SUMMER IN SAN VENANZO

JUNE 29. 2004

Summer has arrived in San Venanzo…or at least the summer we would like to have. During the day the sky is clear and the temperature rises to the mid 80’s. Once the sun goes down, it cools off considerably…nice for sleeping, nice cool mornings. Friends tell us that it’s bee in the 90’s in other areas not that far from us. Our altitude helps us, I’m sure.

The tomato plants are settling in and growing! I’ve been watering them every day, but plan to cut back once they’re established. Jill told me that their tomatoes would be ready in a week or so…I’ll be lucky to have tomatoes by the first of August! The good news is that the growing season should be much longer here…unless of course we have an early cold snap like we did last fall!

We drove into Marsciano yesterday. It was market day, and I had decided that my herb garden needed one more addition. I knew that the Monday market would be the place to find not only the plant, but also a pot for it. As an added bonus, we could browse, maybe pick up anything that looked good.

My herb garden is now complete…I have parsley, rosemary, basil and oregano. Not exactly a Simon and Garfunkle title, but perfect for what I need. In the winter I plan to move the pots closer to the house, and I think everything but the basil should survive. As a bonus, we picked up some peaches, and today I made a wonderful tart!

This week we’ll go to Perugia to get a new codice fiscale card for Art. Luckily for us, Wendy has to take care of some business in the same office, so we’ll just meet her there, and if there are any problems, she’ll be able to handle them.

Although many people in Italy speak English, there are notable exceptions. Older people usually don’t speak English, nor do people in small, out of the way towns like ours. Additionally, we’ve never found anyone in any of the government offices who speaks English. I keep procrastinating about studying, hoping that one day I’ll wake up and be fluent. Art studies diligently, and does a good job of not nagging me. I guess I just need to decide what’s really important for me…do I REALLY want to speak and understand Italian, or do I just want to get by and not worry about it? If I spoke and understood the language, I could meet a lot more people, discover a lot more about the history, be much more a part of things…be a PARTICIPANT, rather than an OBSERVER.