Fencing 101

In Tuscany, in particular, a fence is a record of invasions by wild boar and porcupines, and of the gardener's intervention. I cannot say how old the fence around my orto (vegetable garden) is, but I can say it is an archive. It is not beautiful. It is rusty and snaggly and patched together with bailing wire. And now, with the first seeds of spring sown, it needs to be replaced, or patched once again. I have chosen to patch it. Patch it where the wild things have burrowed through. Patch it where the diesel dinosaur of the excavator ripped through it to lay our utility lines at the start of construction.

Again I find myself patching, repairing, healing what is crippled, broken, old, abandoned, but not yet dead or useless or done. Like the property itself. Like the old men a women seen doddering up and down the roads here after mealtime.

My initial instinct was to rip out the old fencing and crooked fence posts and replace it with a shiny straight new fence. And I suspect that I eventually will. But not this year. What is left of this old fence, the few places left where it is still intact, is also a record of where the animals have not gotten in. Yet.

The First Step (after many)

It's been a week since the blizzard and I can finally get to the house without leaving the car by the road and walking. Giovanni is down in the woods bucking up downed trees. I will help him stack next year's firewood tomorrow.

This may not look like much, but it's the first step, literally and literally. The first step I've taken to finish the house (and get settled in). The first step from the old love shack (I'm reusing in the new). Everything else has been cleanup after the final flurry of construction and of snow.

Sono Qui! (I Am Here!)

I am back in Tuscany for the next 8 months, to finish what I came here to start.

3 days ago it snowed for 2 days straight. Very strange for our area. This morning I just had to go to the house to check out the situation and satisfy myself that the roof hadn't caved in. On the way, I took a half an hour to get a little stuck. Then I took another half an hour to get a little more stuck. Then I spent most of the morning digging the car out.

But not without walking a long way, carrying a suitcase on my head.

When I first saw the shuttered house across the snowy field, I felt a little like Dr. Zhivago returning to Varyniko after years.

Triage & Vinage

The very next day Russell brought his crew of groundskeeping lifesavers over to save the drowning vineyard. It was a searing hot day and very humid. Russell, Momo, Luciano (Gato), Mateo, Gabor, and I worked from 7:00 a.m till sundown. We got 3 rows of grapevines up and trellised and a lot of smothering weeds and vines whacked down. We also freed the pear, olive and other nearby trees of tree strangling wires and vines.

Many of the vines were sick with rot and mildew and the Italians on the crew wanted to prune them back severely. But I knew we were stressing them just to bend them back upright and expose them fully to the harsh Tuscan sun. Every leaf is a sugar factory and I wanted to let them use every one to recuperate. So we only cut back what was necessary to straighten and untangle them.

We put in some new posts and ran new trellis wire where needed.

And in the end, we had to prop them up with what we had on hand. Very contadino.

It wasn't pretty and it wasn't healthy, but Sally and I now had the start of the vineyard of my dreams.

Second Attempt

Sally and I discussed the minimum items necessary to "camp" cheaply and comfortably at the property. These included: A propane stove and refrigerator, a composting toilet, a solar hot water set-up, a wood stove, a futon, a table and chairs, a water tank, a cell phone, and some kind of transportation. A list that was about to be rendered moot.

May 22. Noon. Back in the notary's office, after asking if we had the cashiers checks, Mr. Kopini read through the deed and transfer papers and permissions to build, etc. Even the black sheep were on good behavior. After the last fiasco, this felt, as Sally said at lunch afterwards, "positively anti-climatic."

Except when Mr. Kopini read the part of the complicated Italian title transfer that said we agreed to begin restoration within one year from the date of signing, and would complete all construction within 3 years from the start date OR WE WOULD FORFEIT THE VOLUMES WE’D JUST ADDED, without which no habitable house could be built on the property. Ever.

Blink. Blink. This was the first Sally, Stefania or I had heard of this. Sally and I stared at each other, but neither of us said "we can't do this." Neither said "the deal is off." Neither said what we were thinking (Is this the beginning of a chain of such add-ons and costs?). We could have ripped the cashiers checks up and walked away. But we didn't. Our sense that we had already accomplished something beyond our dreams wouldn't let us. And our optimism provided a rationale: Possession is nine-tenths the law. We can sort this out later.

And so we walked out into the bright Siena sun, owners of a little piece of Tuscany, willfully oblivious to the fact that we had solved the problem of buying the property with an even bigger problem to solve.

Riding Around on the Carouse-e-el

While waiting for the re-wired money to be accepted by our Italian bank this time, I must run to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to meet Prince Sultan bin Salman, who in 1985 went up in the NASA Space Shuttle.

On the 5:00 a.m. drive to Rome we pass, at the turn off to the new property, a burning car that has driven into a roadside ditch and exploded in the early morning hours . I don't believe in omens, but my Italian driver grabs his crotch and suggests I should do the same anyway. A gesture to ward of bad luck.

2.5 hours later, at Rome's Da Vinci Airport, I board my plane to Frankfort, Germany, where I expect to catch a flight to Riyadh. 2.5 hours later, I arrive in Frankfort having missed that flight. At the Luftansa info desk I am told there is simply no other plane that can get me to Riyadh in time for the meeting that day, so, after a 3.0-hour lay over, I board a return flight to Rome and arrive back at Podere Villore around ten 0'clock that evening.

But there is some good news: The money has cleared, and the family has agreed to reconvene for the sale on May 22nd at noon.

The Deal Is Off!

In Siena we park beside a spinning carousel, unaware of how apt it is as a metaphor.

Stefania asks what we intend to do. In Italy it's illegal to write a bad check, so our choices are really only one. We can sign the checks and find ourselves in jail, or we can tell the truth and hope the notary, Mr. Kopini, will do everything but transfer legal ownership to us.

This is disconcerting because we would not have driven to Siena if this was the only option. Why didn't we discuss this before traveling all the way here? Because Stefania and her husband Antonio were buying a second small parcel from the same family and it was convenient for them to transact the sale at the same time.

As we walk, Stefania warns us about something she calls "Italian bluster." She says not to be alarmed if we experience it at the meeting. But we don't have to wait that long.

On a quaint street before a quaint door outside the surprisingly modern Notaio's office, we converge with Daniele and the family of sellers. When Stefania pulls Daniele aside and explains the money situation in hushed tones, Daniele's face turns bright red and he speaks rapidly. "The truth must be told!"

We enter the office and stand in the waiting room. Mr. Kopini enters and greets us. Stefania pulls him aside and has a word with him while the rest of go into the meeting room.

At the long boardroom table, the family arranges itself while Sally, Daniele and I sit at the Notary's end of the table, leaving a chair for Stefania between us. At the far end of the table sits a dignified, immediately likable, English speaking man, a Florentine banker here to represent his recently indisposed wife. Beside him is a regal looking older woman and another well-heeled man in a suit (a power attorney from Grossetto). There is also a doctor and his pretty wife. This is the Bracciali clan, the elegant, educated part of the family. They hold one-half of the property shares and are the ones who took the trouble to introduce themselves to us in the foyer.

From the middle of the table down sit the members of the Manzi clan, owners of the other half. These include the aging car mechanic of Montisi and his brother, as well as a tightly wound, 40-something woman with witchy black hair that has in it, the more I look, seed pods of some kind, as though she's just crawled out from under a bush. She sits directly across from Sally and glares. Beside her, across from me, is a man I assume is her brother. He is wearing sunglasses, and a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, and several gold chains around his thick neck, and a tee-shirt. He is slouching in his chair, arms folded (I'm not kidding) like James Gandolfini. Did I say he's wearing sunglasses inside? Sunglasses and a cap that he will leave on all through the meeting?

Stefania comes in and explains in English that the Mr. Kopini refuses to do anything at all until we have the money in hand, and that we need to explain the situation to the family. Sally and I are mortified, of course. And when Stefania explains in Italian the reaction is palpable and dramatic.

"If I’d known, I wouldn’t have driven all the way from Grossetto," says the lawyer. Sally pleads that we are sincerly sorry and Stefania even shows the bank memo explaining that the money was wrongly returned. But this is where the division in the family becomes clear. the seed pod coiffed woman and her shady brother erupt in machine-gun Italian too rapid and simultaneous for me understand or recount here. Finally, the elegant banker at the far end of the table injects a voice of calm: "We know you are honest. It is just a mistake." The black sheep go quiet for a moment.

Seizing the moment, the notary asks Sally and me to excuse ourselves and tell Antonio to come in so he and Stefania can at least go through with their own purchase. But seed pod woman slams her fist to the table. “I am mad," she says to Stefania. "I was in an institution!” Then she points to Sally and me. "Without their money, no deal." The pair of shades beside her nods agreement. Now everyone is talking, including Mr. Kopini, trying to convince the two black sheep that Stefania is only our translator and the land sales have nothing to do with each other. But they won't listen. Everything is off unless all the money is here. Period.

Embarrassed and feeling bad for Stefania and Antonio, I'm tempted to take this as a sign and forget the whole deal. But the Notaio, all business, invites the sellers, if they still want to sell, to give power of attorney to one or two representatives, making it easier when the money is is in the bank. Everyone does except the black sheep, who immediately leave in a huff.

And that is why I have no picture of the family to show.