Winter Surprises

While we have spent the last five Christmas' and New Year's in Petrognano, most of our guests don't get to experience a winter's stay. Our first winter visit was when we initially bought the house, and it was full of surprises. We didn't expect temperatures to dip a little below freezing. Nor did we expect a dash of snow. We also had no clue about how to get the wood-burning furnace to produce useful results or what to do if we tripped the circuit breaker. We spent our first night huddled under a pile of down comforters with no heat and no electricity and wonder what the hell we had done! We also had house guests who brought with them some sort of nasty virus for which we could offer no real comforts to support the healing. The redeeming highlight was to be New Year's Eve when the valley below us would explode in fireworks displays ignited in village after village for almost an hour. But, the rain put a bit of a damper on that event.

Then there was the winter visit when the temperatures kept bouncing into the sixties during the day, we were routinely awe-struck by the incredible color created by the sunlight, and we had healthy house guests who were ready and willing to help us transform the "summer" kitchen and dining room into lively new spaces. The New Year's Eve fireworks were still a disappointment -- this time made completely invisible by a dense fog and constant rain.

Our winter visits are typically filled with special times spent with friends who live in the area. It is always worth the visit simply to spend time with them. One special visit included a friend's 60th birthday celebration on New Year's Eve. It was a great night. And, for once, crystal clear skies or the fireworks. But, we were at their house in the valley so could not look down on the panoramic display.

This winter's visit was a bit rougher than most.

The weekend before we arrived Petrognano had temperatures dip into the 20's and 7" of snow! All of that was gone by the day of our arrival, but things had warmed up enough to produce a crack in one of the water lines serving the house. It turned the fireplace on the lower level into an "indoor water feature" that created a string of lakes and a stream of water running through the kitchen and dining room and out the back door. It was a hassle, and it took a few days to get things back into order, but wasn't the absolute end of the world and we learned another thing about La Casa Maria's infrastructure.

But the three weeks of cool temperatures, rain and/or fog and generally dreary state of affairs made it a bit of a struggle to generate very high holiday spirits. Each day offered the task of achieving the right balance of technique and art to keep the house warm [enough], and the constant question of just exactly what we would see of the church only dozens of feet from the house, let alone the hillside below, through the rain, snow and/or fog.

On the plus side, the winter's stay can produce some mighty nice pictures!