Arriving at Spannocchia

7 luglio

I am getting behind on my writing, but hopefully can catch up this afternoon. I woke to a beautiful, cool morning, with the fog covering the valley below, which is all part of Spannocchia property. This place is huge—you look out to the valley more to the east and there are vineyards and huge brick buildings and you realize that they, too are on this property and you get some inkling of what it takes to keep it all going. My short walk around yesterday gave me a bit of that—between pigs and wood and gardens and tourists doing workshops, and a thousand other chores to tend to, this is a busy, busy operation.

The Tower

It’s 4:20 in the afternoon… my room is hot and stuffy, can’t open the windows much during the day, and the pool is right out my windows and is constantly busy. I am going to check the internet, then go to the secret garden to write in the cool shade… hopefully the cool, quiet shade.

Went into the main building and got on the computer for a bit… answered a few emails. I really want to get caught up on the blog, but that will take getting caught up on writing… I have written so much by had, and need to transcribe… Ok, now back to my design paper… Down to the secret garden, wrote a bit about public space, cena, public space, pranzo… what else is there to write about?

Helping Graziella, the amazing Spannocchia cook, on Pizza Night

Back to my room for a nice shower, but really need to do something about the window—no curtain and it looks out to the pool… then to wine on the patio, and pizza night. The interns tended the fire, adding wood all afternoon, then Angelo was there to orchestrate the pizza making, making the first two, but doing all the cooking, using a very long handled pizza peel to get them in and out. The students put together the rest of the pizzas and served them to the guests. I would live to get the knack of doing the cooking, and since pizza night is every other Wednesday, I will still get a chance… I wonder if Angelo would let me? Guess I’ll see in two weeks! I was very fortunate to work in the kitchnen with Graziella, the full time, Italian-only speaking cook who grew up on this land, then left, then came back as the angel of Spannocchia—the incredible cook who manages the kitchen and makes all of the dinners for tutti.

Angelo, the winemaker and vineyard manager and maestro di Pizza!

Earlier I went through the “volunteer closet,” a wardrobe stacked with all kinds of left-behinds… I am woefully unprepared for 4 weeks of outdoor work, and by some sort of miracle I found 3 pairs of shorts and one of pants—all docker-style and in great shape. I also found a few t-shirts, and washed everything in the front loader—I swear the whole cycle took 3 hours! Anyways, I hung them out at about 4, and after dinner I went back to the clothesline, down some steps and below the pool, using my headlamp to light the way. When my eyes were adjusted I turned off the headline and there were hundreds of fireflies! Molto bello… I felt very lucky to be in their midst and hung out for some time in the dark with them lighting my life, enjoying their magic.

Tomorrow will be my second day of work, and I am so glad to have t-shirts to wear and new big, baggy shorts that are clean!!! Thank goodness for the volunteer closet!

Ciao, buona notte.