Reflections on My 40 Years in Umbria

I resisted all temptation today by NOT taking my camera with me on my walk in the garden...so I WON'T repeat myself and bore you with yet more photos of garden details!

These recent afternoons/evenings Maurizio worked more on and almost finished these two paintings: a seascape for Michael and a creek/inlet/swamp landscape for Genius Loci http://www.geniuslociumbria.com

With the company of a roaring fire

and our adorable little Virgola,

enjoying hearth-cooked dinners of pagliata and roasted baby lamb chops with wild greens

crespigni, greens to be cooked, and schiaccia lepri which are delicious salad greens, both grow wild on our lawns

we dedicated ourselves to various hobbies: painting, reading and planning our vegetable garden's April planting. This terraced, spacious orto gives us bumper crops of all our favorites (various types of tomatoes, zucchini, green beans, leeks, onions, garlic, various types of lettuce including arugula, radishes, and all the typical herbs) from late May through October.

Maurizio's 2007 painting of our terraced vegetable garden

Very soon we will till the soil, fertilize organically, till again and plant, rotating from year to year, our vegetables. We are fortunate to have a climate which allows for a long growing season (May through October) which makes the work well worth it. What a joy to watch things grow and come to perfect maturity - to plan meals based on what is freshest and ready to be picked at its prime in our own vegetable garden!