Feast of San Fortunato, yet again!

Passing of the seasons? Yes, yet another sign that a full year has passed: the feast of San Fortunato crept up on us, and we were so pleased that we didn't have to skip it as we did last year. It was definitely a celebration. Smaller than in past years, the organizers also decided to spread it over two weekends and include a few more activities during the week. The day itself is actually a Thursday, so it made sense.

The first weekend consisted of an intra-city archery mini-tournament/exhibition, a market, flag wavers, costumed procession, banquet, dancers, and more! We ended up spending most of our time outside, and did our best to encourage vendors to participate in future years. 

We were delighted to stock up on cheese, a half-cheek bacon to hang on our rack, wines, salami, and a few sweets. Add to that a horn, wallet, and some other sundries, and we no longer have 2 pennies to rub together.

On the other hand, our bellies are full!

Love,

Alexandra

Dinner at the Mill

Michael and I had to miss out on an organized trip to Naples, but we had the chance to go for a dinner out which also involved a slide show of the trip itself. The dinner was held at a historic mill that has been converted to an agriturismo, and for 25 euros we had a gut-busting meal of antipasti (smoked meats, frittata, bruschette, and so on), homemade noodles mixed with pork and vegetables, polenta with cheese sauce, three types of meat (turkey, wild boar, and pork), vegetables (chicory), and then dessert. Of course, wine was all-you-wanted, and we finished with coffee and/or digestivi. Yum!

Part of the mill shaft

The upper part of the water reservoir

mill race

The slide show was definitely enough to convince us to go to Naples for our 30th anniversary, which will be on the 19th of October. We can't wait!

Love,

Alexandra

Separation of Church and State? Nah.

Todi recently offered all local criminals their annual opportunity: it was the Festa della Polizia today, so officers from all over Umbria showed up for Mass in the Duomo. There were a few older police vehicles, and the officers were in their ceremonial garb, including swords.

Never a dull moment...

Love,

Alexandra

Nighttime Entertainment

This summer, the Piazza del Popolo hosted some large columnar sculptures. The other night, Michael and I were fortunate enough to happen upon their removal. We were going for our nightly stroll at around 10 pm and we saw workmen eating dinner at the local bar, and large trucks and cranes inside the no-traffic zone of the piazza. We knew something good was about to happen.

It was worth the wait! We got to enjoy more than 2 hours' worth of entertainment, although we didn't stay until the bitter end. We weren't the only spectators by any means: the bar Bacio di Latte ended up closing late because we were all still ordering drinks and gelato past midnight.

Part of the fun was watching the personalities emerge. We had "Mario" (who looked like a character from Mario Brothers) who was a novice on the rental crane but was willing to give it a go. We had Michele, aka "the diggingest dog" who loved using his angle grinder to access various attachment points in the concrete base, we had the workers who were mostly observing dubiously, we had the twins who participated in a carefully choreographed round of wrapping the sculptures in plastic wrap, and we had the experienced crane operator who did a spectacular job of lifting the sculptures, then working with a third crane to rotate them into a horizontal position. After the wrapping, they had to be hoisted into the flatbed trucks in a very precise manner in order to fit everything in to be taken away.

"Mario" is in the crane loosening the structure

"

the twins, wrapping one of the columns

Laid out and ready to be loaded

The diggingest dog loved his angle grinder

Another enjoyable evening for the price of a gelato.

Love,

Alexandra

Waterproof

Last year, we re-pointed the exterior of our house because the old mortar was sandy and crumbly and it looked as though a gust of wind would bring down the walls. Which is a patently unfair characterization given the strong sirocco that howls for hours at a time throughout the winter (foreshadowing). We now have nice, strong, fresh mortar holding our walls together, and we started last winter feeling smug about the situation.

Until.

Remember that sirocco? For those who are in tune with seasonal variations, you may be aware that winter is also the rainy season. That sirocco beat the water straight into the porous rocks that were used to build the walls. That water formerly made its way out again via the sandy mortar joints.

Ah, the joys of unintended consequences. That water no longer had an easy route out through the mortar joints, and instead was forced into the interior of the house, causing the plaster to pop off the walls and staining the paint in the locations that the plaster remained relatively intact.

The original solution to water intrusion was the exterior stucco that is typical of many Italian buildings. The stucco allowed the rain to shed from the building rather than being absorbed into the porous stone. Ironically, the stucco fell off our palazzo probably 100 years ago and wasn't replaced, so we are not allowed to install stucco because it would change the exterior appearance. Historical preservation laws, while well intended and often justified, can be rather perverse at times.

The modern-day solution for those who can't use the historically correct solution is to Scotch-guard the stone. Sounds simple? Bear in mind that the conditions have to be absolutely right: the stone must be completely dry. There can have been no rain for several days prior to spraying the building. The stone must remain dry for several additional days after the spraying to allow it to continue permeating the stone and hardening in place. Oh, and the locations in question are 3-4 stories above the very narrow alley.

We had to wait all summer, no problem. Then, despite our knowing about this intended repair for months, there was the predictable "We're too busy now" from the builders, and the shock and chagrin about having to get a crane that can fit in the tiny alley and the requirement for permits, and so on. 

The first set of days we'd scheduled ended up with rain in the forecast. Because the road closure was only permitted for those days (and we had to call off the work), we had to re-permit everything. This time, we pulled the permit for road closure to last over a month in order to give us maximum flexibility.

And then, the magical day finally arrived. Let me tell you about the crane: it was the cutest thing ever. It had little treads, and was operated with a tethered control box by someone walking behind it. It arrived on the back of a flatbed truck, and I was instantly in love. The flatbed had to drop off the crane in the Piazza Jacopone, because it was too large to navigate the alley leading to our house, so the little guy had to trundle up the road to our house. So cute!

After several hours of Luca's having a grand time inhaling fumes, the job was done. The little crane made its way back to Piazza Jacopone and from thence went home. 

We, meanwhile, enjoyed fumes coming through the walls for a further three days. It was actually pretty interesting (and indicative of the water problems) how long the chemicals continued to penetrate the walls. At this point, though, we feel ready to take on the winter storms.

If we could only get the painter to come repair the walls so we could rehang the radiator and thus have heat...

Love,

Alexandra

Wood Time

 We are perpetually surrounded by signs of the changing of seasons. This time, it was the wood delivery. An annual event, you start seeing small dump trucks shuttling busily through the town in order to provide wood to many of the homes. As previously noted, indoor fires are popular here for cooking as much as for the heat they provide. The hearth is central to most homes here.

The delivery fellow was amazing with his driving and dumping precision, making the unloading and storing process much less arduous. Of course, it helps that our storage location is in a subterranean boiler room rather than on the third floor as it was in our rental digs.

Not a lot of clearance on the sides

Even though the weather was still plenty warm at that point, seeing all the wood just made me ready for grilling!

Love,

Alexandra

Todi Open Doors and Other Art

 As part of Todi Festival, an annual film extravaganza, we had Todi OpenDoors. This was a fun initiative wherein certain palazzi provided space in their cortili to exhibit sculptures or other art installations. I didn't take photos of them all because there were quite a few, but some of the sillier/neater ones I couldn't resist capturing to share with you.

The part that I found particularly enjoyable was the chance to see behind some of the large exterior doors into the spaces behind. Many of them I'd already had the chance to see, but there were definitely a few new ones.

These were actually baked dough!

Jellyfish! Flashlights were provided to make them "pop" further

We also visited an art show during this same time period. These were huge canvases brought from Australia, and I thought they were fantastic. I loved the colors and the sheer scale of the pieces. That said, they definitely needed a special sort of location for hanging and our house (and budget) wouldn't have been that space. I did go back a few times for a repeat visit, though, which is rare for me with an exhibition.

Love,

Alexandra

Zoppini, bird catcher

Signor Zoppini is my shoemaking pal, who is now 95 or 96 depending on whether you consult him (96) or do the math with his birth year (95). I continue to learn fascinating things about him, though, that I like to share from time to time.

Recently, I mentioned to a local acquaintance that I was accompanying Zoppì to Marsciano for some shopping. The man cracked up, saying, "Ah, è un chiappasciuette" ("Oh, he's a ..." [something in dialect]). I had to enquire further, never having heard the word. Come to find out, Zoppì used to catch civets (little owls; in Italian there is a distinction between owls "gufi" and small owls "civette", which we don't have in English. I was told at that point to ask the man himself for more information.

Completely intrigued, I went to the horse's mouth. Here's what he said: Catching owls was a seasonal thing; you had a 40-day window every year in which to catch them. Hunters then used the owls to hunt for larks. I think the owls flushed the larks, but they didn't use them actually to do the hunting? Or maybe they did; that part was somewhat unclear to me. 

Hunting the owls went as follows: he got a stick about 2-3 meters long, and attached four flattish shortish pieces to the top in a sort of helicopter pattern. Small potatoes were wedged onto the end of each blade (for what purpose is unclear to me). The whole thing was then strewn with a confusion of something, presumably twine, but Zoppì was using dialectical words and I didn't want to interrupt to get the complete particular. He then used a little whistle that he had made to attract the owls, which then got embrangled in the helicopter stick because of the twine nest. He popped the owl into a bag or cage and then tried again. He often caught 4 or 5 a night, but one memorable occasion saw him prancing home with 13!

The forty days of owl hunting brought him the equivalent annual income from a year's worth of making shoes. 

When I later went to his workshop to see his whistles, he pulled out a series of brass and possibly aluminum whistles. Each one is designed to attract a different bird. Apart from owls, it appears he made quite a thing of trapping other sorts of birds to eat and/or sell. His method was illicit; although one could at the time hunt the birds quite legally, he had a special way of trapping them which consisted of defoliating shrubs and adding spines or thorns to the branches. He used the whistles to attract the birds to the booby-trapped shrubs, and then it was just a matter of harvesting them.

His owl whistles, however, he made himself. They looked like cane or bamboo with longitudinal cuts. Rather than blowing across the pieces (as with a flute) or down through them (like maybe a standard whistle or a recorder) he blew through some longitudinal cuts. In other words, they were held like a flute, but he blew through the slits rather than across them; there is a plastic "reed" inside. He had three different varieties to show me, all of which were about 3 1/2" long. They had rubber or plastic end pieces on each side, like the type you might find on a walking stick, although of course smaller.

Zoppini credits his ability to buy his house (outright, no mortgages, mind you!) in 1969 to his owl hunting activities. 

Love,

Alexandra