Last post about wwoofing, I promise.

And I'll try to keep it short, so I can go on to talk about Dublin and Rome and Sicily and the start of the new semester... ahhhhh!  Too much to catch up on!

First, one last sheep story.  Somewhere midweek, I took on the duty of letting out the sheep in the morning.  The first time I went to do this, I wrestled with the lock on the door, heaved it awkwardly open in such a way so that I could stay behind it and not be trampled, and waited.

Nothing happened.  I poked my head around the door (which was HEAVY, and didn't stay open on it's own...), and looked at the sheep.  They stood there and blinked back at me.  Come on, I told them, venite, it's not raining today, come on out.  The sheep did not move.  Not that I blame them.  Just because it wasn't raining in that instant didn't mean it wouldn't be raining later, like it had been earlier that morning and, in fact, all week, and standing in the mud under a roof sure beats standing in the mud out in the rain where it's cold and windy.  I probably could have left the door propped open with the rock I discovered wedged handily there for that purpose, and left them to come out if and when they liked, but I had been sent to Let the Sheep Out, and darn it, those sheep were going to exit that pen, whether they wanted to or not.  So I pushed my way through the sheep to stand behind them, and encouraged them out from there ("Vai, pecore, andate, fuori!).  Worked like a charm.

I followed the sheep out of the pen and, grinning, went back down the road to where I'd left Stefano (who was feeding the pigs) and the tractor.  The sheep, perhaps inspired by my brilliant shepherding maneuver (Emily enters pen; sheep exit pen), followed me down the road.  This was entertaining, but I was vaguely worried that they would follow me all the way back to the house, and then what?  What if I threw off their route/schedule and they wandered away up the mountain never to be seen again?  So I was relieved when they cut off the path and went off on their own--until I realized they were heading for the tractor, which still had a bucket of feed in the scoop in front.  I beat them to it, and attempted to fend them off, but sheep who've located a food source are sheep on a mission, and Stefano returned a few minutes later to find me perched on the tractor, fending off the sheep who were trying to climb in to reach the bucket.  He merely smiled, and started up the tractor, and we drove away.  The sheep trailed along behind for a while, and then got distracted/discouraged/side-tracked and wandered off into the orchard.

That evening (or the next evening, it might have been) Stefano sent me with another bucket of food to locate the sheep and lead them back home--we could hear their bells in the distance, and he thought they were hanging out in the chicken coop.  Sure enough, that's where I found them (there were no chickens in the chicken coop--they were probably down hanging out with the pigeons by the shed), called them (billy-billy-billy-billy-BEE!), and they followed me right along up the road and home, all eleven of them, single file.  Probably didn't even need the bucket, as they were inclined to follow me anyway (honestly I think sheep would follow a chicken if it looked like it knew where it was going).

The rest of the week was similarly filled with animal feeding, whitewashing, wood-stacking, floor-scrubbing, moving things (buckets, massive bales of hay, a dresser, chicken wire, me, the dog, etc) about in the tractor (no, I didn't actually get to drive the tractor), helping with the dishes, eating good food (including their own excellent salami, which in italian refers to cured meat--pork, in this case--in any form), reading from the small library the wwoofers' room had accumulated, laughing myself silly with Dona and Tilde (one of their daughters) and Stefano while we tried to get the new TV set up in the living room (all four of us read both the italian and the english version of the instructions, and they still didn't make any sense),  and getting my cat-fix for the year.  When there are eight cats in and around the house, there is always at least one handy to sit on your lap or be entertaining.  And by the end of the week, I could even tell almost all of them apart and call them (mostly) by the right name.

On New Year's Eve Stefano and Dona invited me to come with them into Florence for the celebrations there, after a tea-time-ish snack of Italian "toast" ( = grilled cheese sandwich made with prosciutto, in one of those panino-maker-machines, and then, when the prosciutto ran out, grilled cheese made with pecorino [my favorite kind of italian cheese, made with sheep milk] and dipped in honey) and tea, which was by far THE BEST New Year's Eve snack I have had ever, just in case we couldn't find dinner.  And no, for everyone who's been warning me about this, there were no objects flying out of second story windows.  Apparently that's a tradition from farther south.  There was music and lots of rain and an orchestra concert in Piazza Signoria and so many fireworks/explosives--being set off IN the piazza, mind you, within feet of the large crowd that kept backing away--that you couldn't hear the concert.  And then on New Year's Day they took me to Stefano's mother's house for the family New Year's Day lunch, which was delicious (and Stefano's mother told me she thought I was Italian!  Not Florentine, but from some other part of the country.  And getting that compliment from someone who isn't trying to flatter you and sounds like they genuinely mean it is really awesome).

It was rainy and cold most of the week, except for my day off, when it was sunny and I took a walk and most of those pictures that are on Facebook, and a day or two towards the end of the week when it snowed (not nearly so rare up in the mountains as it is down in Florence), which made the everything really beautiful (but also made it difficult for the pigs, sheep, etc to forage... two sides to everything, I guess).  After expecting to see no snow whatsoever this year, I have now gotten to see TWO snowfalls, both gorgeous, and that's not even counting the one in Dublin, which you will hear about shortly.

In all, I had a great time.  Wwoofing Italia is holding their annual general meeting in a few weeks.  It takes place here (not here/Florence, but here as in see the link), and their inviting people to bring pot-luck contributions and sleeping bags and musical instruments, so I think I may have to go...