strawberries and potatoes

Luca switched our job today from wood cutting and stacking to transplanting strawberries and digging the old potatoes out of the plots. the plots are really amazing because they are on a steep slope. all the flat land has now been built on with homes or hotels, so the only land left is on the mountain side. when we started this morning our hands were freezing because it  takes a long time for the sun to come over the mountain, however, this afternoon it got really hot and we became delusional singing songs and reenacting the "count of monte cristo".  We are currently enjoying beer and appertivo (complimentry) at a local bar. Luca and elena said they are making fish and chips tonight.

Last night we had a wonderful dinner at JJ (lucas dad and the place we stay). He is a wine connesouir, so we had three different wines paired with each portion of our meal. First a simple blush wine to pair with egg plant, tuna pasta; then  a complex white wine with seared sword fish and green beans, then to top it off we had a traditional sweet easter bread with a dessert wine. Luca said it was a Sicilian meal! 

Tomorrow we go hiking with JJ hopefully, it is good because it forces us to try our Italian with him.
Hope all is well! love zabeth and dill

 these are the goats grazing around where we are clearing the felled trees

 weng frazione in otro

 stopping in otro for a water break

taking hay up to the goats

Task

Over the last couple of days we have changed tasks. Last week we were raking hay fields in anticipation of the oncoming spring. This week Lucca and his brother Filippo cut about ten to twelve big firs and ash trees that line the hayfield up on the mountain. All the trees are in a huge pile just on the downslope above the Otro, you can hear the stream but you cant see it from where we are. After our picnic day Monday, we spent yesterday and this morning limbing the small branches. Lucca is cutting the trees into smaller portions with the chainsaw and Zabeth and I are alternating limbing, splitting and stacking. This work will probably last us until the end of the week and into next week as well. Its pretty fun, but its kind of difficult because were working on a slope so the logs are always trying to roll or slide, and when you carry wood to stack you are fighting the slope.
On another note, yesterday was the culinary highlight of the year. Nettle frittata for lunch, followed by homemade tiramisu. Then homemade gnocchi prepared with homegrown potatis for dinner, and more desert.

 a double treat this morning, a nice comment from zac and grace and the notification that they are followers! as well it was nice to hear from jessica and the kid.
Yesterday was Elena's day off at work, she works for a company that provides guides for skiing and other mountain activities in the area, like rafting, climbing, walking, or paraglyding. To celebrate her and Lucca, and Zabeth and I took the day to hike in to the Otro Valley. Alagna is in the Sesia river valley, but just downstream of Alagna the Otro river flows into the Sesia, so if you follow that river back you come to the Otro Valley. To start the day though we walked up our normal path past the goats, and then continued uphill past some old mines and there are always alters on the trail. The more direct route is to follow the path of the Otro, but we were trying to see all the sights. The trail is always pretty nice, covered in leaves but someone has always done stonework creating steps and an easy trail to follow. At first you can see a mountain off to the left, covered in snow which is just the other side of the Otro, as you get in a little farther you realize that not only are you bordered on the left my a giant, rocky, snow covered mountain, you are also bordered staright ahead by a giant, rocky, snow covered mountain. But then you walk up five more minutes and you come to a beautiful green pasture that looks more like an old west prairie homestead then the Alps. This is Otro, but like Alagna there are different frazione's in Otro. So you pass three or four frazione's, and then you approach Weng (Veng), which is the frazione where Lucca takes the goats for the summer. There he grazes the goats, bakes bread in the community oven, grows potatoes and rye and salad with his uncles and select other friends and family who also make the journey. Rather than cultivate any ground yesterday picnic was the only thing on our agenda. Elena brought a three course meal including mortadella, salame, and prosciutto, a loaf of homemade rye bread, cheese, dark and light chocolate, una birra, and coffee to top it off. While we were sitting enjoying our food the sound of a huge thunderstrom came across the valley and off in the distance you could see snow tumbling off the cliffs. Then Zabeth and Elana picked some nettles for dinner, and we soaked up the rest of the mid afternoon sun before walking down the still snowy banks of the Otro back home.
pictures forhtcoming

treat

hey
today was quite a treat beginning with last night. Lucca made homemade pizza and showed us his secret bread recipe. the secret is...... just kidding, but the pizza was great. this morning we slept in until nine, and showered. to celebrate our showers we both put on new clothes for the first time since weve been here. then we came down to the house and had cappucino. Elena picked up some croissants from the pastry shop so breakfast was extra sweet this morning. Then Zabeth and i walked to tourist information and they speak english there, so it was nice to here instructions in our native tongue. then we walked uptown to the walser museo, the original settlers of this village and valley, but it doesnt open until 1400, so we will go back tomorrow. we walked down and had lunch at the di marco tavern, bar, ristor. low and behold the treat that awaited us... they had free wireless internet and i had the ipad. I tried to face time everyone that has an iphone and luckily we were able to talk to james, zetdi, my dad, judy, granny, and olliver!!!!!!!!!
ariveder.......
ciao

Life in Alagna is molto bene, as is everything else around here.We are staying up the hill from Lucca and Elena's apartment, at his dad's house, JJ (Josue). We have our own room about a five minute walk mostly uphill and across the ski lift. JJ lives in another fratzione, of which there are approximately 5 or 6 in Alagna. A fratzione is a group of houses that live on the same hill and do things together. There are only 400 residents in Alagna, but when the peak tourist season is going on there are many staying in time shares from the surrounding countries. This area is called freeride paradise because there are no trails for skiing, you just go where ever you want to. We try and speak to JJ every time we walk to or from his place, but he speaks only Italian. Most times though we say Ciao, and then look up a phrase in the dictionary to say to him. Like last night he was eating so I walked in and said quale cena, he said bene and offered us a glass of wine, so he is happy to have us around even though we cant communicate for extended times. We walk down for coffee and breakfast at 830, then visit and walk over to the field for some chores, right now we are raking the leaves off of the field where hay will grow to feed the goats in the winter. The hay is cut by sickle. Then we take a break from work around noon and come back to the house for lunch, which is always filling and a great part of the day. After lunch is coffee and basically relaxing until three. Then back to the field, Luca always goes up and lets the goats graze, then brushes the donkey (Libero), and cleans the pens before Fidel, the dog rounds them up to come home and milk. We walk up to JJ' to clean up and rest, then walk down to dinner at eight and visit until after ten before we go up to bed. Two nights ago Luca's friend Maurizio came over for dinner and brought a bottle of wine. He didn't speak English but the few words he knew he did not hesitate to say, and what he said in Italian he said very passionately so it was a great treat to be near him. We just came in a little early for lunch today to watch and learn from Luca making bread. He makes six huge loafs at one time, and sells them to the market. His dough that he uses in every loaf is three years old, but he says there are people in the village who have starters over 100 years old. Hes great because he is very knowledgeable about the local history.

lucca speaking with zabeth

the church in alagna valsesia

milking goats

AJ

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sun in alagna

yesterday we were given time in afternoon to tour the town. there is a big waterfall in town and farming is all crazy because they farm on the mountains, like straight up. there is not much flat land and what there is of it is being used to provide hospitality for tourists. alganians not very happy about this. it is really cool. the roofs are all made with slab stone and it holds the weight of the heavy snows here. we are eating breakfast now of cappucino, homemade rye bread with jelly and cookies. breakfast is light here and lunch is the big meal that is very important. we had a wonderful southern noodle (ear) with greens and garlic...then dessert.....cappucino. molto bene! the mama goat is going to see the vet today she is very sick. we take a small hike up the mountain to the home of the goats. there are mountain goats that are black and white and then white milk goats. there are like 10 baby goats now too. we post pictures.

we have arrived in alagna. we took a train and bus to get here yesterday and had a wonderful dinner with elena and luca. we have our own room up in the mountains. the mountains are very dramatic and right in front of you. the town is in a valley between the mountains. it is a famous spot for skiing. we went up to the mountains where luca keeps his goats. dillon is really trying his tongue at italian and can roll his rs better than i. ciao

Monday morning

We are about to leave Emans house and head for the Porta nova train station to catch a train to novara. He has great Internet so we can count on checking mail and writing stuff at his apartment, but Internet is supposed to be private and costly at most places so I don't know how access will be once we arrive in Alagna tonight. Yesterday we caught a bus into the city center. It arrived at Porta Susa, a train station and the first thing we did was walk to the other train station Porta nueva. There we had espresso and a croissant and scanned the maps. Then we walked up via Roma to the piazza San Carlo, and took our time observing the atmosphere, which was chilly and gray. We stopped at the Egyptian museum of Turin and got in a huge crowd of Italians enjoying their weekend with some sightseeing. We were pretty tired of walking, but we made our way to the mole antonelliana, the most famous building here. From the lobby you can pay to take an elevator to the top and catch a 360 view of Turin. Afterwards we did some more meandering around and planned on meeting up with Eman for dinner, but we couldn't pass up the chance to eat kebab-pizza, which is what all of the cheap restaurants say, because it's like serving Mexican food and then including hamburger to pacify the natives. Then we met Eman wh took us on his own guided tour and talked about some of the architecture and building restrictions, like you can't destroy a standing building, and if you do build you must first archeologically excavate the site. Then we went to aperretivo, a great tradition that is basically a huge appetizer in the evening. Your supposed to go to dinner still after it, but in typical American fashion we just gorged on the aperetivo, or as we saw it the buffet.

Sunday Morning

Yesterday after McDonald's we went straight to Gatwick Airport so that we didn't take any chances on the schedule. We arrived about three hours before necessary and slept upright for an hour and a half in the chairs under the monitor telling us our gate. Our flight for Turin left at 2:50, and Zabeth and I received corresponding seate in different rows, she was 6f and I was in 7A. Instead of each making new friends we just slept the whole flight and connected afterwards. Lucky for us, our host for last night was an airport employee so we picked up our bags and then went upstairs to meet him. He had several maps of Torino ready for us, and he began making us feel at home immediately with his hospitality and English. We came back to his apartment, showered, drank some wine, ate some Parmesan and sausage, and then since he knew we were pretty tired he offered us his bed before 11. This morning we are going to try and catch a bus into the city center to do some exploring for a while, but we have been warned to be weary of the bus system on any day, particularly on a Sunday.I know we are extremely lucky to be staying here and receiving our hosts knowledge, food,wireless Internet and hospitality. I could talk about it forever, but since it's only the first day in town we better get moving...

Hey, we got to London this morning at 6am. The flight was excellent. They give you a blanket, dinner, and you can watch new movies. Too bad it ends. We bought train tickets and rode the pica dilly line to earl court. We just got off the train and are using wifi at McDonald's. It's cheap but necessary because we cant get net at airport(zaneth takes over as I switch to iPad)::: zabeth: the 35lbs bag hurts my shoulders but dill insists that I toughen up and the pain will pass. London is pretty and smells yummy of Indian food, which is prevalent here. We met a girl on the airplane and talked with her and rode on train. She was really nice along with the new Yorkers.

Last Days

Today was my last day of work. Chuck and I turned in our GPS, last bit of information, and we did some of our best work of the year today. Thankfully, when I was ready to go out with a flurry he encouraged us both to go out with a bang. Then Zabeth and I rode the bus back to El Paso, and went to dinner with Nani and my Dad. After a few failed attempts at finding an establishment we settled on an oldie but goodie, the Frisco Burger Inn. Everyone had Hamburger baskets and fries. Suzie dropped by to say hello, and Granny just called to wish us well, say she loved us, and to cry just a hair. Thats kind of a microcosm for my own feelings. Alot of hope, joy, and excitement, but as always a little bit of sadness about the things that are so familiar. The list of things to do for tomorrow pretty much begins and ends at buy a ticket home. It may seem that is a necessary step that should have already been taken, but we are kind of milling around just waiting for a reason to come back. Now the only reason to come back is that we cant stay there forever.

Two Weeks to go

 Well with only two weeks to go, it seems that everything is happening so quickly. Of course it is, but its only a result of my failure to help Zabeth plan this whole trip back in September, when she really wanted to get started. Instead we delayed until the 9th hour, not exactly the last possible one...but still. The picture of the Blazer, my old car, is one thing that still needs to be done, although its only a local task and doesnt have as much bearing on the quality of our trip as the other things that need to be done. Like buy a return ticket, and train tickets to shuttle us around the country.

The second picture is Zabeth and I back in 2009 showing off scarves that her late Grandma Audrey made for us. At that time graduation seemed so far away for Zabeth, and now here we are celebrating the event with a trip to Italy. My whole life I have been so comfortable dressing, acting, and thinking in a certain way. In the picture I was probably dreaming about being somewhere cold and foreign,with nothing but this homemade garment to keep me warm.... well thanks to Zabeth its time to put the dreams into action!