The answer is not quite...
The question? Have I fallen off the planet or met a cute Italian guy. (kudos to Diva di Giardino and N.Winkust for emailing to ask when blogland had gone quiet...)
No, sadly, just have been NONSTOP on the road since 4 August. Miss writing and checking in with all of you.
Today, I have a whopping and blissful 3 hours to myself - the Travelling Cloudboffers just left and Beatrice and the Pensive Oak are on their way in tonight... I'm packing to leave tomorrow to host another (AND THE LAST OF THE SEASON!) 10 day educational tour. There are TONS of fun stories from the last month (the Dreamer and the dishwasher, the pippistrelli hunter, basil plants at the drycleaner...) , but they'll have to wait.
In the brief few days I was here, I truly tried to do it all. Get the house feeling homey. Answer 500 emails. Pretend that the REST of my job exists amidst the chaos. Play around with Beatrice and chill a little. And mow the entirety of the gargantuan lawn that had gone to jungle with an unusually rainy late summer.
After one full day trying and getting not much of anywhere (except the lawnmower turned over, resulting in the need for a new air filter, argh), I broke down and hired my neighbors (darling little family of old farm-men) to do it for me. Their mother - still living with them - is 100 this year. Whooo-eee! That makes the 'boys' at least in their mid-to-late 60's, and probably well into the 70s. But hearty, the Tigli brothers! And they're all right at or a bit less than 5 feet tall, we affectionately call them the 'seven dwarves'. Of the brothers I've met, there's a gardener, a shepherd, and a carpenter: Lino, Otello and Settimo. There are seven children, and I'm guessing by the time they got to "Settimo" (which means 'seventh' in Italian), Mamma was out of creativity and probably sanity.
At any rate, Lino the garden gnome came over to give me an estimate. He says it's E10 an hour if he uses my little lawnmower, 15 an hour if he uses his bigger tractor, but that he has an idea -- the side 'meadow' area is the most overgrown, so why doesn't he just have Otello bring the sheep over to graze? (That'll be free.)
I'm a gigantic ball of stress after a summer of insanity and holding my breath that I make it through the next 12 days, and I've just struck a deal with a man slightly younger than my grandparents to tend my lawn. Bring on the sheep!
No, sadly, just have been NONSTOP on the road since 4 August. Miss writing and checking in with all of you.
Today, I have a whopping and blissful 3 hours to myself - the Travelling Cloudboffers just left and Beatrice and the Pensive Oak are on their way in tonight... I'm packing to leave tomorrow to host another (AND THE LAST OF THE SEASON!) 10 day educational tour. There are TONS of fun stories from the last month (the Dreamer and the dishwasher, the pippistrelli hunter, basil plants at the drycleaner...) , but they'll have to wait.
In the brief few days I was here, I truly tried to do it all. Get the house feeling homey. Answer 500 emails. Pretend that the REST of my job exists amidst the chaos. Play around with Beatrice and chill a little. And mow the entirety of the gargantuan lawn that had gone to jungle with an unusually rainy late summer.
After one full day trying and getting not much of anywhere (except the lawnmower turned over, resulting in the need for a new air filter, argh), I broke down and hired my neighbors (darling little family of old farm-men) to do it for me. Their mother - still living with them - is 100 this year. Whooo-eee! That makes the 'boys' at least in their mid-to-late 60's, and probably well into the 70s. But hearty, the Tigli brothers! And they're all right at or a bit less than 5 feet tall, we affectionately call them the 'seven dwarves'. Of the brothers I've met, there's a gardener, a shepherd, and a carpenter: Lino, Otello and Settimo. There are seven children, and I'm guessing by the time they got to "Settimo" (which means 'seventh' in Italian), Mamma was out of creativity and probably sanity.
At any rate, Lino the garden gnome came over to give me an estimate. He says it's E10 an hour if he uses my little lawnmower, 15 an hour if he uses his bigger tractor, but that he has an idea -- the side 'meadow' area is the most overgrown, so why doesn't he just have Otello bring the sheep over to graze? (That'll be free.)
I'm a gigantic ball of stress after a summer of insanity and holding my breath that I make it through the next 12 days, and I've just struck a deal with a man slightly younger than my grandparents to tend my lawn. Bring on the sheep!
posted by Viaggiatore | 10/01/2005
1 Comments:
Love this...seriously so funny. Here I am in the states desperately trying to keep my perfect square of a lawn a live and free of dog trample and you have sheep grazing in yours.
Glad your back. Missed you...
Unassuming Princess
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