Hi folks!
Elena asked a while back how I ended up in Italy. In the U.S. I married an Italian native: he was born and grew up in Milan but had spent most of his adult life in the U.S. When my husband retired we came to Italy for two years, as we thought, but in our first year we impulsively bought an old, rundown farm in the province of Piacenza. Then we realized we couldn't live in both countries, and we decided to stay here. My desire to rear our daughter in two cultures was an important consideration, and there were financial and cultural considerations. My husband and I have generally been very happy with our decision, though money gets tighter every year and is becoming worrisome. We love where we live.
Gardening notes: the day before yesterday my husband helped me dig out the elm roots that had invaded a part of the box garden. I had been wondering about them, though a previous investigation by DH ("dear husband") hadn't turned up any evidence of roots. Well, he hadn't dug deep enough. We dug, pulled, and cut all the roots we could find, in the heavy, heavy clay, got the bed more or less cleaned up, though too late, probably, to rescue two dead or dying box bushes, and two roses. Oh, well. I LOATHE elms. We're going to be killing some this spring once they've leafed out, using a nasty toxic herbicide. This is my one exception to my rule of no poison: killing elms. It's impossible to garden around them. Today I plan on putting the dirt back, amended with a lot of old hay. I wonder if this ground might not be fairly good, if I could just keep the elms out of it?
Melissa
