, on Monday night. We are staying with Ev and Claudia and Lorenzo on their farm. It was converted to a farm after being abandoned for quite some time, but now an old towerhouse on the Tiber river serves as their very cool home. They have been refurbishing it from its abandoned state for the last five years. In addition to working on their house they are starting a farm with a vineyard. The food they grow is mostly for their own consumption -- including homemade olive oil and wine. Our main purpose while we are staying here is to help with the planting of new vines for the vineyard, that is currently big enough for a family, but not to produce any wine commercially. Unfortunately, it has been very rainy and we are waiting for the field to dry out before we can start the planting, but never fear, there is no shortage of work to be done. We have put up steaks for a fence for sheep yesterday and pruned a large evergreen today. We also went to the town of Todi where the pictures are from. It is really old and midevil looking, and very nice. It was a nice walk around.The farmstay basically works like this. We wake up around 7:15ish and get dresses in our already very dirty clothes and eat breakfast. Then it is out between 8:30 and 9 to the daily task. So far it hasn't rained so we have been doing outside work which had been fun; I am enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. Sometimes digging around in the dirt is a lot of fun. Then after we are done we wash up and have lunch, usually around 2 when Lorenzo comes home from school. The lunches are big and delicious. The afternoons are free. On Tuesday Aaron and I helped finish the morning work... neither of us could stop when there was just so little left. Today Claudia and Ev took us and the other HelpXer, Anthony, to Todi this afternoon. We wandered around the town, got some delicious hot chocolate and enjoyed learning the hisoty of the place.
Food: Breakfast is pretty basic. Granola and yogurt, cheese, honey, and tea. Tomorrow I think I am going to try my hand at the coffee machine!Lunch: It is a big meal. Yesterday it was pasta with a sausage tomato sauce. Today it was potatoes and pork chops. A lot of the vegetables and spices are grown on the farm, as is the olive oil and wine.
Dinner: Vegetable soup, Risotto -- which I learned how to make, and breads and cheeses. We eat pretty late, around 8 and normally sit and talk for a while after dinner, maybe until 9:30 then clean up. Then it is bed time, and I'll tell you, the days are good but tiring. I will be sleeping well here! Also, the bed is way more comfortable than the one in the apartment in Rome, and definitely the hotel in Naples, so that doesn't hurt either.
To sum it up, this has so far been really fun and interesting. The time will fly, so I will try and keep this as updated as possible, and finish the posts from Naples, but I think I am going to need to get to bed early early tonight... I am pretty exhausted.Hope all is well wherever you are, and thanks for the comments. I've been loving them.
4 comments:
Hot chocolate--yessssssssss.
A fun game with dirt is just throwing shovel-fuls at each other. I used to do that a lot when I worked at a flower nursery. It's interesting to see how much dirt gets stuck in your ears.
HT,
Love you lots, but it's "medieval" -- there was nothing evil about it, well a few things, but not enough to warrant putting evil in the name.
Glad you are having fun down on the farm, and I'm super impressed that you are now making risotto. C'est tres dificil!
Avec mon amour,
MT
Rachael and Aaron,
Plant some extra vines so I can have some awesome wine in a few years from Todi! Love you, Momma Wummerini
Rachael,
Great update! It does sound like a lot of fun and a good way to live generally. The pictures are great but of course, I want more!
By the way, since you're learning how to cook all these new things, you have two choices: either make sure you stop in Norton on your way back so you can demonstrate your new skills or make sure Aaron learns how to make these new dishes.
Karen
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