boots

boots

Originally uploaded by nonsonoitaliana

These fancy boots were purchased last summer, directly after spending the afternoon on Lisa and Laura’s market garden, and feeling the need for rubber boots in a big way. I imagined tromping the gray streets of Bergamo in the rain in this citified version of the dull-green workhorses Laura was wearing.

Never even dreamed they would be put to work in the mud of Terno, preparing beds in the hoop house for seeding!

But that’s just what they were doing this morning, as I finally got my hands dirty, literally. And breathed a huge sigh of relief, because I think a part of me, deep down, has been afraid that either this was all a dream and/or I was going to mess it up somehow.

Nothing doing, though, and we will be back out tomorrow for some more fun.

Sunday

brassicas

Originally uploaded by nonsonoitaliana

Sunday morning I went for a walk, leaving Ilario and Amalia at home. Some few minutes by myself, walking one of the routes I developed while pregnant, a little shorter than the longest one, almost half of it through fields behind the house.

Ran into Marco, the farmer, who pulled his tractor over to the side of the road to chat with me about the garden and the hoop house.

Walked past the pig farm, and decided that pigs make me vaguely uneasy, especially the young adult ones that have a decidely awkward body shape and squinty eyes.

Walked past the sprawling farm house and its outbuildings, past the apartments in the middle of the farms, past all the garbage strewn all over the fields.

Turned and walked along the little stone and mud path/road, past the strange space that maybe used to be a vegetable garden and now looks like a secret grove in the middle of nothing, a patch of grass surrounded by a fence of trees, a few plastic chairs stacked up under a plastic roof.

Walked through the mix of plowed soil and last years corn stalks.

Passed the Madonna del campo, and headed home.

Where Amalia was trying hard not to fall asleep in her papa’’s arms.