just ate the most wonderful lunch. angela and mike (the new guy from portland) stayed in the kitchen and made lunch, while rachel, nicole, and i got lost in the woods. rachel, being the way-motivated super-suck-up hard-worker that she is (JK! but seriously...)brought up this morning over breakfast (while i was nodding off at the table and cursing the coffee for not boiling fast enough, mind you) that the animals were finding food scarce in our usual fields. we rotate through the days between about 4 different locations for grazing. over pasturing is the leading cause of desertification, this is a fact, but, i mean...it was so early. isa decided then that the best solution would be for us to take the animals al boscolo, to the forest. 2.5 hours later we all returned, sweaty, exhausted, mildly histerical due to each encountering seperate and severe bouts of "oh, shit, im lost!", tanti thorn bushes, and general, every day mountain hiking obstacles. finally drank some coffee, then settled down to watch paul newman be the best man ever in Cool Hand Luke. and lunch...the culinary school alumni made us fresh green beans in a sauce of grilled peaches, white wine, and hazelnuts, eggplant and zucchini risotto, fresh cheeses and salamis, bread, and red wine. lovely.
so yes, new plans. jane is infact not coming, as i should have known. the girl is incapable of keeping plans, even, shockingly, 4 month old plans that have hotels, plane tickets, countless hours of research and thought put into them. so. am fine. actually...am wonderful. now that i dont have to leave for ROMA tomorrow night (odd sentence, coming from me...), i can stay for the famous murazzano sheep festival, in which we bring our little sheep into town for various cheese, milking, and beauty contests. there will be wine, etc, and i am actually really excited to be going with the girls (not angela, she leaves the same as planned because her friend still is coming...hmph...). friday, then, i will reutrn to FL. i mentioned, rather tentitavely, that jane wasnt coming, and his response was, "so you're coming here then, right?". right. ill go back to my boy for a week, and then down to roma, where i have already paid for an apartment for next weekend, and the flight out to marions on monday. so there: best of both worlds!. am really so excited. am tired of piemonte. miss friuli. my friends, the food, the land, the language...a certain pair of dimples. will try and talk him into coming with me to rome next weekend, too. he's never been! and it would be a pity for me to stay at that lovely little apartment with a rooftop balcony view of st. peters all alone (got it on a steal! 50 euro a night, last minute! for two people, that was a damned good deal)...
so there. tuto a posto.
ok, lots to larn and do today, and we have to give all the best looking sheep a bath for tomorrow!