How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm?

Wednesday, June 18, 2008
According to the LB, it stormed most of last night, with the same kind of pyrotechnics and sound effects as in that movie, “Under the Tuscan Sun”. After stuffing myself at dinner and my one glass of wine, I was totally oblivious, and never knew anything happened. Heavy fog or a low cloud completely enveloped our house this morning. A little Italian man appeared to check on us and ensure we survived the storm with no ill effects, and our electricity and gas were both still on.
This morning Deutsche-Welle announced the victory of Italy 2-0 last night, even though there wasn’t ever much doubt, so they will advance to the quarter finals in the Euro 2008 tournament. We are starting with a lighter breakfast this morning and plan to get out and do a little walking later. We need to pace ourselves so we are ready for the opera which doesn’t begin until 21:00.
We went out walking around the farm this afternoon to work off a little of the good food the LB has been fixing. When we first talked about visiting Italy, I assumed we would be eating every meal in one homey little trattoria after another, especially since her favorite food group is pasta. After a week in Venice with no kitchen, she was almost giddy when she discovered she had a gas four burner stovetop and convection oven to play with. We’ve still eaten out regularly, but when we are feeling a little culturally overwhelmed, she whips up some wonderful dishes, using fresh local ingredients, that stave off any feelings of homesickness we might be having.
The house where we are staying is located on a family run farm, or agriturismo, which has branched out into hosting tourists to supplement the farm’s income. Every day, the workers roll past the house in small 3-wheeled pickups on their way to work in the olive groves, vineyards, and fruit orchards. Several times each day, I will hear the tinkling of bells and get to watch the sheep moving to a new pasture. Walking the narrow tracks that connect the different parts of the farm allow us to see the differences in techniques used here and at home.
Walking past one of the vineyards, we see it doesn’t look at all like the manicured rows we see in the Texas Hill Country. Grasses are allowed to grow around the vines as a means of controlling erosion, since there is plentiful rain and no need for drip irrigation. Flowers, poppies in this vineyard, are planted between rows to help attract honey bees to the grapes, and rose bushes are planted as “canaries” around the vineyards since they are more susceptible to some of the same diseases as the vines. Olive trees are scattered wherever there is enough room, and berry vines are found on most of the fence rows. Fennel, sage and rosemary seem to grow wild in drainage ditches, and I keep being sent out to harvest “just one more sprig” for our next meal. A few days ago, the hands were on ladders around a couple of the fruit trees, and it wasn’t until they moved on I realized they had tied brightly colored plastic bags to limbs to keep birds at bay until the fruit is ready to be harvested.
We never know what we will see when we drive away from the house. Yesterday, it was a beautiful pheasant which seemed to think it owned the driveway and moved along at his own pace. Today, it was a very jolly hog trotting across a pasture alongside the highway. No pig sty for these guys, they really are “free range”, and the quality shows on the dinner table.