the long and starting all over spring

the last weeks were filled with easter surprises, a lot of spring flowers and snow, snow, snow again. we were in the total easter fewer with seeding - i have all this little packages with unknown flowers waiting to be discovered. and the tomatoes had to be started. it was sunny- i did actually took the shirt off one day. then we had snow:

kinda pretty and excepted. my b-day in the middle of march without snow - was not too warm, but we went to a beach town with palm-trees covered:

only men are playing boccia and they are all older

but accurate

and we had the 1st ice-cream!!!! very good-, pizza and a walk on the sand. it was total no season. and then you can see how a beach looks like when it is not cleaned: lots of natural material but endless plastic parts:

it will look like this after cleaning:

i am watching the plastiki online : http://www.theplastiki.com/
the facts about the plastic waste are scary...

we had also friends coming to explore our little creek and the kids loved to make new paths

through facebook i got to chat with Nicola, a friend who helped us with translating when we got our 1st bee-supplies. he had the time to come and do our old wall behind the living room stove. a virtuosic professional - working with stones all his life and he did a wonderful job, put 2! little niche in for me - i have to put a little vase with flowers in!!

Dietmar came to an eastervisit and we had a great time - lot's on the computer :-) but we also went to sarnano and watched the good-friday-procession:

the sinner (we were told) have to walk at this procession for their penance. they are covered up - so they are not identifiable, barefoot, the men carrying a cross and were also dragging a little chain. it seems all the citizen were also walking with through the cold town.

spring feelings came back after easter - Jon cut the big oak right through the middle for our future beam, we will have in the little house. soooo straight!

last sunday was cold and colder and it snowed again, all the plants back in the house, seed trays rescuded, but Queeny has no problems - finally she is invisible

it already started

the view to the mountains from the upper field behind the house

the leaves are coming out! the first is the sweeping willow with unfolding the little greens. the plum-trees have flowers all over (they will be killed with the next frost - for sure there is one waiting). pillows of perfuming violets are on the road-banks, the snow bells are still hanging in there and the narcissus have their high performing time right now. once i had the idea to travel to wherever the spring is. an all year round experiencing this wonderful awakening of the nature after a winter sleep must be amazing. but the good thing with our little place on earth is- the spring last for months! there are actually never no flowers and in february starting the early ones.

these are the once i found on the 23.of february

but there could be frost much longer - the neighbor puts his tomatoes out in the garden in may! the rubarb is making this big red bumps and the greens of white lilys are already 30 cm tall.
i cannot wait to get the seeds going. we were a bit too early last year with the annuals. 50 kilo of seeding soil and 100ds of seed packs are ready to go. i know this sounds wild, but i had the chance to order seeds in usa and our dear friends brought them with when they visited in february. they are so much cheaper and so many more varietals. how can i resest to get a little pack of an orange snapdragon for 2 $, that would be what? 1euro here? no way i could..... 62 different seeds. i will be busy this spring :-) here they all are:

but the february was also full of rain and fog and an avalanche on our road, right in-front of us when we were walking towards the sheep to look at the newborn lambs:

we were aware that there are little pebbles falling and looked up and the whole bunch came down with a big dust cloud. quite impressive! no drive for 2 days - no big deal - except it was on the 14.2.2010 no dinner!

we lost one of our 5 chickens, in the bright day light around 3:00. something killed Blondy and started eating her just 10 meter away from the house. Erminia thinks it was a fox, my thoughts are more to a stray cat hanging around here. but whoever - i have to be there all the time when the birds are outside of their 2 meter fenced place, what we covered up now on the top with a mesh. mostly because the chicken could fly outside. 7 birds left.

but now something just toooo funny i laughed and laughed, i do not know about the baseball bat- but everything else happened to me by my cats, too funny. i really love cats, but they can be soooo annoying:

life is good

(spinach/ricotta/parmigiana made with our new pasta machine a christmas present for us)

there went the christmas, the visit from Dan, the new year and already at the end of january. time is going fast when you have fun.

we picked up Dan from the roma airport - just 300 km away from us - but a different world. the drive went through countless tunnels; one was even 15 km ! long. the traffic towards the airport was ok, but boy, back was a 2 hour stop and go just on the ring around rome. we decided not to drive into the city ( a must for a tourist - we have not yet visited the 2763 old city) and just head back with Dan in our rented car. (30Euros a day) we stopped somewhere on the road to get some fish. arrived home around 24:00. a 17 hour long day.

the weather could have been nicer for Dan's first visit in Europa. but we had some sun, actually we were sitting outside for his first real italian pizza and cappuccino and could show him some very marchigiana impressions.

this area here was once very heavy populated by the romans and you can find even some amphitheaters and walls/ruins. this are perfect backgrounds for the living nativity scene in the middle of roman rural life. they have goats, sheep, soldiers on horses, craftsmen. a busy community and some of the cute soldiers have naked legs under their skirts (around freezing temperatures!).

the second presepio vivente was even bigger, the whole village must have been turned in roman citizen, it starts at 17:00 and ends 3 hours later. the preparation takes 3 months to built all this - we read that on the poster:

he saw also the hunters with their dogs trying to shoot 'something'...hunters drive fiat panda 4x4, a great car to get around on gravel roads, very small, but it is possible to get 6 hunting dogs in the trunk....

another pure italian custom is the Befana. she is an old witch and the one who brings the presents. but on the 6th of january. around christmas you bring/get presents -mostly something to eat in a decorated basket. we had luffas, dried chillies, some straw-flowers and flat bred with herbs, Jon made them with help of our new pasta machine to give away. i got my present at christmas: a 5kg jar of nutella...... will see how long that will last - it has already a big hole in it.

that means don't drink and fly

we brought Dan back to Rome after a wonderful week with him.

pizza arugula hmmmmm

we learned the absolute best time to drive to the capital is at 2:00 in the morning. the long tunnels all for us alone, no slowing down, no get passed in wild maneuvers zooooooom.

we are ready for spring, the first flowers are coming out of the ground, narcissus have big flowerbuds, the snowbell is ringing the spring melody, and the plumtree makes already (too early silly!) flowers. i know it will all be drowned in snow at one time but so far - life is good.

nikolausi.....

today is the 4th of december and my brothers b-day. he wanted to visit us with his sun Moritz 2 weeks ago and after 200 km he lost the control of his car and rolled off the road. gottseidank only some minor cuts and bruises. life can change in just a short piece of a second. he is well and happy!

i got back from the mammogram i was so scared of the result and in just 2 seconds: "everything is normal" i felt easy and happy again. i promised myself to not get angry and disappointed any more. i wanna keep this feeling of lightness.
i remembered how i felt when i came back from the confession at the church (before i discovered that sex is a wonderful thing) i felt light, easy, like an angel. nothing bad sitting heavy on my shoulders - life was bright and beautiful. let's keep that.

Molly when she stopped being activ.

we lost another duck: Molly. she was always the slowest one, always behind. her posture was somehow not well balances. and than she fell again and again. she had a short but very good life. her friends were with her all the time. so sweet.

but we got chicken. the neighbor stopped and had a box with 3! chicken in it.

this is Äuglein, she closes 1 eye all the time, but she is the nicest one.

we ordered 2 from her, so i thought we might find a use for the 3rd egg. just a few days later the other neighbor came by and had a box for us: 2 chicken, they gave us these for a regalo and this is so nice - we have 5 now, all very friendly, i can touch them, pick each one up and feed them out of the hand. really nice girls "they are all not laying - so far - but if they do i have to come up with some egg-heavy recipes. 1 know already: "brutto ma buono" means: ugly but good. boy and they are G O O D!! 36 Euro a kilo at the bakery......

glorious

cutting wood in the curve of our road

we are getting ready for the winter, at least our wood-supply is getting ready. Jon cut a lot of dead and bad trees at the end of last winter. but we had to cut them in pieces and get them closer to our stove.

we can easily see why yoga is good for making firewood

our fantastic car went to the woods and got filled with fire-wood. the only problem we will have with the car now: there is no 3rd seat for Dan, who is coming to visit over christmas. so we have to rent a car, that will be fun too, driving together in a clean! car through the towns with their hot wine and markets and christmas scenes.
just had! to put these pictures in - another first timer for me strawberries in december and chickorie flowering on the roadside, that is italia!

friday the 13th of november

today was our 3rd wedding anniversary. we took the day off. locked the ducks in their house and took hit south toward a sunny, natural beach. we found one after some searching. just some dog-owners and joggers shared the whole beach with us. i like it much more without the sunbather.

the sun was coming back in le marche (still no frost!)and did actually get my island poppies growing - i cut the 2nd one for the vase to have it full enjoyable, this is maybe my favorite flower... :-) ok,ok one of all my favorite flowerS.

the zucca harvest is big and beautiful. Jon's way to prepare is baking them in the oven, i just did the soup with (a lot) cream. since we are kinda off dairy products, this is not really an option. when our neighbor told us about the marchigiana way to make rice with squash, i tried it right away and it was delicious; here with some baked fish and the most wonderful Jon-bread.

when we were in germany last year we got 2 wood-burning stoves, the price was right and enough place in the car. Jon figured he can make the stove more efficient and cleaner to use and because he loves to work with metal, he just redid the airflow inside. that took some major metal cuttings and welding.

may be i can use this for a christmas card.....

we were at some castania festivals. i never liked the heissen maronis /roasted chestnuts. they were always mealy/tasteless. but i tried and was very surprised of the nutty and sweet taste. delicious, hot, char-coaled- yes you get black fingers- and just fun to eat while strolling through that little, smoke filled town with free, new, red wine in the other hand.

the progress on our little old house: we got the cement floor in, quiet a while ago, with help of the neighbors. than we were waiting for our neighbor to come with the backhoe to dig up the place in front of the house for the future patio. Jon want to pore the concrete there as soon as possible. we were waiting ..... Jon just started, dug up more and more HUGE rocks, finally the backhoe came and in 3 hours all the work was done. but do we have now a lot of rocks?! they were all put in to stable the ground - we guess. what a lot of work these people did with their bare hands.

so - this was the summer?

the midst of october, and we are heating, firewood cut last spring is warming the house. there is not enough with the winter already starting. i was still growing seeds and my luffas need more SUN!WARMTH! to get big. here is a europe wide cold weather front. so there is hope that this will end and some sun comes back.
october also brings back the hunter (sadly - also the bird-shooter) and the dogs barking through the forests. we had a huge tomato harvest - all frozen in the new BIG freezer and many peppers. so these vitamins are taken care off. i have a lot of very diverse jams in the cupboard: elderberry with vino cotto; plum with cinnamon; wine with christmas-spices.....
my projects in the big house are slow accomplishing, some very slow... in how many obstacles can you run in to get the doorknobs on the newly painted doors?
*the old ones were not usable - all different sizes
*the new knobs have a square steel rod, too big to get through the hardware in the door
*i needed resizer (yes - available in old hardware-stores, just have to find them) for the old steel-rod to fit the new doorknobs
*i needed a 2-piece replacement - length between rod and key whole is different on each door
*the round cover of the 2-piece are wider and the door (actually 1) cannot be closed
*the hardware in that door has to be moved further into the door ...
this is where i am right now, i started that project in spring, will see when i have it all done.

when my brother announced he would like to come for a visit, i took finally the time to check our abandoned storage/guest room and was very surprised about the pets accumulated between the window and the outside shutter. i would love to have a school class seeing this, it is also to me fascinating:

at the beginning it was a relatively small nest, but i guess this here is a perfect nest situation - they are multiplying and the nest is now tremendous. there was the thought about killing them, but they do not really do harm - so far - and in germany they are protected by law. so i thought why not watch a hornet life cycle. i read a lot about them, but nobody told, that they use the open underneath as a bathroom and they pee/poop a lot! so i have a cat-sandbox underneath and have to change it too.

we were finally at the beach, researched this one online - found it and we were thrilled: very calm just some last sunbather, warm sun and water - we were both in it, Jon even with his snorkel. 1,5 hours away from us!

another place we explored when Dietmar was here, was the devils gorge and a famous hermit living above it. the place was all ours no-one on this 2 hour hike, the trail went through the rough cut between the mountains, the peaks sticking in the clouds, through this most beautiful beech-forest with a carpet of cyclamen on the ground.

but the most remarkable place is where Padre Pedro is working on his life fullfilling project: he is building a church, by hand, one stone after the other cut, shaped and placed. pure meditation. he calls himself God's contractor.

he is one of the most happiest person i have seen. Jon said he will see the work on our place different after watching him, living by himself in the mountains, built his vegetable gardens in the steep sites with natural stone walls (piled all by himself) to hold the soil. he started this project 1971! he is far in his 80's and still going every possible minute.

vino cotto: cooked wine. a marchigianic specialty. we were witnessing and even helping in the process. after the grape harvest, the juice, just dripping out of crashed grapes comes in this copper pot and get heated up with an oak wood fire. through reducing the amount and keeping it from over-boiling - constant watching and pouring new cold juice on top, it will after 6-8 hours be concentrated enough. it comes in a barrel and ripens to a sweet and strong cherry like wine.

our Princess is gone

the last input in this blog was about our 2 white ducks. this one is about the duck we lost. the little one: Princess is lost to nature. i wanted her to be happy and her favorite thing was to wander around and find fresh grasshoppers and flies. she did go the wooded trail toward the river (where she was not suppose to go) and something got her. Jon did find her and buried her. i know it would have been a perfect roasted duck, but that is one reason why i am a vegetarian.
she was the closest to me of all the ducks. she let me pick her up and ate out of my hand. she was very relaxed and not afraid about anything, that's why she is gone, i guess.
the new duck situation is now: they are fenced in around their little house and if i let them out i am around them. the other white duck was lonely and got upset with the other once. so i made an extra cage for her to be at night.

their newest home improvement is a duck swimming pool, (just another old thing what found a good use: an old bathtub). i dug a hole got the tub in, put natural flagstone around and an old board to get in and out.

i got myself in place to see/take pics how they will be in a pool the 1. time in their lives. there are still no pictures. and the tub is in the ground since 10 days. what's wrong? they do not go in the water, at least not by themselves. the runners think probably i wanna drown them when i finally got one of them in the fresh water, totally scared. the queeny got

a special treatment. every morning i picked her up, brought her to the tub and hold her like a child when you teach it to swim. she is patience with me, but as soon i let her really go she splashes her wings 10 times and out! ...

but Molley is sitting on 2 eggs. we candled them... and it looks there is something growing. another 10 days and we might have 2 tiny little duckies. i will make sure that they are not afraid about me - thought i will take them in a box and be the duck-mommy, will see.

the next post will be about our new/old house renovation.