Liberation day in Italy

25 April 2013

Primulus veris (?)

Today is liberation day in Italy and we are all on holiday.

For a few days now I have been experiencing intense spring fever. This manifests as a great sleepiness and unease as I get used to the sudden change in climate.

All the blossoms are popping out on the trees and the mountains are touched with gold to light green where the deciduous trees are unfurling their leaves. I am confused and disoriented as we switch seasons when we go down to the plains where the season seems so far ahead of us who live up in the mountains.

There is a galloping explosion of colour in the gardens as we drive past on the way to and from the horse. Monte Rest is still showing signs of snow. My mountain outside my window has final touches of snow showing as faint memories.

We went to look at a pasture. I was the first up the lane and saw movement on my right side. All dressed in forest brown they stopped and stared at me and I at them. I recognized them as capriole (Capreolus capreolus) or roe deer in English. I was so excited to see them. I shouted "CAPRIOLE!!!!" I looked back down the lane to see Big Bear struggling pushing his bicycle through the long grass. "Hurry!" I yell at  him jumping up and down. Then I looked back and they were gone. Melted into the forest. I doubted that I had seen them at all.

Big Bear said he is VERY VERY angry with me. He thinks a bit and adds another VERY. He says it is the LAST time he goes on a fact finding mission with me ... unless I can promise to be as silent as a good hunting dog until given permission to bark. I cannot promise him.

I have been here almost ten months and it is only now that I am beginning to see the animals.

Once I was out on my own with the dogs. I turned to find what they were up to. Nothing, just dog stuff. But parallel to me, just behind my line of vision if I had continued to walk in a straight line, were muflone (Ovis musimon) mountain goats that are really sheep. I stopped, looked at them and they didn't even give me a chance to yell MUFLONE before they were gone.

Big Bear is a hunter and he suspects that I do not tell him when I see herds of animals, or even only their droppings. I do not tell him that I think he may be right.

In the winter, when the snow was still on the ground, after the first deep snowfall, I found the dainty prints of deer in the garden. There were two sets, they had braved the barking dogs to nibble, I suspect, on the sage that still poked above the snow.

Now we are celebrating spring. The cuckoo calls calming my spirit until I recall that these birds push other birds' eggs out their nest to lay their own. A young boy rides by on a motorbike, the neighbour saws wood outside his house. I know that Big Bear is trimming the branches off thin trees cut down earlier just before the sap began to rise. I should go and help.

If I go outside I may find the dogs sleeping. Porgy will be in the sun and hairy Nelly will be in the shade. Maybe the cats will be with them.

This morning I gathered Silene vulagaris for risotto. Dark green, soft to the touch leaves of a flowering wild plant. The stem snaps easily between my fingers as I gather a small bunch. The flavour is more delicate than asparagus.

Now I wish my horse was here, I am impatient for her arrival. I must not go to help trim possible fence posts.

Rainy day

22 April 2013

Magic Red Mary Rose (aka Selva)

We do not leave the village all day. It is time to vote and Big Bear has to go and make his mark. I am the noisiest person when it comes to voting, because I never seem to be living in a country where I can vote. "It is so important," I tell people. Then I add how I threw away the only vote I made in Canada voting for the Rhinoceros Party.

I do not understand protesting by not voting. Isn't that what the other parties want? Maybe I was not listening during Political Science. Which now reminds me that once I was the founding member of the Apathy Party. There were three of us and we promised to do nothing once elected. We were voted for by most of the students and then found ourselves in the very strange position of suddenly feeling we had to stand up for something, even though we had won the vote by saying we had promised to do nothing.

Today I thought I would be writing about picking up the bee hive, but I have noticed in all the time I have been living here that Italians, and those of us who were born in Jamaica, have one thing in common. We become sleepy when it rains. A little drizzle and it is time for a nap. A downpour in the middle of summer and it is time to light the fire, pull out the red wine and then fall asleep listening to the rain. When I lived in Jamaica and looked after my mother's cattle farm I knew the men would not be in to work on a rainy day.

They were right. Guinea grass is like knives on a wet day. They would have been cut to pieces if they had tried to round up cattle in the wet grass. Here in the mountains I am pleased with the grass growing bright emerald green. I hope my horse will be coming to live here soon. It is tame grass that does not threaten to grow over your head. There is a lot to be done. We have to fence the area and we have to put up some kind of shelter for the horse in case it rains, or hails or snows.

The project has to be approved by the owners of the land and the town council. We have found used fence posts and they seem to be a reasonable price. Everything has to be portable. My horse will shelter in a shack that we can take apart and put on a truck to cart off somewhere else. The fencing will be that electric kind, maybe three to four strings of it to keep the wilder animals out. I am more afraid of stray dogs than wild boar, especially if my horse manages to have a foal.

We are waiting, waiting for the sun, waiting for my horse to come into heat so we can do the first test before we order the semen. This year we will try artificial insemination. The stallion is a Leopard Appaloosa. I chose him without looking up where he lived on Google Maps. Even if a friend transported my mare to the stallion he would still need to be paid for the diesel fuel. It is less expensive to ask a couple of vets to get involved.

I look at the photos of this stallion's offspring and hope my mare decides to go into heat. He is a working stallion, is ridden out on the trail. This is all very important to me, how can you know what a stallion is like if no one has ridden him on a day-long ride? But this is in the future. Seems all the mares in our area are late.

The vet tells me the mares were put off by the bad weather, the cold and the snow. "We must wait for her to change her coat," she says. Or, says a friend, "for the moon to change".

Tomorrow is another day.

Out in the cart

21 April 2013

This is the third time we have been out riding in the cart. Emily and Drago pull us along the rock strewn torrente, where the floodwaters would flow. Now the river meanders sparkling in the sunlight friendly and tame.

There is more to driving a pair of horses than meets the eye. Especially two that are pulling a long cart behind them. I don't know how much I am learning. I have watched and now would know how to hitch the pair to the cart, but slowly.

Emily is very frisky and protests, but her eyes tell me her protest is not out of fear. It seems more like a bad habit.

I learned today that the horse that has the most trouble pulling is always placed on the right. I was once told that a horse on the right must always be on the right and the horse on the left must always pull in that position. Our guide tells us this is not necessarily so. I have also been told that a horse that is used to pull a cart or a carriage must not be ridden, but these horses are ridden.

Our guide tells us that he has noticed how the horses improve by riding them, how they seem to enjoy the comparative freedom of galloping, of drinking from the river with the fly weight of the rider on top.

These horses are twice the size of my own Appaloosa. They are a little taller, but seem shorter and built low to the ground. They are deep chested and short legged. Their hooves are huge and heavy. Today I brush the young male, he lowers his head and neck as I comb out his mane. I notice later that I have left a line of dust all the way down the middle of his back because I am not tall enough to see what I am doing. Reaching up, I use a cloth to clean him off. This works better than the brush I had been using.

Out in the cart, I am lulled by the movement, the sound of the harness and the horses hooves on the ground as the cart is pulled over the rocks. I have tried to take photographs but we bump over the rough ground and I am not sure if I would be taking a photo of the backs of the horses or the blue sky overhead. At one point we are beside a small wood that runs alongside the river bank. The plants growing beneath the trees are wild garlic. This week they are in bloom, their white flowers scenting the air with the pleasing perfume of fresh garlic. The leaves on the trees are beginning to unfurl reminding me of a pointillist painting.

I imagine taking the reins in my hands, but I can see that there is more to guiding these large creatures. There is something about how you must turn them down a slope so that you do not tip the cart in the process. Our guide has told us that we can come out with him driving when ever we want, but if we  really want to learn how to drive a carriage and pair and enter competitions we must take lessons from someone else.

I realize with a sinking heart that our guide has been driving these horses since he was a boy. Then I am heartened by another thought. A friend in Bracciano began to drive a horse and buggy in his late fifties. Another took up the challenge in his seventies because his doctor told him he could no longer ride. So now he rides around the back roads around Bracciano, his horse clips along at a spanking trot tail flying drawing a light carriage with my friend on top smiling serenely. So, there is hope.

We pass more people down by the river now that the weather is better. Some are gathering plants for their lunch. I am told they are gathering a white flowered plant, which makes a fine risotto, but I am not familiar with the name. On the way back through the narrow lanes mothers stand holding their children by the shoulders. One boy is lifted into the air, his legs are still running. His mother has stopped him in mid flight drawn, as if by a strong magnet, towards the horses and the rattling cart. A man and woman in their vegetable garden stand and wave and I wave back.

This is an uncommon feeling, being carried through a town on the back of a cart. I don't know what the protocol is. I suppose it would be best to wave at the people as we go by. I do not know how I feel about this. Shy? Humbled? If I was standing on the road watching a cart drawn by two huge horses would I want the passengers to wave at me? Or would I prefer to be left to my own dreams? Would the person standing beside me suddenly need to reach out to hold me back as I lifted off the ground and started to float upwards towards the passing horses and their cart, lost in my reverie?

I have decided that the next time we go out I will wave at people and discover what happens. I am sure that the boy who is lifted while running towards the horses and cart will wave back. And the girl with the long plaits, her mother holding her shoulders, as though afraid  she will float out of her reach and onto the back of the cart, will also wave back at me with a tentatively raised hand.


Tomorrow picking up bee equipment.

Hair Cut

20 April 2013

The big day and I went to have my hair cut.

It took me almost all my life to understand that the only way to get a good haircut is to ask someone with a hair cut I like, and who is working close to where I live, where they got their hair cut.

When I first came to Italy I did it all wrong. I would walk down a street and try out the hairdresser close to where I lived. I was mostly very disappointed.

I have been living in Friuli-Venezia Giulia since June, I had seen the waitress at the bar with a good haircut and she had told me about 'Fashion Time' in that same month, but it took me until today to get there.

The owner of the salon was the woman who had hung up on me (twice) when I had attempted to call for an appointment. She did not mention this while she was washing my hair, or discussing the design of my head. It was not until she had almost finished that she said, "It was you I hung up on." Yes! "My fault that I did not understand you," she said.

She explained, "The call centers phone at least five times a day and I don't have time to listen to them while I'm working."

So I said I also hang up on cold callers, which is not true because I usually listen to the callers and then tell them they must not waste their time on me and to hurry up and put the phone down because there is someone out there who will want to talk to them.

At the salon, looking in the mirror, I was forced to notice my broken front tooth. During the winter, in a fit of impatience, I used my front teeth to pull off a glove when I was suddenly moved  to photograph a mountain. Mountains are not usually known for their speed, and this one was in no hurry. I am certain that I could have taken my time to take my gloves off properly using my hands, and the mountain would have waited patiently until I had aimed my camera. But there it is now, my left front tooth is slightly shorter than my right and now I try to talk and smile without opening my mouth.

When I did look out the window at the salon, turning my head slightly to the left, I was surprised to find a wide view of the piazza down below. In the distance,  tucked between the buildings surrounding the town square I saw an old, grey church with what I suppose is called a rose window.  I have never seen this church before, now I must visit the next time I go into Maniago.

Pleased with my newly designed head, I walked by the bar to say thank you to the waitress with the fine haircut. Stern faced she walked towards me. I said, "I went for a hair cut," she did not recognize me. I walked on. Something made me turn around and there she was laughing, "I remember you!" Well, it was ten months ago she'd advised me where to go for a trim.


Tomorrow leaning to drive a pair of horses and cart.

Buying the hive

Forsythia in April, Spilimbergo.

19 April 2013

I see across the lake, which is not a real lake but one held up behind a dam that the cherry blossoms are in bloom, pale pink beside the forsythia, bright yellow. I consider painting them against the pale grey of the buildings in the background. It is a hard place to stop, the road winds around the lake with a rock wall on one side and a steep drop to the water on the other. I could come here on a bicycle. I cannot even stop to take a photograph.

We decide to buy dog food and tic repellent. I have just found an intrepid tic up high on my legs. After years of living in Jamaica, I am used to the feel of them and have learned to look before I scratch. At the Consorzio Agrario we see someone has drawn and coloured a bee and stuck it to some shelving. We ask if they have bee hives. The young man tells us he is specializing in bee-keeping equipment. He has only just begun, like us. I have already chosen my face mask. He only has two types and they are both square. I am quite pleased. How often can I legitimately dress up to look like a robot. I can't wait to get my white all in one suit.

Having already lost bees, we order the top half of the bee hive, where the honey hopefully will be stored and a queen excluder. Down the bottom the queen bee is supposed to lay her eggs and the workers and the drones and possibly future queen bees will be nurtured. It is all so early yet, but we feel that we need to hurry because already the cherry tree in our neighbour's tiny garden is dropping its blossoms. It looks like snow from where I stand in the middle of the garden.

I am a little worried because the intense buzzing I heard only a couple of days ago is fainter. I worry that someone has found their nest and killed them all thinking they are wasps. Roberto tells me off for drawing bad luck.

Later he tells me that bees bring good fortune. "What about the ones that flew away?" I ask him. He says, maybe they were not willingly given to him. These will be different. We will have paid a small fortune for two families and so they better stick around.

The bees we will buy are Carnica and  able to withstand the cold in the winter. Last year's bees obviously lived through the winter and I wonder where they holed up. I will not have time tomorrow to look for them. After more than six months of letting my hair grow wild I am being carted off to the hairdressers.

I had seen a haircut I admired at the bar we go into Maniago. When I say bar I am talking about drinking coffee and cappuccino. We confuse them because it is me who drinks the coffee and Roberto who wants the overheated cappuccino. At this bar they serve good brioche, slightly warm. There is a waitress there with the good haircut and she has told me where her hair cutter is.

It was difficult making an appointment because whoever answered the phone hung up on me whenever I started to speak. Roberto grabbed the phone from me. "You scare every one away with the way you talk to them," he says. "You are not talking to a deaf horse."

He speaks softly. This time the woman answers and he tells her I want to make an appointment. At first she seems to be allergic to my accent. "English". Then when she has made sure that I have never been there before I hear her cheer up. I tell her that I admired the haircut in the bar. "La mora?" she asks ... the dark one? Yes. I say, "I don't want a cut like hers, but I know it is a good cut." I am given an appointment for this Saturday.

"We'll talk about the hair cut," I'm told. 

On Monday we are to pick up the new bee hive. Hair and  hive, my life is changing at the speed of flight.

Friuli Venezia Giulia
April 2013

I have been silent for a while, not exactly because I have continued to write my diary and sometimes get to read it over and decide to write up bits and pieces, which may still appear here at some point.

I am now living in Friuli Venezia Giulia in a small town up a mountain side. I see a mountain every morning when I open the shutters, it seems now that what happens on the mountain may affect the mood the rest of the day. Of course if I cannot see it, it is about to rain or raining.

Next door is the cherry tree, it is now in blossom and a thousand bees buzz between the blossoms. I had the idea that I would be waiting to see which direction they go in, but have the feeling that I may need to make a sandwich and be carrying a flask of water. One bee seems to remain around the same few flowers for rather a long time, longer than my attention span.  I may attempt this tomorrow, waiting to see which direction they fly.

Now why would I be doing this?

I have recently taken a course in bee keeping and Roberto, the man, had bees last year and they all swarmed and flew away somewhere. I know they are not wearing t-shirts with Roberto's Bees printed on the back, but I am convinced these were once in his hive. This is actually why we went to the class to learn about why the bees would have flown away.

We learned many reasons. I suspect it was because they felt over crowded and just needed a bigger place to grow. This time we will start with two families in two hives and a spare hive just in case someone feels like moving in. Yes we still have a lot to learn but there some things in life you can only learn by doing and bee keeping happens to be one of them.

More later now that I have found my way back.

I would call the flowers in the photo cowslips, but I think they must have a Latin name, to be looked up and added.