rooster and a peacock

Happy Spring!

i know its not officially spring, that happens on the 21ish. but its march and thats good enough for me. at the farm near siena, i kept saying "happy spring!" and "this isn't winter snow, this is spring snow. its much different." so its been dang cold lately. i arrived at the farm in a furry of snow and left in the same way.

the farm was a good place, with excellent food, people, and strange events. also, in addition to being a farm its a meditation center too. the source of money comes from different groups that stay for a week or more and work on being higher level meditators (i really don't have any idea what the levels mean or what they do). but, on sundays the group gets tested and they need people to work on (me). i found out what it means to truly meditate. i guess the simplest way to describe it is to be awake but completely void of thought. i felt like i was awake, but after the hour long session i definitely "woke up" and felt like i was drunk. definitely a strange feeling, and it made it even more strange to be getting a healing meditation session in a giant villa in the middle of tuscany.

i didn't get to ride any horses but i spent a good amount a time feeding them (and sometimes cleaning up the crap, but its really not that bad at all when everything is frozen). not a fan of geese--they are animals of the devil. this farm gets the weirdest animals-that-are-friends award: all day a rooster and a peacock hang out together. i didn't know those two birds could be friends, but i guess its possible. one cool event was driving a bobcat (i really small bulldozer type machine) during an all-the-water-pipes-are-frozen-and-the-animals-need-to-drink-water crisis (those don't happen to often). i grated my thumb while trying to zest a lemon and burned my fingers on a lid that i just removed from a giant stone oven--not my most shining moments.

now i'm neosporined in florence at ashleys and am going to go to another farm soon--maybe somewhere in bologna. i would like this one to be an only italian speaking place since my italian didn't really improve much with them speaking perfect english and me spending most of my time with a german wwoofer. it was a good week but i'm ready to focus on italian again.

i haven't cut my hair since new zealand (october) and i finally have wings. i think its taken so long because hair grows slower in winter--and i've had a lot of winter.

happy spring
ciao ciao
your friend

chad