Up, Up in the Air

That's me. First time in a balloon of any sort. Tethered, of course. But I'm the one with my hand on the throttle (and the "red line" for letting the hot air out during too rapid an accent). This was at the birthday party last night for balloonist Robert Etherington, who gives splendid hot air rides over the best part of Tuscany, the Unesco World Heritage designated Val D'Orcia.

Good Friends, Bad Luck, and Ugly Breaks

These are our best Roman friends, Giancarlo Ullman and Elisabetta Bruscolini. We had just gotten out of a trolly together after attending the posh opening of Rome's new museum of modern art, the Maxxi. We'd taken a tram because we couldn't get a cab anywhere near the mobbed museum and had exited it in a less busy place neither of them had been before, but where both were sure we could more easily get a cab.

The night before, we attended the Nastri D'Argento (Silver Ribbon) exposure gala where Elisabetta's first produced movie, Dieci Inverni (Ten Winters), earned her a contender's spot beside 4 other Italian producer, all behemoths compared to her. The director of her film was also nominated for best new director as well. The winners will be announced in a month.

Happily for me, Elisabetta introduced me to important faculty members of the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome, where I will start teaching a "story" workshop to aspiring screenwriters in 2 weeks. Sadly for Elisabetta, while dancing in celebration of the success of her movie in the little village square of the Tuscan village of Castelmuzio the following evening, she fell and broke her wrist.

Heal fast, Elisabetta! I'm betting you have more handshaking to do!

Ah, Internet!

Well, let's see. We have internet now. But first the electrician had to drill a hole through our foot-thick cement second floor for a cable to the receiver antenna. When water started gushing from the hole it took a while to shut it off, calm down, and figure out he hadn't struck the underfloor heating (which would have been a real nightmare). 3 hours of jack-hammering later, with everyone who built the house standing in a circle like engineers trying to figure out why a rocket wouldn't launch, the plumbing was repaired. Now we just have a hole in the ceiling/floor that needs fixing and a big pile of cables and equipment beside the bed.

This is how things go here: one step back, two steps forward. At least we have internet.

So You Want To Be a Contadino, eh?

When I first heard the term contadino applied to me by a smiling local, I took it as a compliment of my willingness to work. Lately I've understood it can be a bit of a class slur.

Never mind I am trying to finish building a house in a foreign land, trying to learn a foreign language and trying to figure out how to make a living during the worst economic crisis in a century.

There are not enough hours in a day for me to be me! And now the garden needs planting before the dry season.

I have 6 months to go. Six months to nurture the grapes on the vines and turn them into wine.Six months to cultivate the olives and turn them into oil. Six months to manage the grain fields in one way or another. Six months to turn the fertile bottom by the spring into a real vegetable garden. And six months to learn all I can from real deal contadino Giovanni Mangiavacchi (even though all he’s doing these days is cutting and stacking next winter's income-producing firewood).

Invasion of the Grape Snatchers

Not only is there still much mowing to do in the vineyard thanks to the grass-nourishing rains, but now the brucchi are hatching and munching as you can see below.

To stop the larvae of the European Grape Moth (Lobesia Botrana), a pest first seen in Napa Valley vineyards only last year, I have to walk the vine rows with a pump sprayer full of Bacillus Thuringiensis spores. This organic remedy is like stomach flu for caterpillars and will stop the ones I can’t see. I hope.

For the ones I can see, there’s the pincer attack. Thumb and forefinger. Pop! This activity is decreasingly disgusting and increasingly satisfying as one goes, I assure you.

Joy of Mesclun

Our first radish! From the first seed I planted in the orto (garden).

For lunch, the first thinnings of the Marvel of Four Seasons and Rosso di Trento lettuces, thrice washed and arranged on a white plate and topped with flakes of Sardinian bluefin tuna and roasted red pepper strips and moistened with a slurry of sour orange juice, dijon mustard and a dab of mayo.

Buon Apetito!

Moka Explosion

This is what happens when your sleepy wife tries to make coffee with a Moka, senz aqua, and the rubber gasket melts and you come along and try to make coffee with water and you wonder why it's taking so long and lift the lid to see what's up . . . just at the right moment.

No worries. The scalds healed quickly and I was wearing the red down vest of the last blog, which protected my chest from most of the blast. Good thing!