A Very Busy Day

As I mentioned, today we had to prepare for three markets, which meant baking a lot of bread. It was a sunny day (wouldn't you know given we had to work most of the day).

The day started as usual with making sure my nine chickens were fed and happy. You can see how cute they are in the picture. I am really going to miss them when I leave. Two eggs today... I think we are back on track.

Since we had so much bread to make, Viola started the oven outside. It was fascinating to watch the process of preparing the oven. Years ago this oven was used as the main oven for all the cooking, since there was no gas or electric in the house. Also many nearby farms brought their baking and cooking and used the oven.

Here is how it works: you start a fire in the oven and make sure it gets very hot. Then you remove all the fire and ashes because the bricks retain the heat. Once you have cleaned the bottom of the oven (Viola used branches tied to a stick as the broom to sweep the oven) you can set the bread on the oven floor. Viola uses her intuition to determine when it reaches the right temperature. Being a wise ass, I asked why she didn't just buy a thermometer. Apparently I wasn't the first to ask. The bread comes out bellisimo.

It was a lot of work and no time to get my 10,000 steps in so we decided to make a video to show you that we really did get exercise. Take a moment to play the video in my picasa web album. It is labeled 10000 steps while baking, Sorry for so many pictures; hopefully you will enjoy them. If nothing else, look at the video. I tried to upload it but it is too large. If you can't see it, email me and I will send it to you pmilano09@gmail.com. ( http://picasaweb.google.com/pmilano09/ItalyFarm1#)

It was a long day and we decided that we deserved a trip to the natural hot springs. This will be my last opportunity so I made sure to take the camera. It was crowded as you can see, but we were able to find a nice hot spot. It was a wonderful ending to a very productive day.

I was happy that I had purchased a bottle of wine in Siena on my last trip. It was the perfect ending to a long but wonderful day, especially with the home made pizza.

Tomorrow is Siena and it is suppose to rain. Being naive, I am going to the Siena train station lost and found... do you think my glasses are there??

Ciao for Now