The first job of the day was to start this thing. If you look at the front of the tractor bed you see a rope tided and dangling. That essentially is the starter. On the front of the tractor is a metal disk. The rope is wrapped around the disk and Massimo and I pull gently on it three counts and give a good yank on the forth. Needless to say it didn't work the first time. "Mariannknee hold it like this, you fut hereee" moving my hand a hair up the rope and tapping my foot out gently further away. " He has a look that tells me maybe he thinks I can't do this. Well those that know me know how inspiring that look is for me. I am standing behind him, close enough for it to feel like vertical spooning. "Piano, Piano Mariannknee., and then VAI" Slowly slowly. "Uno, Due, Tre, VAI" Second time it started with a blench and a smelly black puff. He nodded handed me three buckets and said. "Now go get the sheeeit" , his mouth curled a little. That might have been a smile. Hum I thought maybe he should be more specific about who's and where. I ask politely where. I skipped the who's because I am not sure how this kind of humor translates culturally. He motions his head in the direction of the barn where the ponies live when they are not in the field. I smiled grabbed a shovel and go. "Full" I ask, with a tone that would have been the same if he told me to fill it with orange juice. "Yes" he answered in a tone the also implied OF COURSE. Lifting his eyes under his bushy black brows to meet mine.
I return with them full. "Viene" come. I follow obediently to the workshop. Massimo walks like there is cement in his shoes. His legs bend at the knee and his feet for each step are dangling, as if for that second they are in the air, there is no bone that connects the foot to the ankle. "Put these on di traycktore" "Ah we are planting trees" pleased to be given a clue. There are six. I pick one up gently kneeling down placing the plastic wrapped root ball in the crook of my elbow like a baby's "bottom. "No like this." Massimo said grabbing it by the base of the tree and flinging it swiftly into the crook of his own elbow. "No so much bending this way." he returns it to the ground. "Now you try." I put my plant down and do what I am told. He nodded with approval. I make six trips to the tractor. Next hay and bamboo. The tractor is loaded, warmed up and ready to go. My place in the parade is in the back behind the belching beast. 
"Mariannknee" go to the gayt" he screams "open it and then close it after I am trew." Off I go, sprinting ahead. Do as I am told. Follow behind up and up and up. The land here is like a bowl. The base and sides of the the bowl are the farm, every inch that can have a tree does. He waves me away from what might be the parking spot for the tractor and proceeds to turn it around. He is now facing down hill. My gut tells me this is not quite it, the rest will be on foot. There is another terrace. Literally the last one until the mountain pushes up the sky. "Oh dear" I say as I look at the filled tractor bed knowing Italian men well enough to know that there is an excellent chance that I am going to be the shelper and not the digger. The angle to the future home to these little sapplings in nearly ninety degrees. To get there I step like I am playing twister: one foot on green and way over the other foot on red, one hand on yellow the other hand on blue. Pride will not allow crawling for too many more tries plus there is the shelping reality. I am going to be a shit Sherpa. I practice when I have to tools in hand. I am pretty open minded but I have no interest in having a bucket of crap fall on me no matter how old and dirt like it looks. The potential for this is great. My second try is with a plant. Up I go, like evolution of all men, more upright. By the time I get to the hay I am bouncing up like a champ. Massimo starts to dig. First a metal rod he pounds into the ground, wiggles, removes, pounds in again, repeats, and repeats, until the clay soil gives way. Then the zappa, essentially a hoe, to loosen a little more and form the hole as if a perfect bite was taken out of the side of a cone. "Mariannknee go get water in a bucket." We are a half a mile from home and I am thinking "WATER. Where is the water." Noticing probably a look of bitch slapped confusion, he stops, leads the way down the slop to the tractor and pulls a long black hose from the under the thick growth of grass. "Ahhh, thanks." I say politely. For me the retrival of water was not an uneventful thing. Unfortunately my tugging technique needed a little work so I managed to completely remove the baby hose from the momma hose causing a blast of water to sprout from the ground with a hiss. Stubborn, I try to return the hose without help, pushing the baby back to the mother, oh but not quite making it,. My failing efforts increase the force of the flow and also make the flow of water more random. Now I am being squirted in the face and my chest and sometimes my hair with water that is strong enough to sting. The mother is too fat to bend so i try one thumb. I push with one thumb as hard as I can and slip the baby back into the mother. Now my hair and face are soaked and I am laughing knowing that I will have to explain myself to a man that really doesn't seem like a talker. I fill the bucket and go up the hill. This is not so easy. Unfortunately I filled the bucket as though i were walking a straight line and the water sloshed about toppling some onto the clay creating a slippery uphill slope on which I proceed to slide down on my bottom, land straight back where I came from. Ha ha, now the story will include water in the face and mud on my bum. These people are either going to love me or send me packing.
I refilled my bucket, like trouper and went up the hill again. This time a optimistic and successful running start. When I arrived Massimo stopped like he was shot with a stun gun, frozen for a minute. . . Oh dear I thought is he going to yell like the train station ladies. He smiled the toothiest grin I had seen yet and laughed and laughed. "Next time Mariannknee, just tell me and i will make gud di water." I turned around and showed him my muddy back. He laughed even more "For dis I can no help." When we finally stopped laughing, he asked me to hand him the shovel. i grabbed the handle and also a bee or two. Squishing them dead between my palm and the handle of the shovel. I yelped. "Whut happin Mariannknee?" "Oh just a bee.: "You have promblem, go back to the house, ask Janne for the bee medichini." "No I am okay" refusing to leave my post.
It was five more trips like this. Each tree we climbed a little higher. Fortunately the sliding and water issue did not repeat itself and no more bees. We loaded the tractor, started it with one try and we were on our way. "Mariannknee you go straight down and open the gAYt for me and wait for me to arrive."
Okay. I bound down like a good little WWOOFer but realize pretty quickly that straight down is not straight forward. I follow a path down and hear though that the sound of the tractor is getting ahead of me. "oh no oh no" I say, "Where is the damn gate." I keep following the trails and hasten my pace, down down i climb. I end up in the valley near a spring, i hear the tractor slowing down for the last little hill before the gate. I leap from marsh grass to a rock and SPA LASH! in the water I go. "ARgh" I just wade now, shoulders up completely soaked from head to toe. Massimo eyes wide, caterpillers eye brows high enough for me to see his upper lids for the first time, teaches me how to say what the hell are you doing in Italian. Wet, bee stung and filthy I still call this a very good first day.
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