We have settled in at our Italy farm, and things have become a bit more reasonable, workload-wise, since the last post. And by “a bit more reasonable,” I clearly mean “better, but then again Nike Singapore kindergartener sweatshop labor would have beat the first few days.” Our hosts are, as I mildly put it, “driven.” Or as Molly more aptly puts it, “frantic.” Any job worth doing, it seems, is worth doing at top speed and on meth.

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Anyhow. The days are still 11 to 12 hours long, give or take, but that (of course) beats 14 hours any day…as well as 5:30 a.m. (or earlier) mornings. Jeez Louise. We have found ourselves doing lots of “Greece vs. Italy” comparisons, and though I do miss a few things about Greece, I can confidently say that I at least like the Italy work much more than the work we did in Greece, for the simple reason that our work here tends to be far more gratifying. Greek work tended to involve three steps:

  1. Perform task (putting up horse fences, cleaning fishing nets, etc.)

  2. Find out that task was futile (horses have escaped, nets most likely couldn’t even catch a drunk AND suicidal fish)

  3. Slap forehead, sigh, realize that you will have to do the task daily anyway for the rest of your WWOOFing tenure.

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Whereas here, even 4 a.m. lavender-cutting yields, two days later, a giant jug of lavender oil. Granted, we are not sure what exactly this oil does (Molly tried smearing some on her bug bites; Danielle fed it to the goats and got them all messed up), but hell. The work was productive. Score one for us!!!

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We do miss being within walking distance of a village, as in Greece. Our current location is right along a major local highway, which gives us lots of vehicle lust…not in the sense of “Ooh! Pretty BMW!” but more in the sense of “You see those people? They’re GOING somewhere! Probably somewhere with Diet Coke, movie theaters, and other people! OTHER PEOPLE!” Living on the highway has also given us some insight into what Italians drive…namely,

  1. cute, compact little station-wagon-y things

  2. big, loud (both in noise and decoration), ugly motorbikes of the type that we in the states call “crotch rockets”

  3. bicycles

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It’s kind of fun to see all the cyclists that go by all day…and this isn’t granny and grandpa out for a spin on their Huffies. This is the full-on 40 mph set, awash in brightly colored spandex and chugging all gung-ho up the hills (and oh, do we have hills). And it is simply amazing on Sundays. For you Iowa folk, it’s a lot like a miniature, spread-out RAGBRAI all day, every day.

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Anyhow, back to the farm – we have some regular tasks, such as feeding the goats, sheep, ponies, chickens, dogs, and (still steadily dropping) bunnies; as well as watering the garden, which is also an important and time-consuming task here, as it was in Greece. This week has added three major items to the WWOOFer plate: the wheelchair walkway, weed-whacking-slash-mowing and dog chaperoning.

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There is a pile of scrap wood behind the hay bales. It is large and consists of boards of varying widths, thicknesses, lengths, and degrees of rottenness. And we all remember that old saying: “When life hands you rotten boards and a WWOOFer with no construction experience…make a handicap-accessible walkway!” So Allie* and I set to work on constructing a walkway that starts by the animal cages, travels past the flower beds, and ends its glorious, scenic journey right in the middle of a large patch of……..dirt.

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Hey. We just follow instructions.

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One of my personal mottos for this trip, however, is “WWOOFers: you get what you pay for.” Just as I consider not nailing my hand to the walkway an accomplishment, I wouldn’t expect Bob Vila to crank out a particularly coherent essay on Pre-Raphaelite literature, especially on a volunteer basis. So I’m not feeling too bad about any crooked or death-inducing boards. Meh. I tried. (Seriously, though: to any future physically disabled guests of Ca’ del Buco: I am so sorry.)

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The weed-whacking-slash-mowing is really exactly how it sounds….namely, they had me mow half of a really quite spacious lawn in the last two days WITH NOTHING BUT AN EIGHT-GAZILLION-POUND WEED-WHACKER. This at least gave me a wonderful photo op with my scary apron-and-face-mask get-up, but also led to a “SWEET MERCIFUL CRAP!” moment when I discovered a LAWNMOWER in the shed. Whaaaaa…? <slaps forehead>

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As for the dog chaperoning – as a backstory, we have four dogs: Tex, a smallish yappy mutt who is quite simply Earth’s stupidest living entity; and three larger dogs: Sinbad, Coach, and Mila. Anyhow, we’re sitting at breakfast with Paola**, when suddenly she jumps up and runs to Mila’s little house, screaming, “No, no, no, NO, NO, NONONONONO!” She then yells for me to get a pitcher of cold water, and I oblige, shooting confused looks at Molly as I walk towards Mila’s abode, where Sinbad is…

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Oh.

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As Molly put it after I <cough> defused the situation, “Poor Sinbad! He’s just so full of emotion! It’s OK, buddy!”

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Long story short, we are the teachers at the middle school dance to the dogs’ hormone-crazed seventh-graders. And because we have reached our “apeshit” point (and also because we are immature and AWESOME), this has given us endless material as we sit, cold-water jugs at the ready:

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“Listen, Sinbad. I know it was great, it was fun, but you gotta call her. You can’t just do something like that and not call. I mean, are you a man, or are you a mouse? Huh? I bet she even let you have some of her breakfast this morning, am I right? Ugh. You all are just the same, aren’t you?”

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Of course, the situation is further complicated by the fact that Coach is Sinbad’s mother and Mila is Coach’s sister. Sinbad is having some conflict, needless to say:

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<in what we imagine to be Sinbad’s inner monologue voice> “I just don’t know what to do! I have these strange new FEELINGS, I’m having these DREAMS at night, I’m getting hair all over, and I just can’t help but think that my aunt is HOT! Come to think of it, Mom is lookin’ kind of smokin’ lately, too…”

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On a completely different but nevertheless remarkable note, we have named this particular trip the “some stereotypes are true tour.” Greek men are forward; Italians do indeed say “EAT! EAT!” to you every few minutes at every meal, no matter how far unbuttoned you already have your pants; armpit-shaving doesn’t seem to be that important to European women (not that there’s anything wrong with that…); Italians all ALWAYS look really, really good and just classily-put-together (making me feel perma-frumpy, but that’s beside the point); and so on. What shocked me, however, was to sit in a café the other day and suddenly hear the haunting strains of a familiar and, given the circumstances, perhaps offensive melody…yes, the Godfather theme, set as a cell phone ringtone. I thought, “Oh, man. Some clueless American tourist is about to get his ass BEATEN!” But lo and behold, it was an Italian man. This goes right up there in the “Really? You’re OK with that?” column, alongside Greeks wearing 300 t-shirts. Who knew?

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Of course, this all may sound way Debbie Downer – heavy and unnecessary workload, nympho dogs, etc. – and we are indeed superpumped to check out other parts of Italy and Spain. But (and I am certain this will sound very Taster’s Choice) it is lots of fun to do this trip with Molly. We have found that we divide the work well – I take the heavy outdoor tasks that require no thought and no subtlety of movement or decision-making (weed-whacking, rabbit burial), and Molly takes the tasks that actually require motor skills and complexity (the mind-numbing little lavender-stem sachets, spitting in the freshly made jam when Paola isn’t looking). Plus, I can imagine no one else with whom I would rather play 8-hour sessions of “connect the celebrities” and “top five _______.” On July 4th, in a truly patriotic mood, we did the top five things we do not miss about the US. Pondering the failing economy, the number of times one hears the word “quagmire” on the evening news, the decidedly lesser quantity of prosciutto in comparison to Italy, a flooded Midwest, and the fact that Hillary’s run is over…it all made this trip to foreign lands seem just all-around BETTER, something I hadn’t thought possible.

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In addition, I have had several disoriented middle-of-the-night panic moments in which I wake up and think, ”Holy crap! I haven’t checked in at work in…like…a MONTH! My ass is getting fired! Why am I in EUROPE? I must surely have responsibilities to someone!” Then I think about it. Nope. I am home free. I can come home whenever I want. Or whenever funds run out. ;)

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In other words, bee-stings and lavender-bundling aside, life is sweet.

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Well, that’s about it. I leave it to Molly to fill in the gaps and make more inappropriate Sinbad jokes.

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*Allie left on Friday, and we are sad. But way to go for us, getting two quality co-WWOOFers in a row. Allie! Come back! Translate their Italian for us!

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** Paola is a woman who, just to give you a picture of her particular personality, JAMS OUR BREAD FOR US. Not in a “here, let me help you with that” sort of way, but rather in a “Jesus, let me do it since you clearly will not do it quickly or efficiently” sort of way. I’m just saying, is all…