First time gardening since August. Oh. My. Goodness.
One of the attractions of over-wintering in Orvieto was that I would, without really thinking about it, walk for miles a day right through to spring, and therefore be ready for any digging that might ensue. Okay, to be fair, it did help a bit. But I somehow neglected to factor in that yard work uses a very different set of muscles than long walks do.
The garden I’m moving into (with house attached) was, shall we say, rather neglected. I’m not sure for how long. I guess that would depend on what is meant by “neglect.” If it means that whatever plants might come up were allowed to grow until they died on their own, then it was perhaps neglected for a year or two. If it means that nothing went into the ground that wasn’t already there, up that estimate to five or six years. The earth wasn’t packed – it’s fairly light soil, probably because it’s volcanic/organic and had been assiduously tended for, oh, say twelve hundred years before the last six – but it felt neglected. Ah! That’s what I mean by neglected, it just felt that way.
Daniele, who I hired last week to paint, grew up with Massimo – the real estate agent who improvisationally found me the place – in the neighboring town of Porano. (see Etruscan Wood for details) He’s doing a great job, I like his taste, we share a sense of color and of boredom with “classico” white. Massimo told me that Daniele is also a muratore, loosely translated, a mason. I want to pave part of the yard in pieces of stone or brick; the section under the apricot tree. The light is dappled, it’s a northeastern exposure, it’ll be lovely. So, on our first meeting, and after we’d discussed paint, I asked Daniele about the terrazzo.
He hunched and stammered and I completed his sentence for him; not really a muratore, but sort of one? He nodded, but willing to look at the job. A couple of days ago he came to me with a plan. His father really is a first-rate muratore, they discussed it and proposed to frame the terrazzo with used cotto set in concrete so as to reflect the existing walkways, fill what lies in the middle with good sand, tamp and wet it alternately until the sand has seated itself, then lay large pieces of “brick” over it. The house is a rental. That way if or when I move, I can take what lies in the middle with me. Good thinking.
Today, Daniele covered everything in the house that might get splattered, 
removed doors and electrical plates, scraped and filled and treated, and began to paint. I worked in the yard for much of the day, and every hour or two we’d take a spontaneous conversation break. Great for building vocabulary, because we’re talking mostly about tools and paint and walls and pavement, with economic comparisons between Pennsylvania, Orvieto, and Porano thrown in for good measure.
Come afternoon, it was time for me to visit the fortuitously just-reopened ferramenta (hardware store) about a half mile to the south, but still sopra – on the Rock. I’ve been going in pretty regularly over the past week. The guy who opened it knows his stock, what it’s for, and how to use it. He is quickly learning that I don’t have the things I need to put together a garden or repair what might go wrong inside a house. I’m quickly learning that, as with the pharmacists here, he’s more than a dispenser of product – he’s hands on.
I ask for my first tool, a shovel. He shows me a selection of blades and handles. I choose. He hands both to me and points to where I have to drive the nail. Sorry, say I, I have no nails. Nor a hammer. He offers to assemble the shovel. Today, a similar scenario played out over a pickaxe, a rake, and an extension for the garden hose I bought this morning. He gave me advice on how to fix the filling mechanism for the upstairs toilet, which eventually boiled down to “take it apart and bring it in, I’ll show you what to do.” (That didn’t have to happen, by the way – Daniele fixed it on his own.)
I returned to the house carrying the new pickaxe and rake slung over my shoulder. I tried carrying them under my arm, but clearly the classical method is more efficacious, and it cuts a much better figure. I walked towards Via della Pertiche though the part of town that was host to orchards, vineyards, and gardens until the early 1950’s when many of those were filled with incongruous apartment buildings (they have since aged into something slightly more harmonious.) Walking with new tools, just assembled by the guy who sold them to me, though those streets with smaller gardens and orchards still intact, was like stepping onto a temporal treadmill. I stood still while walking because the earth rotated beneath me. (I know it’s not really like that, but allow me the whimsy.)
Then followed digging and raking, and using muscles for the fourth day in a row for which I had forgotten the intended function. By then, Daniele had put some color on the walls. The universal first gasp of “it’s so much darker than I thought it would be” escaped from my mouth before I had a moment to think. And the universal response of “it will dry lighter” was returned in tennis pro fashion. We talked paint. Daniele showed me pictures of others of his jobs. Beautiful work I cannot afford. When and if I move, perhaps I’ll hire him again, taking the imbianchino with me just like the pavers.
Awhile later, as he calls it a day and prepares to leave, he joins me in the garden and we discuss the size and shape of the future terrazzo. I ask if he could maybe use the cotto tiles I’d dug up earlier in the day for the border. He briefly inspects them and tells me that of course we can. Using them will save money. Well, I reply, mostly it’s because they’re beautiful. He agrees, they are.
“And to find the best large pieces for the middle, we should take a look at what’s available off the Rock.” In Scalo, I ask? “Oh, sure, in Scalo, Sferracavalo (also at the base of the cliff) but why not go to Bagnoregio, and there’s a great place in Lubriano, too, and a few others. The further we get from Orvieto, the cheaper they’ll be. Plus, it’ll be fun to look. We’ll go together until we find the right stuff.” I look at his tiny Fiat 500 parked on the lower terrace, imagine a quarter ton of brick in the back, and grimace. “Don’t worry,” he assures me, “I can borrow a Jeep.”
This morning Claudia suggested that she and Enrico could take me to antique fairs in the area, see if we can’t discover a few gems for appealingly low prices. Massimo, who is stupid busy, offered to take me to paint stores and furniture stores when I first took the house; I thanked him but declined, I’d feel stupid guilty for adding to his duties. Andrea has been beyond kind as the guy who takes and makes first-time phone calls for me, and accompanies me to procure new items not available sopra.
I reflected on all these lovely people on my walk home this evening, and it was a bit like settling into a warm bath after a hard day of digging. That metaphor was also an appealing projected reality, but as I don’t have a tub I collapsed onto the sofa instead, resisted falling asleep, and forgot all about the lecture/presentation on classical music that – although it is designed specifically for children – I enjoyed so much before the musicologist who gives it took a break for Easter. Oh well, I’ll catch the next one.