Summary

March we (finally) finalized the purchase of the house, its litterally and figuratively DONE!!. We continued progress on our immigration journey. We celebrated George’s birthday and our 20th anniversary. Temps began to warm a little, suggesting Spring is on its way. We have a few visitors coming thru in April, looking forward to some familiar faces.

This month’s photo is just one of many trees and shrubs on the property beginning to bloom. Google says this is a plum tree, we’ll see what it and many others produce.

Immigration

With the help of our immigration attorney, we continued our path to receive our PdS. The PdS (Permesso di Soggiorno) is what allows you to remain in Italy, beyond any visas held, and also to establish residency. George received a temporary card, his permanent card is to arrive within 60 days. It continues to inch forward.

Construction

All of the large construction is fully complete. A small cover is pending for the septic access point. We’ll likely take a break on construction now to allow the house to stabilize before we engage again on a few smaller projects.

Property Purchase

As we shared, we completed the purchase of the house. We met with the notary in Siena, signed all the needed paperwork and transferred all final payments. Like everything here, DONE can have different meanings. So while the paperwork has been signed, there is still administrative follow up over the next few weeks to close out this milestone. We’ve noted that because things take awhile, you can sometimes lose sight of the actual big event. So we will work harder to celebrate these events regardless of how DONE they are.

Water System

The well pump was replaced along with the water line. All appears be working now, but we had some issues with the new pump circuit breaker tripping randomly after the new pump was installed. Fingers crossed that this item can be considered fully DONE. They had to bring out large machinery to pull the pump up. The well is nearly 100 meters deep. We’re told that the water table is at 65 meters, so things look good for the well. We are new to having a well and so the pump design was a bit of a surprise. A large pen shaped device with a long power cable. The last one was estimated to have lasted 20 years. The electrician returned to make some modifications and we are on day 3 of no “Trippin”. Can we say DONE?

Landscaping

For those of a certain age who may or may not have been raised by a television, there was a fantastic duo of children’s programming producers named Sid and Marty Krofft. They were responsible for a litany of ridiculous shows including HR Puff N Stuff, Lidsville, The Bugaloos and of course Sigmund The Sea Monster.

It is Sigmund we write about today. There has been an oddly shaped bush on the property the entire time we’ve been connected here. We took to calling this bush Sigmund for its resemblance to the same.

Today’s yard work has brought the demise of poor Sigmund. It turns out it had an old dead bush as its structure, and a small leaf ivy had grown over the top giving the impression of a full bodied Sigmund. After cutting away at the base, imagining a tree stump or something, we only found a bunch of brown nothing. Anyhow we chopped the head off the beast and now we will encourage the lawn to take over the space. Ciao Sigmund.

We’ve also been busy trying to convert some rough patches to areas where we might start some simple gardens for this season. It was stunning to find billions of rocks buried in each of theses locations. Lawn mower and rocks of a certain size do not mix.

With the weather slightly warming and showers still common we’ve poured a number of wild flower and other seeds hoping to see magic this spring. Here are some before and afters.

Lastly, spending time on just general cleanup, rake in hand. Made our way to an opening near the entry gate that was grown over in the stone wall. I have a big phobia about dark spaces with overgrown bushes. I’m very proud to have gone this far and not a single GIANT spider landed on me.

Lots of adds to the burn piles. In Italy, yard trimmings are simply piled and burned during the colder months. Not uncommon to see small well managed fires when out and about.

Stables

Work well underway in the stables, focused on chicken housing. We selected a stall near the door for sunlight and begin instalation of wiring for protection. Somehow need to create a door and some finishing touches. The property manager tells us she she knows a few places where we can get the chickens when ready.

Kitchen

We continue our journey in kitchen design. We meet the designers once a week to see the changes from the previous week in their rendering software. We are very excited with how things are looking. No pictures or dates yet, more to come.

Spring

Its been great to be here as spring wakes up the sleeping blooms. We are seeing the average temps jump up just a little each week and the blooms, grass, trees are all coming to life. I have officially completed the mowing of the grasses in each of the maintained areas. I expect it goes from little growth during winter, to out of control in summer with frequent mowing. We shall see.

Recognition

While we were celebrating our anniversary and the closing of the house sale, we were thinking back to the beginning of our house search in Italy, the planning that went into that first visit after some time in Paris & Greece, and how we even became aware of Umbria. Prior to that trip, our dear friend Kim had shared that a number of years ago, while she was on a location scouting trip in Italy, she spent several days in Umbria among other stops, and had found it to be lovely and quite a bit less expensive than Tuscany. We had heard of Umbria, but in our ignorance hadn’t really considered it an option. However, her endorsement of the region and guidance that our investment would go quite a bit further here, were key to us expanding our property search to include Umbria. And here we are… THANK YOU KIM!!

That’s it for March, hope everyone is doing well. We really enjoy the comments, please take a moment to share your thoughts when you have time. xoxo