Harvesting Olives
A weekend spent working outside, harvesting olives
This is how friends hang out together in Italy. When it’s time to harvest the olives on your property, you call all your friends, and out they come to climb trees, rake olives, and spend the day in conversation under the fog or sun. Saturday started out foggy and cold, but by mid-day the sun was out, same deal on Sunday. By the end of the day yesterday, we had filled 30 crates.
I think the crew, of as many as a dozen or so people (coming and going), stripped about 80 trees of their olives over the weekend. What I want to know, is how the Italians make feeding a crowd look so easy. Because needless to say we took a break in the early afternoon for a true pranzo (local wine included). On Sunday, la nonna and il nonno were even there to help. The sweetest thing was finding il nonno sitting in a little patch of sun after lunch – there’s a picture of it, as well as several others on the olive harvest page (click that bold olive harvest page type, or find it anytime on the sidebar on the right).
The next step happens tonight when the olives are brought to il molino to be pressed into oil. Evidently at this time of year, the mills operate 24/7. November in Italy!
Un Viaggio al Nord
A November Rose blooms in Villa Guardia
Early November presented us with a grey weekend for traveling, none-the-less, we enjoyed a trip north to visit our friend Giovanna in Villa Guardia (near Como). It was one of those full immersion weekends in which we spent continuous hours doing our best to communicate in Italian, and keep up with all of what was being said around us. My comprehension appears to be improving, but getting the words out in the right order, and with the right endings is still quite a challenge. Maybe by the end of this stay, I’ll be able to follow the talk show hosts and their political guests on TV. Finally, I’ve found a good reason to waste time in front of a television! We had to change trains in Florence in each direction, and had enough time for a quick walk in the city – a treat, despite the rain.
Pictures above from left: A pink umbrella in the piazza in Como; An old entrance to the city, Como; and
A quintessential peek at the Duomo in Firenze.
Italian Obituaries
Robert Broekman :: 13.09.25 – 21.10.11
In Italy obituaries are plastered on the walls throughout town. They strike me as operatic in nature, great big announcements for everyone to see. My father didn’t want a service, or even an obituary – ha voluto niente. None-the-less, I am compelled to say something, to pay tribute in some way.
Though we didn’t always see eye to eye, he was my father, and at times it seems that this nut didn’t fall very far from his tree. I’m sure that my stubborn nature is in part inherited from him. It has in many ways served me well. He also taught me a lot that has led me to where I am today. Some of those lessons may, in fact, have been unintentional; but I’m grateful for them even so. I learned from both my parents how to think for myself, and stand up for the things that matter to me. They also both, in their own ways, taught me to be very (maybe sometimes a little too) independent. It is a skill that has taken me far and wide – And may even be part of how I find myself here in Italy at this moment.
While the bottom picture describes the Italian version of obituaries, there was something about that flat twisted tire, and seatless bicycle in the autumn leaves in the top photo that struck me as a more fitting description of endings and loss. Furthermore it’s a much nicer photograph in general, and one I think my father would’ve appreciated – or could even have taken.
His life wasn’t always an easy one, but he made the most of it; he ate chocolate often, and usually first. I will always remember visiting him in Paris, and how he barely ate anything for dinner, but when it came time for dessert, he had one of everything from the cart. That’s what I would call “la dolce vita”.
Foligno – 12 Ottobre 2011
This morning: an exercise in Italian bureaucracy.
Monday we spent almost 3 hours at the Agenzia delle Entrate, for our Codice Fiscale – which is something like a tax ID number, and will allow us to get another mobile phone, and is also evidently necessary for our Permesso di Soggiorno. Getting a Permesso di Soggiorno, has become an entirely new adventure. This morning we spent another three hours between la Questura (the police station), the Ufficio Commune, and finally the post office for a “kit” (basically, the application for said Permesso). So, here’s the thing: no post office in all of Foligno, evidently has the necessary kits. They’ll arrive, sometime. When is anyone’s guess. It’s like the festival of lentils, where when you arrive, there are no more lentils.
Che bella, questa paese!