we had some wonderful fried fish, gnocchi, penne arrabiata, wonderful meat, sausages for Jon. mostly the people of the town come together and prepare the food in some temporary tents and you get it on plastic plates with plastic "silverware". my recycling soul cramps every time - but that's how it is. i have to except or start a no-plastic revolution in the marche. i do not - so i better stop complaining......

these are the gnocchi they make behind that curtain - of course from scratch - everything is from scratch.

the priest has to give his blessings to all the play and the official photographers are in costumes

estate/summer - or we lost our landmark

the summer made it -- took quite a while. it rained so much, that the combine sunk in the moist soil harvesting the grain. my garden is green and flowering- all over the place and i am busy for weeks and weeks to get the started usa seeds in the pots and than into the ground ( there are still some waiting- and kinda giving up on me). my thought about having an orange garden did not really work out. there is lots of orange, but some just turned into PURPLE flowers, looks like wrong! a 4-0'clock in purple and one even white. but pretty plants - so i keep them - bursting color between all the yellow and orange flower-heads.

this is the view of our garden with our landmark/bombola when we moved in here - july 2 years ago! and now we got our bombola removed. first it seemed all so easy. they called and said they will come and install the new gas-tank.

the 2 trucks arrived - made it all the way to our house, managed to even turn around.



the bombola was flying in the air in a blink,

and than started the measuring: the end of the tank had to be exactly no less than 5 meter - by the centimeter!!! away from our trees. we got instead of a tall but smaller diameter a longer shorter gas tank. that guy did not fit between the 2 trees anymore at the border of the garden.

the hole had to be moved towards the concrete slab where the old bombola was sitting on. actually half the slab had to get dug up. while the little caterpillar was digging deeper and wider we remembered the waterline, and yes, it was right there where the bombola had to go - they do not care about the waterline - they are only responsible for gas! no extra fuzz for that. but it did not get damaged !!!!!

when they sunk in the tank, it was 30 cm sticking out over the slab and when i mentioned that, they said it has to be so high so no water can run into it. the thought about a new tank was: it will not be visible anymore -- doohhh. after they were gone - they left 3 yellow plastic marker and a sign about security stuck in the soil around the tank cover, i had to start thinking how to landscape this earth eruption in the front yard.

i found a solution.

our duckies are grown - 2 months and they are as big as their parents. but they are different behaving than the old ones. they come to me - if i have the right treat for them - and they nibble it out of my fingers. they are no lab-ducks but become calm after a minute and let me pet them a bit. we still have not tried so reduce our duck population. it is getting a bit crowded around them and the sorting for bedtime is time consuming. we have Queeny with the young ones and Udo especially and Nancy have to be alone by themselves. duck temper---- who would have thought that i ever have to deal with that kinda thing.

the veggie-garden is doing very well this year:
tomatoes are coming big time 7 different kinds- including 'big beef' and 'moscavitch?', still waiting for 'razzleberry' what had amazing reviews.
potatoes are getting ready or better : are waiting to get in the root-cellar. we have 3 kinds :red from a trip through the high plateau of the sibillini mountains, yellow from the local farmers coop and a special one from the ex DDR. a potato saved over generations and left for us by a couple staying at the vacation house - a treat!!
sweet corn from usa seeds - tastes just like in iowa sweet and juicy - may be this could be a crop for the market here!?

and plums, plums from the neighbors tree. we are getting them in the freezer - just like last year and i will make plum jam and cake all year round. (we still have some bags from last year :-)

yesterday the ceiling/floor in the little house got pored with the help of the old crew: Luigi - our neighbor, his cousin Juliani and Jon- it took them 5.5 hours and 20 sacs of cement and we can now walk on the upstairs and i will soon make marks for the bed and bathroom.

Jon had to make a trip !by himself! to germany and get the technical license for our car redone. every 2 years it has to be inspected again and you get a sticker on the license plate. i had to let him go by himself because our little duckies and all the plants in the greenhouse and beds need care. so 1 had to stay home and it was me because i cannot drive 13 hours without falling asleep while driving..... life on a little farm means - no more vacations together?......