thanksgiving

today we write from the lovely medieval italian town of siena...it is a walled city, all the buildings are made of sienna-colored brick, and it is so beautiful around every turn, every narrow street. the duomo (cathedral) here is made of black, white and pink stone...over the city walls you can see the fall-turning-colors hills of tuscany, vineyards, more beautiful buildings....we are on a day-off field trip from our amazing help exchanging experience outside of cecina...the property is up in the hills, reminding me of northern california and heartwood, the rolling hills....olive orchards, kaki (persimmon) trees in the garden, almost 200 acres of this, 40 horses, 3 golden retrievers that love attention, our own little cottage with a little twin bed loft that we squeeze into, and a most beautiful old italian style house that nicola and his 2 kids live in... the night we arrived we walked into a delicious meal with nicola's sister, nephew, and mother... we ate a traditional italian dish (kira, carson and i both thought of you independently as we ate the stewed pork dish, thinking "i bet kira would love this!") surrounded by the italian language here, nicola speaks good english and the kids do some, but mostly we sit around the table and listen to italian which is wonderful. there are two wwoofers here too, one from arizona and the other from brazil (but amazingly she lived in olympia for three years in the 90's and ate at the urban onion all the time! how wild!) and they are both so great....jennie is here to cook for a week, and yesterday the four of us spent 7 hours in the kitchen cooking the most amazing thanksgiving dinner ever. buying a whole turkey here in italy is rare, they had to order it at the butcher shop and everyone gawked at the size of an entire bird! we made all the traditional things and invited the other people who live at the farm over for dinner, we made fresh bread to bake in the outdoor oven, and we had 8 desserts on the table, including home made gelato and...oh i could talk about food forever, couldn't i!? we are having so much fun here....lots of laughter and expression, lovely fruit at the end of each meal, fresh salads, so much yummy olive oil that was produced on the farm, rolling hills, a much warmer climate than we experienced in austria for sure, and the ability to learn little pieces of a new language.

so far we have worked a few days trimming olive trees, learning the art of it, how to trim the old branches and the straight shooting branches to make way for the olive producing branches, and to do it in a way that maximizes the tree's health...also we have worked to refill ditches and burn a burn pile, it was fun to tend a fire and keep it going! to anyone who is thinking of traveling, we love helpx.net and the opportunities it has offered us thus far, just amazing!

hopefully we can find a way to put some pictures on soon, we have a lot of them! much love to everyone, we were thinking of you all yesterday on thanksgiving, giving thanks for you in our lives!

love,
m & c