FuoriBorgo

Corner View ~ spring

When we went to our neighbors' to get eggs today, we noticed that peach trees were finally in full bloom, even though the weather has been anything but spring-like.  We were thrilled.  But our elderly neighbor just looked out the window, shook her head, and said there would be no peaches this summer.

In the afternoon it thundered and hailed.

And the peach blossoms were gone in a less than an hour, and with them went the peaches to come. What a fickle season spring can be!  Or any other season, really.  Living in the country, I've come to see how difficult the daily struggle against nature's odds used to be, for farmer's in rural communities like this one.

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For more corner views on spring around the world, see the list of participants in Jane's sidebar.

worth every minute

 

 

This weekend we took an overnight trip.  Was it worth it?  Was the long drive, the couple of days filled with sightseeing, the packing and unpacking for the whole family, the juggling of our different interests - of adults, and of kids of three different ages - was it worth the effort?

 

Most definitely!  We always come back home from our trips so rejuvenated by these quick breaks from the regular family rhythms.  Our kids may not remember the specific things they saw, but they'll remember the time we spent on the road as a family, and the richness of travel:  how there's always something new to see and learn, if you stop and look.

Creating biodiversity in your garden

This year, as I start a new vegetable garden, I'll be aiming to intercrop a variety of vegetables, herbs, flowers and fruits, in order to imitate the diversity of natural ecosystems, and promote natural pest management - which hopefully increase the garden's yield!  I'm discussing some principles of intercropping at the co-op today in my post Chronicles of a New Garden: intercropping.  

Gone

 

I finally got my sewing machine back from the repair shop this morning, and although I was supposed to pack for an impromptu weekend trip we've decided to take, I did a bit of sewing instead: I just had to test the machine!  I made a little skirt for Rebecca, but I had some trouble trying it on her, as she was already practicing being "gone" on our trip.  We spent most of the day wondering out loud, "Where's Rebecca?"  Don't you just love it when little kids are "gone" like that?

 

 

It's the Oliver & S Lazy Days Skirt, which probably would have taken 30 minutes to make except that I wanted to use some of the pretty fabric Pien sent me (here), and making the the ribbon hem out of one of the pieces took some fiddling.

Note: I did the elastic waistband trick too (not in the pattern), which completely prevents the waistband elastic from twisting: such an easy and ingenious trick!

I'm off to pack now, kind of late in the day, but hey ... my motto when packing is, "what we don't have we don't need!"  Have a wonderful weekend!

Lovely junk

Sometimes I miss the city.  There are days when I long for a stroll down a busy city street, with all its variety, diversity, and its multitudes: of people, buildings, windows, shops, books in bookstores, films in cinemas...
 
 

When this mood comes over me, I take a quick trip to the coast, and spend time with some of our good friends, people who can work magic with their hands, and create art from nothing.  Looking at what they've made, what they've seen in their materials and managed to bring out of them, is an endless source of inspiration to me.
 
 

art by Nicolò Accame 

 

art by Mario Nebiolo

Nicolò Accame's former greenhouse, converted into a atelier

As I sit and chat with them about their art, in spaces they've artfully created, surrounded by surprising forms both natural and man-made, my concept of creativity seems to grow.  These days, what excites me most is art created not with expensive materials, but with objects that most people consider junk, which in my friends' hands take on a whole new life of their own.  This a concept of art that really speaks to me at the moment, which I want to pursue more with our family.

Corner View ~ typical architecture

To get up and down the steep hill where we live, there are windy roads, narrow climbing paths, and stairs.  So many stairs!  Stairs of every description. 

 

My favorites are the stone steps built right into drywall masonry.  I've never seen them anywhere else.

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For more corner views about typical architecture around the world, see the list of participants in Jane's sidebar.

Local food on my rug

 

 

There's something really special about eating food when you know exactly where and how it was grown, and by whom.  Apart from the environmental and economic aspects, it creates a more personal connection with what we use to nourish our bodies.  Tom and I have recently formed such an intimate bond with Brussels sprouts, which after years of refusing to touch them have almost inexplicably become our favorite vegetable, since our friend starting growing them this winter (here). 

And local food, we found, has an even more special local flavor when you prepare it on your living room rug.  This is what I was telling myself as I peeled the Brussels sprouts we'd just brought back home, while Rebecca carefully arranged them around the inside of the colander.  If this rug could talk, how many stories would it tell about the family activities it has hosted over the years!  So many things have happened right on the floor, on this rug: from babies' first steps, to endless board games, to crafting, to lazing around, to homework.  And, as of this afternoon, to ... preparing Brussels sprouts for dinner!

Gardener's Year

Let no one think that real gardening is a bucolic and meditative occupation.  It is an insatiable passion, like everything else to which a man gives his heart. ~ Karel Čapek

We woke up to a world blanketed in thick low clouds. It looked like an autumn day, except that it wasn't.  It was the first day of Spring.

 

 

Thousands of little droplets glittered in the opaque light and clung to the branches, in perfect stillness - so different from the usual winds that accompany bad weather in wintertime.  The first new leaves, intensely green, making their timid appearance.  And the lively chirping of the birds, instead of the wind's fierce hiss.

Your relation to things changes.  If it rains, you say it rains on your garden; if the sun shines, it does not just shine any old way, but it shines on your garden;  if it's night, you rejoice in the fact that your garden is resting. ~ Karel Čapek

I took out some of my gardening books today, and browsed through one of my very favorites, a little gem of a book by nineteenth-century Czech writer - and obviously gardening fanatic - Karel Čapek.  The Gardener's Year (more info in my Amazon sidebar) is a collection of wise but humorous thoughts and anecdotes about growing a garden.  Though this slim little book is almost a century old, it's surprisingly modern-sounding, and at times quite poetic, managing to capture the essence of this addictive passion that is gardening.

There are times when the gardener wishes to cultivate, turn over, and compost all the noble soils, ingredients, and dungs ... Only cowardly shame prevents the gardener from going into the street to collect what horses have left behind; but whenever he sees on the roadway a nice heap of dung, the gardener will sigh at the waste of God's gifts. ~ Karel Čapek

What are your favorite gardening books?

yellow!

We've seen it!  It's here!

 

It's the yellow that tells us that, although the temperatures are still below average and the sky remains gray, spring is happening.  Yellow is the first color of spring around here.  It's the color of the mimosas, which blossom bright and yellow in the brown woods, their branches laden with fluffy, sweet smelling little puffs while their neighbor trees are still bare.

Never before have the first yellows of spring been so welcome in our woods.  

 

As we looked, we gradually noticed other yellows making their appearance here and there.  Like these willow branches we picked along the stream.

 

 

How did we celebrate the first yellows of spring in our woods?  With a spring-yellow quiche, the first of the season...

Welcome, spring!

Pebbles & necklaces

 

 

We found new ways to play with our growing collection of black & white beach pebbles: assembling them following the white vein is truly an addictive occupation.  So many shapes can be created with just simple pebbles, and it's fun when everyone takes a turn adding the next one. 

 

All the playing with black and white helped me finish a new Black Flower Crochet Necklace.  

It's in my shop.