So, where was I?

First off, I must absolutely tell you this story.... I am officially on vacation as we speak, I finally have a helper so I am spending three days away from my beloved farm and doing some touring things which I will now tell you about.

So, day one of my hard earned vacation time, I went down to the sea at Sperlonga where Alessandro has a beach house with some friends from Rome. The house is actually in a little town named Itri which is kind of poor and abandoned and the beach crowd is moving in for the summer and amongst this summer beach crowd there is also the gay crowd which (now here is the story) the locals call, are you ready? Tra-la-la's! I love that. It's like code, for example you can say "Oh, he's tra-la-la".

Anyway, as luck would have it, I had a tremendous ear ache and was only worsening it by swimming so Alessandro and I drove off in a search and destroy of other quick touristy things. We did a beautiful cave tour, and then hit a ski mountain in Abruzzo (no snow obviously) so I can plan this winters outings, now we are back in Rome, which by the way, is fantastic in August. The city is completely deserted. No traffic, no pollution, no people, I love it. My advice for you for next summer is to do Rome the middle three weeks of August when the people flee to the seaside.

I have a new helper (he arrived about 10 days ago, I trained him quick quick like so I could have a day away). His name is Vladimir, from Ukraine. He speaks neither English nor Italian so our communication is down to pointing and nodding and grunting. Well, I hired a translator for a day so I could leave a few instructions and it turns out that our Vladimir is a licensed massuese! His suggestion was that he give me a massage and if I like it, I could suggest to the guests to have a massage and he could earn some extra money. So, last Sunday while we were waiting for the new arrivals, Vlad starts saying "Blent, Blent, massage, massage". I say "Okay" he preps a table and makes the motion for me to lay down. I whip off my shirt and lay down. I still have my short pants on and he grabbed the waistband and said "Blent, no, no". Um, okay, up I stand take off my shorts and flop back down on the table and Vlade sticks his thumb in my undies and starts pulling them over my butt saying "Blent, no no". I mean, I'm alone on a mountain with this man, so I'm like "Vlady (tra la la), let's not even go there" Anyway, the massage (complete with undies) was okay. It was my first massage ever, maybe I thought it would be different (as in maybe I would enjoy it) but he tried.

Other interesting things this summer? It's been busy busy busy! I've met some great people, there was one lady from Florida I could have done without, but it keeps things lively. My sheeps and horses and rare and exotic chickens are all fine.

My veggie garden is my best ever, my tomatoes are just coming ripe now and I need to get home tomorrow and start the sun drieds, otherwise it's going to get chilly and they won't dry fast enough. We are getting lots of inquiries for the fall so do come visit us.

If you are thinking of the Christmas week, come on over we are doing a nice Christmas things at the farm and it's going to be fun crowd and fun time so call quick. Our construction on the other house is going great. The farm is looking better than ever, so clean and tied together and flowing and beautiful. I've been gone three days and I miss it.

Have you looked at my photo's? Someone wrote and asked which one I am in the photo of the three men raking hay. Well, I am the one on the left holding the pitchfork. The other two are Jim and Steve from NYC whom you may have met last year. The other photo's are my personal experiments about focus and blur. A technique I stumbled upon by accident because I don't focus very well. I have had two people write and tell me to take the photos off there! HOW RUDE! They are supposed to be blurry.

Have good things and do good things to good people. One last thing, I am going to the States at the end of November and looking for things to do, so if you have a suggestion.....bz@priello.com