Sunday August 7, 2017
Today was still hot, but at least the sky was blue. That was pretty exciting. There were big puffy white clouds and things looked back to normal. I finished my pastel in the morning and we spent the rest of the day at the beach until we went downtown at 4pm for the grain festival. Wow, that was a hot trip. After an hour or so we learned that things had been pushed back till 6, but it was still ok as there was plenty to look at.
A band called I ritrovati walked around playing traditional music on concertina, a kind of drum that is a large barrel with a stick you push in and pull out to make a kind of bass drum sound and tambourine.
There were pony rides for the kids and vendors sold local craft beer, cheeses, gelato and different pasta products. The donkeys were hanging out in the school yard reminding me of “Mary had a Little Lamb”. The kids were feeding them grain through the bars of the fence. And yes there were piles of grain that had been harvested and sheaved by hand.
In the big piazza was a 50’s era tractor, thresher and bailer combo. Once that got going it was time to find somewhere else to sit. It was a little scary with huge moving parts, loud noise and smell of gasoline. Wheat dust filled the air.
In a smaller park area near by there was a blacksmith shoeing some other donkeys. They did not really enjoy that, but the guys were insistent about the operation and the donkeys lost.
The horse that they had been using for bigger kids to ride was put on a rope and convinced to run around and around a pile of grain in the pre-machinery threshing method. Every ten minutes or so two guys would rush in and rearrange the grain. When the horse got tired, they brought in three donkeys. They did not like this either. Our friend, Vittorio was right down in the grain taking their pictures.
By 9pm we were starving. Unfortunately, the thresher was still running in the big piazza so instead of having the pasta that is typical of the region, we got a couple of slices of pizza, that is also typical of the region, and went down to the little piazza and sat at the bar where we ordered some wine to go with it. As usual this came with great snacks: olives, peanuts and those little round bread treats from Puglia. It was so hot that we had already drunk coffee, three bottles of water, a beer and now the wine. After dinner we went back to the piazza to await the music. By 9:45 we had had ice cream and another local beer and we gave up. We had been there about six hours so it seemed reasonable to go home. Once there we drank frizzante mixed with rosatto and ICE. Beyond that I drank two more glasses of just water. It is impossible to drink enough, and, after all that and all that time we never went to pee. We finished the night off with a shot of Limoncello. A good time was had by all!
This is my new friend that I sat with at my friend Elinda’s funeral. She was also a great friend of Elinda’s. I am able to get the most charming photos when I show people the selfie option on my I-phone. I think we look a lot alike. She is a tiny person. I am bending way over.
No comments:
Post a Comment