the Count and a Castle

that is quiet a headline, but we did meet a real italian CONTE, he has not a castel, but the most wonderful expressive gesture i have seen so far here in italy. the way these italians talk with their hands, arms, yes feet too, makes my understanding much easier. the Count is not only a gifted stonemason, a fast rider on his 1/2 arabian horse (and car!!! too scared to drive with him, just watching..) he is also a ballerina and danced in the pizzeria boogie-woogie for me.
Jon and the Conte made a deal between guys, he shoes his horse and Mario helps with our fireplace. that's how i like it , as little money involved the better it is.

and than we had a castle day, we went in the morning to visit this old stone building and discovered that our dear friend Renzo is not only involved in the excavation of this forgotten place, he also owns it. not that you can live there, but the castle is beautiful located with a view almost to the sea, surrounded with oak trees and lots of history! just another valley away from us (this is where we live - still a miracle to me).
in the afternoon professors from rome were talking in an old church about the progress and the findings in and about this old walls, built in the 11th-12th century. not that we understood anything,- no really hand talk involved in that kind of speak. but afterward i understood much better:
antipasti with olives, prociutto, salami,
fresh made rigatoni filled with ricotta and shaved tartuffo,
tagliolini with tomato gusto,
5 different meats (i passed - even it looked really good) with the best fried potatoes ever.
green salat and a kinda fruitcake.
espresso, house-wine, of course an anis-schnaps at the end, bread, aqua minerale 20euro each. salute!

oliva

aus mit sonne, es war ein herrlicher herbst, die schoensten farben und die luft so mellow. but that is history. we had the first NEVE / snow / schnee. the temperatur is around the freezing point and we are cold..... we were in deutschland for 5 days and got the car loaded up to the limit with 2 wood burning stoves/kaminofen/stufa di legno , shelves, a lot of german food and (i know it is crazy) at least 20 plants. some of my favorites of all time: small bamboo, wisteria, dutchman's pipe, climbing hydrangea!!! and fruit plants all on total sale 1 euro a piece. we could just not let that go. some organic fertilizer and a lot of seeds/bulbs. there is some time involved to get all this guys taken care off. we just need some sun to get me motivated..
it is already 1 month gone since my last input here.
there was the festa della mele rosa. an old apple from le marche what gets through "slow food" and the people here a promotion and of course roasted castania with free fresh wine - a feast -

and than Jon got his first italian machine : a tiller! and we could even till a spot at the neighbors and plant fava beans; in the first week of NOVEMBER, that is tradition here so we went with that.
i have to tell about our new friend Renzo from sarnano. we had some very nice meals with him (he is a local - even he spend a long time in canada and so we can easy talk with him) and he introduced us to some very nice people. - time is just flying when we visit with him. we had a meal with - was ist 8? courses of of bacalau/codfish in our neighbor village with a english/srilanca couple and a guy from new york and a local architect. we had a wonderful time eating through all this food.

we got our first 2 olive trees for our 2-year anniverseri. 2 kinds of eating olives with big fruits, might take a while before we can let others have some of these... but we got some experience with harvesting olives, it seems it is the best way to tenderly koam through the thin branches - just like my mother did to me as a child with my long hair - hold with 1 hand tight and pull through with the other. works very good. the olives just roll down on the net in a big pile and later they will get squeezed and turn in wonderful olive oil. we got 20 liter of the most greenest oil i have ever seen, with the help from our closest neighbor right out of the mill where he worked 30 years . in the past the marchen olive oil -is said- is the best from italy.

unser 1. herbst

die tage werden schon recht kurz, zu kurz fuer all die projekte draussen. Jon is working long after the sun is gone, he does have a very good eyesite, but.... so i try to get him in with some energy-food and a fire in the stove and a hot tea. the temperatures are not too bad for this time, that is what we hoped for- after all we are in ITALIA- no freezing and still nothing scary in the forecast. instead i got some little flowers today and will get them in the ground, and there is still a vage chance of red tomatoes. jede menge dicke gruene haengen on the vines. irgend jemand stiehlt die roten und laesst sie halb abgebissen liegen. i wonder who the little guy is who is eating our red tomatoes.
the hunters are very busy around here. it seems they can hunt everywhere they want. because the road ends here, they just park in the field next door and let there extremely excited dogs out. of course they just run around the house, sniff everywhere and i have my doubts my future chicken, i want to have, will survive that.
there is not very much left to shoot. the most go for the birds. the same ones that migrated from deutschland, -- look at the youtube how they catch them on the migrating routes -not very nice to look at-- where they are protected by law and admired for there insect eating and singing. i read it is better not to put up a feeder, so they do not get used to people, because the next one they see might just shoot them. this is very sad - i loved it soooo much to watch this colorful, elegant and free creatures. all the feeders will stay in the boxes. what a shame........i know the european law forbid the italian to shoot the most of the birds, but i went through the long site of birds what are not under this protection. how do they know what they are shooting at anyhow,- they will know it when it is dead on the ground-- a bit late.......


the colors of the fall are coming in our valley. the most fascinating tree is this persimmon / kaki tree. the fruits are totally different than the wild american ones, very juici and sweet - and NO bugs are bothering them. neighbors told us the trees lose all leaves and the fruits will turn bright orange. the trees look like decorated for the coming christmas. i will take a picture of that. right now they have the most prettiest red leaves and glow in the morning sun.

vorher und nachher

was war ich aufgeregt - der 1. besuch! seit wir hier sind.
the 1st visitors since we moved here. i was so excited.
my brother Dietmar and 2 cousins - 1 with his wife and 3 kids together. they drove the 1500km all the way down here and i wanted to make sure the kids are getting some wildlife and nature pure. but the weather was not cooperative, it rained and rained before they came, the ground was saturated, their little shoes and socks soaked after playing with rakes and brooms at the yoga platform. i had all kind of plans - harvesting grapes in the vineyard of our nice neighbor, searching for walnuts, collecting apples and make muffins with them, fry potatoes on an open fire and of course pizza with faces and, and, and. but they staid most of the time at the convenient AGRITURISMO ELISEI just around the corner with a wonderful pool and a very nice bathrooms, and a big WHIRLPOOL for all of them. i could not compete with that. but i think they had a great time at Elisei's.

another month went by, so fast since my last input here and we did just work and work on and in our house and land. we got the neighbors sheep in some of the land and they did a great job with cleaning out little bushes and weeds growing over. now we could actually walk through the land and see how the terrain is.

the running lawn-mowers - i love them
before ..............after










Jon hat endlich ein reiches betaetigungsfeld fuer die endlos lange leiter gefunden. he is now our official roofer. nachdem ein deutscher freund uns erklaert hat wie man sich auf diesen dachziegeln bewegt ohne zu viele kaputt zu machen, hat sich mein leichtgewicht auch getraut. he knows now how to fix american roofs and italian one's. a whole day he spend up there enjoying the view ( i hope) and changed broken tiles and moved them back where they do good. there is a lot of moos and grass growing up there. but that will be taken care of later. right now it is important that we need no more bowls to catch the drippings in the attic. und dann auf der anderen seite vom haus - die regenrinne.. the rain gutter needed more thought before head. how can he do this by himself, the gutter there is 9 meter long and just one ladder,- not that i would be of any help,- just looking at him so far up makes me dizzy. but the pieces are 4 meter long and they can be connected in place. but before that he had to get the old holders pulled out and fixed the new once in place. he did it. it is all straight, has a small slope and the downspouts have a nice curve. GREAT!















now that the rain is no more running through the balcony door into the kitchen, we are now working on getting warmth in the house for the next winter.
we did order a fireplace insert from the ebay/deutschland and are very happy to have this heat in the kitchen. but this is just a small part of the house, - even we fantasist if it would be possible to just use that room in the winter, a bed and a computer would make it crowded, but always warm :-). we will make a trip to muenchen the next weeks and buy a made in germany oven, mit all den vorzuegen eines modernen spar- und umweltfreundlichen kaminofen. but we need also wood - a lot. in woodward we could cut a dead oak tree on the ground of our dear friend Dave. that kept us cosy the whole iowa winter long. there are some dead trees here in our own woods, but not easy to get them out, the most areas have a big slope. i like to be there with Jon, smell the forest soil and be so close to nature. there are always things to watch and wonder about. a great place to be now in the beauty.

tooooo much stuff

the container arrived.

i did not know why i was so excited and full of erwartungen, i knew what was in the container, i knew the way we packed everything, you too if you followed this, and still it was like christmas. - this feeling is completely replaced with a huge amount of stuff, everywhere, and no place to put it.

shortly the arrival: the container came to gualdo, we had to lead it down to the beginning of the road (even with the most detailed maps). 4 friendly neighbors were waiting with 2 tractors, 2 trailers and a forca. after 10 hours -yes 10- we were done for that day. the container was unloaded after 5 hours and they had to stop unloading the trailer at the house and feed the life stock. very similar to the situation in iowa.
except NO RAIN!!!!! and the best NO MOLD!!!! everything was bone dry, every living substance cooked and pulverized. so that is a good thing having a container sitting in the full summer blast of south italia for several weeks.

the more difficult part is that i forgot that we had sooooo much stuff. and no outlet like goodwill, garage sales, not even a fleamarket or a church benefit place. we are glad we found - finally- a kinda dump place to get rid of the stuff in the house. you would think that could be a thing we could start: a place where you can bring and find things.

we just heard today we can easily get the farmer status, that would be great, lower taxes, cheap health insurance and the possibility to sell whatever we produce on our land.
that is another thing we are slowly realizing : this soil here. they farm this land now for several thousant years, my guess, and get crop out of it, but it is very different from anything i have seen. they plow it after the harvest (hay, sunflower, wheat) so deep that you cannot even walk over it. the soil becomes hard as stones or bricks. no black top soil nor compost, just packed clay. Jon was cutting the lumps with a heavy duty spate to little chunks and got some tomatoes, leeks and lettuce going. but that took him a while.

just the day of the arrival the water pressure went down to nothing, now imagine: the tractors driving for and back the 2.8 km on the dusty road and the the dust stirred up and laying on everything, sweat and exhaustion and no shower? we survived that too. sponge bath......

the water company came the next day and started to dug up the backyard - i am so glad i did not landscape anything there, we have it now newly shaped. they had to dig up more places and many more days and the neigbor further up the road had his basement flooded and the next one 500 lieter brown water in the storage tank. by the way, today i saw a little creek coming out of the road. new water hose break,- seams to be the neverending story.


we are seeing this so helpful neighbors (we are really blessed to find the same kind of people in our new neigbhorhood, just like we had in woodward) now all the time. at contro parties we come together and chat with our 5 words italian about everything. the italians are very good to explain with their hands and we have a great time. when we invited them, we had to have a pizza party. Jon tested the old pizza oven and was happy with it, after almost all the preparations done and awaiting our new friends, Jon came from behind the oven and said the roof cached fire. i was running for the water hose and all what came out was a tiny pencil thin dripping on my shoes. now that is scary, ok this are not wood houses like in the states, but everything is hold up by wood. Alfredo arrived shortly after and said: no problem, nothing serious in hand/face language and we had our pizzas and wine and chats. the next morning we saw there are still some beams smoking. we took all the tiles down and took care the last pieces of charcoal.

but Jon has his brushcutter and his bmw, what turned on right away and he let it taste the italian gravel road dust, just to the house.....and now the air at the cellar,- heavy with wine and mortar



life is exciting at the end of the strada bianca.

1 month

we are here now for 1 month. time goes very fast when you enjoy it. the place here did not change dramaticly, but we are moving old stuff and dust out the house everyday and there is still a lot left. but the most time we spend was so far : cleaning the garden up and getting the papers going so we can get our container through costums. that is the main thing we have to work on. several visits to the comune in gualdo and 4 days in a row to macerata ( 41km single way). so far we got my residence here accomplished. Jon tried to get his done with no real success. he got all the papers together, but he cannot get an appointment for the fingerprints. there are oodles of people at the immigration with small kids in a room with no air movement (windows were looked). they all spoke more italian than we do, but no english. so we stand in a line just to hear somehow that we have to come next day. we did and after standing in line a policeman came and screamed something, what translated meant : today closed - no sign - nothing. i guess this is the ferragosto holiday. when everything is closed and all the people are somewhere else.
we needed a translation of the health insurance papers (we luckily did the last minute online in germany) and just that did cost us 2 drives to macerata 40euro and extra 4 bollos a 14.62 euros and - 1 policeman who speaks english (wife from NY) and 2 nice ladies willing to help us fasts and unbureaucratic. it took that lady 1/2 hour just to get all the stamps and signs on the photocopies.

but we have it!!!!!

now the moving company: they try to get out of our "door to door" contract and want us to figure out how to unload our stuff from that huge container and reload on a smaller truck what can make the curves to our house. this has to be solved next week. the container is postponed to arrival in livorno on the 16. of august--- did i say everybody is on vacation this week????

now to the smaller thing in our lives: i am thinking when ever i get across of one of these how some of my friends would react to these guys: scorpions - the only thing i have problems with where 2 i found in the bathroom: this one in the tub (easy to take a pic) but the other one was hanging over the toilet. and all the other once are not visible on that floor - - they say always wear shoes in the house.....


and than there was a visitor in the middle of the night, i woke up from this strange noise - too sleepy to realize that fluttering noise, than i saw the fast dark shadow - a bat flew in the bedroom and took care of the moscitos, what an excitement, we see them now every night and watch for them, flying over our heads into the kitchen door and out the window, that is really nice!


than of course were all the trips to the stores and figuring out what how works for what money. we have now a new fridge see picture) and a washer and stove. the stove was quiet a difficult buy. we figured with the 3000 watt power coming in the house , we should not have an electric oven using 2500 watt- that might get us some blown fuse head age. so we decided on an all gas stove, - did you know there is no real temperature control, means no thermometer? how in the world can i make my banana bread right- i have already scraped twice the bananabreadcoal off. Jon did adjust the flame size, i hope i can now bake without burning everything.
he is doing much better with his bread baking, even with no control over anything (no scale so far) and different flour types, temperatures, he bakes many times and we are eating wonderful bread every day.

we are meeting more and more interesting people, yesterday we were in sarnano to the market and got some very good information from Melcom's friends how to enroll here in the health insurance and some phone numbers from people who might be helpful with our container. tomorrow we are invited to other expats from the US who just came over, and have some interesting things to tell. and we have been at the local pizza on the piazza festival and talked to the locals at our table - so many friendly italian's around us. and we see our friend the policeman from gualdo all the time - he is our biggest help here with informations and translating for our papers.
more about this soon, i hope....

Geschafft - we made it.....

what a long time is past since my last writing in here, with the most exciting and also frightening experiences. the move: the truck came 4 hours too late and the strong young helpers were already at a game and we relied on our wonderful neighbors Dave, Steve, and Al and the new owner of our little house: Tim, and they worked so hard up to the bitter end 11pm ...... i do not know how to thank them enough...

i make it short: the truck arrived, we got the first pallets with Dave's help and his loader in the truck; everything was out on the lawn, waiting to get in the big box; it started raining - i fed the strong helper with some pizza, we were glad for the break, the hot humidity was sooo high, sweat !!!!; it did not stop raining, the guys went back loading, it was poring down, cats and dogs raining on us, lightning, thunder right on top of us, it started hailing - 1 euro coin size. and it did not end, the system was just stuck over woodward, it did not move away, just circled around - for the whole time packing; everything got soaked, the plastic tarps filled up with 4 inch of rain- oder 120 liter auf 1 qm - . the truck driver told us that he had the worst move ever - 30 years ago - he adjusted that statement after our container was full. full yes, but not everything in it. the postes made it in the truck but not the shelves. a lot of them.......and, and

but this is history!!!!

we are now in gualdo, we have an internet connection- since yesterday- a good fast one, Jon found a way to connect the receiver on a piece of scaffolding, and the little box looks now over the trees towards the tower of our little hometown, where the antenna is installed. with some luck we will even have a phone through this :-).

we stayed with family before we arrived here on the 17th of july. first a trip to Jon's dad in minnesota, what a nice dad i married into! than a too short visit with LauraJean, Jon's older sister- she just have to come visit here so we have more time for each other. the last night in usa we stayed at Jeff's house, our friend who lives also in europa(england). there must be something in common to this people moving away from usa.....
the flight and arriving in frankfurt and a smiling brother picks us up from the airport. our bags to the gram filled to the limit barely fit in the car and we made it to his home. this is now our mutual home we are registered in markt erlbach as residents and after some search we found a little cargo car- 2 seats and a big space for our future business in italy- whatever that might be - . after settling the purchase i recognized the black dirt all over inside the car. there is also a label on the engine hood - we do know now what is means: it is the official sign for a chimney cleaner- we bought the work-car of the luck symbol schornsteinfeger!!!! now if that is not a good omen.