mountain goat

My hands are raw and calloused, rough.  They say you can always tell a lady by her hands, but I've admitted to myself long ago that I am no lady.  That doesn't mean I'm slovenly white trash or anything, just that I've got a bit of an edge.  I may burp loudly after a big meal, I may have chipped nail polish, but by God, I never find myself up to my elbows in dirt without lipstick on my lips and mascara on my lashes.
 
Just because a girl has to shovel horse poo doesn't mean she needs to look like it herself.

Things here are simple and easy, and when I have any energy what so ever I will write it all down.  This pint of beer in front of me is half-full, as is my battery.  Today I went with Stephan, the youngest brother (there are three) up a mountain to another one of their apple orchards.  This one was situated on a series of terraces carved into the mountain side, each terrace with a 20ft drop between them, and only a teeny tiny set of stone steps WITH NO RAIL leading down to each one.  I had to crawl down on my butt, eyes closed, due to my acrophobia, but what made this really super fun was that I had to bring along a 75lb bag of fertilizer!  I moved myself one step down, breathed for a minuted, then reached behind and lugged the bag down after me.  I got about 5 steps down before Stephan told me not to worry about it and just launched the bag down onto the ground. 

The view was glorious, the air was fresh, and when we were thirsty we went to a ripply little stream tumbling down the mountain and drank icy, clear water out of our hands. 

Bed time, for now.

greetings from Alto Adige: home to more apple juice than they know what to do with

am sitting in the cafe' of the LandAnna BioHotel (whatever that means) in Silandro, Alto Adige, Italy, sipping on a glass of what i am pretending is Gewurztraminer (probably Sauvignon, but it's the house wine and WWOOFers can't be choosers), listening to Italians who are really Austrians babble in German (my brain feels like scrambled eggs).  The decor is rather dated, but cozy in a Austrian way- lots of wood paneling and beer steins.  Out the window the sun is setting on some real damn mountains, like, the actual Dolomites, reducing sweet Cormons to a town built in the shadow of a pimple in the scheme of things.  The sun glows pink on the sloping snow, beds of clouds gather here and there, closer to us here on Earth than the top of that glassy beast, Mt. Snarz.  This place is for sure a slice of heaven, touched by God, majestic.

The hotel is situated in the middle of town, though the town came long after the structure of the hotel itself.  Originally a farm house, the sprawling stone structure was built over 1,000 years ago.  Over time bits and pieces were added on, other people gathered around, and the town of Silandro (Schlanders in Tedesco) came into being.  The same family has owned this house for 400 years, and 25 years ago turned it into an organic farm.  These days, it is a bio-hotel that offers cozy rooms, a three-star restaurant, horse back lessons and trail riding and (!!!) a petting zoo.  It is a splended place, in the center of a splended little town, surrounded by staggeringly high mountains that offer mountain climbing, skiing and some serious hiking.

Work is lovely- today we spent hours in the apple orchard, planting baby trees in among the 2,500 that are already established from past seasons.  Horses roam around, and bunnies hop.  I mucked a stall today!  It felt good.

Rooming is cozy and right up my alley- I have my own little nook in an apartment right behind the hotel.  There are 5 german kids and 1 boy from Switzerland who rent rooms in the aparmtent while they go to the local sculpture school, giving the place the laid-back, free spirited energy of a hostel.

All in all, I am doing very, very well here.

Will keep readers posted, but for now it is 9pm and I am one tired duck.  A feather bed is calling my name.

Primavera

Springtime at Bosc di Sot.

It's warm enough to work in the garden in tiny shorts and a tank top, and freckles are popping up along my shoulders by the dozens.  I think they're so cute.

On a particularly sunny day this past week I took some photos from my bathroom windows.  Since then, the hills have gotten even greener.  The vineyards lacing Collio have begun to bloom, covering the harsh sandy earth with young, bright, snappy vines and patches of wild flowers.  Yesterday, thinking my lot out here in the country blighted only by the fact that I am now so far from Mt. Quarin (i.e. my beloved wandering ground), I took a walk over to Pradis.  Cormons (and Collio as a whole) is divided up into little areas, quartieri.  Little mini regions within a region, like...ooh, perfect example:  like athens, with it's Boulevard district, Normaltown, Cobbham, etc.  Anyway, Pradis is an area just over from us, a gorgeous plot of rolling hills, dappled valleys and rustic Villas.  Some of the best wineries in Cormons sit over on this side of town, and there's a road that winds all the way around Pradis leading into downtown Cormons.  I walked this road and, turning left away from Cormons, followed a sign that pointed up into the woods.  The sign read "Le Vigne Alte", and I could only see the path for about 100m before it got swallowed by trees.  This path led up into the "higher vineyards", surrounded by dense forest.  It was quiet and cool and untrampled, and I could hear wildlife stirring on all sides.  I walked for over an hour in one direction, having no idea where I would end up but knowing that it would be marvelous.  Finally, I came out at the top of a high hill, at the edge of a vineyard, overlooking the Castello.  There were so many other paths to take, some winding up, some winding down.  I'll have plenty to explore out here in my new neck of the woods.



This is the view East.  In the early mornings, when I wake up to go to the bathroom, I see the sun rising hot pink over the black mountains. 

 This is the view North.  There's Pradis and Le Vigne Alte, and the to the left is Cormons.  In the evenings, when I am taking my bath, I can see the sun cast it's soft pink glow over Mt. Quarin.  The Julian Pre-Alps in the background stick up stark white like hunks of silver, jagged ice.



Darling Marianne left this past Sunday, so Saturday we took a rather grand Tour of Friuli to give her a good idea of what this region has to offer (alot).  We had already gone to the sea the weekend before, to the island of Grado, where we had lunched on a chilled platter of fresh seafood in a charming restaurant at the marina, and walked the ancient-mixed-with-new streets of that city by the sea.  Before that we had spent the morning walking through a national park, a wetland reserve that boasts miles and miles of trails around lakes and swamps.  Wild horses graze (seriously), white and grey, and there are all sorts of birds, fish, plants and other animals to watch.  Its an amazing place.  I think we all felt a little like 12-year olds, our eyes wide with curiosity and awe when a beaver (or some animal similar to, a Friulian cousin) hopped into the water and swam toward it's dam, or a colt skipped along the swampy beaches.

So that was the first weekend, and then this past weekend we took her North.  There is a town called Sauris where they are famous for their artisinal beer and salami.  The drive there takes about an hour and a half, about 45 minutes of which is windey mountain road, hairpin curves along the sides of deep gorges, those stunning silver mountains that seem so close in sweet, rolling Cormons suddenly looking up triumphantly, aggressively right before our eyes.  The air turns cold and thin, and the atmosphere is tranquil, Alpine, chilly and serene.  We stopped at a gorge where the water had been dammed.  On one side there was a staggering drop, far enough to not be able to see the bottom clearly, which caused my head to spin.  On the other side there was a lake of bright green water, not yukky marsh green, just ice cold green.  It was the color of sea glass, soft and frosty, but electric, and the surface was impossibly still.  The white, snowy mountains surrounding the lake made the view rather surreal, and had it not been for the bitter cold against our silly, unprotected skin we may have very well stood there in a blissful trance for all eternity.

We reached Sauris and had lunch.  Yummy, traditional Friulano fare, and the view out the cozy restaunt window afforded a scene cut from a story book: a steep, grassy hill, grazing horses, snow capped mountains, little wooden houses of the style that Heidi must be partial to.  We just kept shaking our heads, disbelieving that a place like this exists in this crazy world.  So untouchable, so pristine, and Marianne wondered out-loud what the town had been like before someone came and put that big road in, the road to reach civilization and a world of commerce, high-speed internet and hairsprays.  We walked about the town for a bit, but became winded rather quickly, all of us taking comfort in the fact that it was not our fault that we couldn't breath after a short hike up a hill- the air was too damn thin.  I had a light headache, a sting in my chest, and we decided to check out the surrounding towns from the comfort of the car.

We came back down the mountain, our lungs refilling themselves, our energy boosting, and we decided to keep exploring.  FL took us to a lake that same color of electric sea glass, a lake that was perfect for (super cold) swimming in the summers.  We drove through a town that celebrates butterflies, almost every house decorated with a colorful mural of a farfalla.  Heading back east through the mountains we reached the medieval town of Venzone.  Once a real fortress town, harboring a real king in a real castle, built out of giant stone and surrounded by a real moat, it is now a pretty much perfectly preserved little city, an isolated bit of history set in the mountains of Friuli.  They are famous for their products made with pumpkin, and indeed, every halloween the town holds a pumpkin festival, complete with medieval costumes, knights on horseback and hundreds of jack-o-lanterns lining the streets.  There's a tiny museum in a church inside the walls that houses 5 mummies- random people who's corpses were attacked by a strange parasite that preserved their bodies forever.  They have teeth and fingernails, withered, well, parts and tufts of hair.

After Venzone we took a gorgeous drive through Collio Orientale to the city of Cividale, once a seat for the Romans and temporary home of Julius Cesear.  The name for this region is derived from the history of this fair city: Cividale was once known as Forum Juli, a name which was eventually garbled into Friuli, which is now the title for the northern, more mountainous areas where the Romans once held court.  Cividale is a beautiful, aged city on the banks of the Isonzo river, with thousands and thousands of years worth of history tucked away in secret monasteries, creepy underground graves (created by the Celtics) and Roman ruins.  We toured a bit, seeing sights and marveling at the graceful, historical powerhouse that is Cividale, and then decided to stop for a drink.  I saw a sign offering La Birra di Sauris, the mountain town where we had lunched earlier.  As our heads at the time had been too light to even walk straight, no less drive back down the mountain, we had opted out of drinking the local brew.  But now, halfway back to sea level, we decided to give it a go.  There was a little bar built into the side of a building, just a window with stools lining the street.  I ordered us each a beer, and the man behind the bar, who was flipping sausages on a tiny grill, handed me a plate stacked- literally, stacked- with fatty, salty goodies.  "It comes with the beer," he said, and chuckled at our shocked expressions.  It was a plate that God himself could not have improved upon, as far as I was concerned.  Polenta, salami, sausage, thick-cut pancetta- it was by far the most delicious snack plate ever offered along side a chilled beer, and we all just giggled and ate it up with our fingers, shaking our heads at the wonders the day had held.

For dinner, we did what was the only option to end what had been a perfect, perfect day: we went to Sale e Pepe.  This trattoria, tucked away in a tiny town miles and miles from civilization, is a culinary goldmine.  FL and I had eaten there once before, in the autumn, and we figured it was now spring and time to come check in on the seasonal dishes.  We ordered wild asparagus and deer salami, spatzle made of nettle with a wild boar ragu' and gnocchi in the shape of flowers, stuffed with white asparagus and local cheese.  For the main course we split two pork dishes, one with a delicious sauce made from a wild red berry and the other with dried apple and figs.  Dessert and grappa came afterward, and we drove home through the pitch black mountains, the moon half-full, glowing and guiding our way.


What we have here is...some photos of one of the incredible dinners that we made while Marianne was here.  Well, rather, one of the incredible dinners that Marianne made...

 Carpaccio of swordfish, wrapped around a bed of arugula and shaved fennel

 

 Calamari, marinated and cooked to perfection

 Salad of baby shrimp

               

off the grid

aaaaaaand we're in!

Bosc di Sot, that is.  Finalmente!

It all just sort of came together.  I put several coats of paint on the guest room walls (lilac: the only color I could imagine pairing with the hideous yellow floors), the bathroom got FINISHED, debris and bits of rubble were carted away, and the TV was cleverly moved in a way which blocks the view into the unfinished living room (we are now camped out rather cozily in the dining room).  The house has miles to go, but as of now it is livable and, if I do say so myself, incredibly charming.

The bathroom is by far the most glorious room in the house, and possibly, as far as I am concerned, the entire world.  Simple white and grey tile, rich lime walls, a killer bathtub, gorgeous exposed wood beams, and the views...the heart just swells.  I am proud beyond words of FL, just brimming with it.  He made this bathroom rock, I think to myself as I float blissfully in a hot bath watching the sun cast pink shimmers over the distant blue mountains, the peaks of the fruit trees in the garden poking into the view out the window.  I am a lucky duck, and that man is t.a.l.e.n.t.e.d. 

My wonderful friend Marianne is in town right now.  Our first house guest, and really the most perfect one we could even hope for- she's been WWOOFing for 6 months now, so the tiny inconvenience of us not having a bathroom door (that'll come out of next months paycheck, but, you know, we're all friends here) doesn't phase her what so ever.  And she's a whiz in the garden, which makes the task- if I can put it that simply- of getting the yard in order not at all overwhelming anymore.  We've hacked weeds, uncovered trees eaten by kudzu, gotten the grass down to a comfortable level, identified plants and flowers, and basically rendered what was as of a week ago a flush, spring jungle an enchanting, rambling garden.  She set me up an amazing compost pile (or the beginning of one, a starter compost pile), and informed me that what I thought was a ground cover of boring weeds was actually a huge patch of strawberries!  We've been making amazing meals in my robin's egg blue kitchen, drinking exquisite glasses of wine in quaint Cormons, hiking the bright green mountains, exploring beautiful Udine, relaxing with cups of Earl Grey tea (in those oh so perfect china mugs Marion got me) and gardening (gardening!).  Saturday we're all gonna ride up into the mountains, to a town called Sauris, where they are famous for making salami, pancetta, beer, etc.  It's suppose to be snowing up there, so I'll have to dig out the winter coat that I so ceremoniously packed away last week when the sun starting shining hard enough to give me a little sunburn.

In total...the whole concept of a "quality of life" index suddenly makes sense, and I have a feeling the index for life at Bosc di Sot is through the red tile roof.

excuses, excuses

Being sick always makes me feel guilty, like I'm faking it.  I am assuming that this is the subconscious "mature Eleanor" reaction to always being told that no, I was not sick, I was "just faking it" when I was a kid.  I'm not pointing any fingers.  There were many people who were sympathetic to my youthful ailments.  There were also those who were not, and I think I got it in my head somewhere along the way that if I just "buck up" and ignore it it would go away. 

Paola, fortunately, is not one of those people who disregards illness.  She is a care-taker to the teeth, a thermometer tucked among her apron folds.  Her first response when I told her I was feeling a bit crappy was to cram my mouth full of potent balsamic/ginseng/vitamin C honey.  It tastes disgusting, to be honest, but made my throat tingle in an uplifting sort of way.  She then had Diego the Youngest juice a pile of oranges (he was happy to oblige.  I've never met a boy more eager to tackle any and all sorts of projects) and sent me back down stairs "to bed!"    On this I was happy to oblige (I've never known a girl more eager to follow instructions than myself, as long as those instructions specifically say to go lay in bed at 3pm).  Figured I would take the evening to rest, let this little cold pass, no harm done. 

The next morning though, I awoke with aches and chills.  Actually, FL woke me up, because apparently I had woken him up by whimpering "like a puppy" and coughing violently.  My temperature was taken, revealing a low fever, and more honey was ingested to soothe my throat. 

A temperature!  I haven't had a temperature possibly ever!  Once again my subconscious sent out a wave of emotion, this time allowing me to relax and even feel a bit smug.  A temperature was "proof"; without it I had nothing, I was as good as putting on a show.  Sad, I know, but it comforted me and I managed to scrounge up some Nyquil tablets in the bottom of my suitcase and went back to sleep. 

The next morning Paola took me to the doctor.  Expecting nothing but loving coos and heavy drugs from the empathetic Italian illness warriors, I was shocked when, upon being diagnosed with a slight case of the flu,  Paola pointed to me and cried, "well, it's her fault!  She never wears shoes!  Or dries her hair!"  Hmph.

So I was ordered two days bed rest.  Yesterday I felt downright terrible, and spent the day with the shutters closed, propped on a pile of  pillows, watching Harry Potter 1-3 and sipping tea.  FL came home to check on me and found me as such.  My guilt instincts perked up, and I mumbled sweetly, eyes as big as a baby lamb's, "I hate being sick", to which he replied, "oh, I'm sure" rather sarcastically.  Hmph.

He busted me out about 6:30pm, and we went to pick up a pizza.  I had on my pajamas and a long winter coat, a roll of toilet paper tucked in my pocket, as my nose was running like a faucet.  We were waiting in the car for the pizza to be ready, and I suddenly got a little nervous.

"Piccolo," I said, "don't let your mom know I left the house.  She'll kill me".

Just then his phone rang.  A conversation in Friulano ensued, and FL's voice took on the tone it always does when speaking with his father- gruff and manly, but reverent.

"Oh, my God," I said fearfully, "what did he say?"

"He asked me who the hell I thought I was staying out till 7pm while my poor girlfriend was in bed sick as a dog.  He said I had better come home right now."

"And he's so right, you asshole," I teased.

"I know!  I'm such a jerk.  Some sweet girl moves all the way to Italy for me, and I run around drinking beer all evening while she's laid up.  Maybe if I come home with a pizza she'll forgive me?"

"Probably.  I know the type.  She can be easily bought with food."

So we snuck back in, me and my fevered self careful to not be seen by the sweet, protective in-laws.  Harry Potter no.4 was popped into the DVD, and I snuggled in to eat my cheese pizza, the only solid food I could even imagine ingesting.  By 10pm we were both out cold.

                                          *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

The house is so so so so so almost ready!  We went with blues and teals and greens, and some of the left over fuchsia from the bedroom was used by moi to paint little accents throughout (ex: random kitchen tiles, thermostat).  Our bathroom is KILLER.  Absolutely gorgeous, and thinking back to what in the world it was when we first moved in makes it all the more incredible.  I didn't even take a photo of the original bathroom, it was too horrendous.  Just know that it was tiny and cramped and mold-ridden and dingy, and now...now it is just glorious!  Does justice to the two spectacular views from each of the windows.  There's still a lot to do, and as soon as I am up and about again I will tackle it all systematically.  Cannot believe that what we have now is even what we had a month ago.  I am so absolutely blessed, it takes my breath away sometimes.


And I never got to blog about Marion and Kallah's trip!  It was wonderful, just as I had imagined it would be.  I think they liked it here a lot, and the weather was stunning.  We took a long hike saturday, after a home cooked lunch of risotto with sausage and white asparagus.  On our hike we were blessed to run into those sweet nuns I wrote about once.  They spoke such kind words and were happy to meet some of my family.  Saturday night we popped in to Udine, which was bustling and beautiful as always.  Late that night we went to an old wine cellar, built in the 1600's that is now used as a concert venue.  We saw a singer/songwriter who performed "Georgia".  I didn't start to cry till I saw Marion crying.  Sunday the weather was perfect, and we rode our vespas through the hills of Collio, into Slovenia.  It really is such a stunning place, this little pocket of the world.  I am a lucky girl to have ended up here.  Dropped them at the airport that evening, and they promised to return.  I can't wait.

Ok, going to go make some more tea and try and eat a banana.  Maybe have another little sleep.  Doctor's orders.