A Quiet Moment in Milna

We have a photo of us under the rainbow in Milna, one quiet, rainy day!
I just look tired and fed up with work, need a good rest!

Slavko (and Nada)

Last Day, Dateline Milna

Last day. Beautiful, sunny, slight breeze: this has been a very good
season for me and a bad season so far for the olive trees. They need
rain to plump the olives.

My house is all tucked in, tho, everything cleaned, covered in plastic
or packed away in the closet with a few mothballs, and if my roof
repairs did any good things should be sound when we return next year.
Water bill paid, electric bill paid. Most good-byes said.

Tomorrow, 10/07, Slavko will drive me in to Supetar and I will catch the
7:45 a.m. ferry to Split, then a 12:20 flight to Vienna. Stay there
overnight at Pension Mozart. Then onwards the next day to Toronto,
Vancouver, Alger!

Today, however, everything is a little sad. Even the palm trees are
waving good-bye.

Roof Repair, Dateline Milna

It's pretty hard to ignore roof leaks when you have plaster walls. Each
leak shows up long after the rains have stopped as a rather interesting,
rust colored stain against the white plaster. And then of course when
it is actually raining, there are those not-so-small streams of water
pouring from the ceiling or running down walls and across the floor.

To get to my roof, first you have to go into my house - carrying your
tools and buckets of cement for repair - up my stairs, past my bedroom,
into the back room, step up on a wooden chair, then crawl over a small
cement sink and out a small 30 x 30 (or so) window, brushing millipedes,
snails and spiders aside. It is no easy trick getting through that
window either: any way you fold yourself has its own problems and
pains. Then you can climb up on the roof using the neighbors concrete
wall as a step. Once on the roof you must tread very carefully, trying
to put your weight on the thickest part of the roof tiles, which are
generally old and brittle since I told the Bosnians to go ahead and use
the old tiles when they redid my roof three years ago. So, every time I
climb up there to try and put cement or mastic or rubber sheeting over
leaks that I have found, I end up breaking another tile or two and
adding to my work and risk of future failure. (And, of course, this is
just the backside of the roof - - the frontside, with its own problems,
is too steep for me to contemplate repair.)

As always, Slavko has been an incredible friend, helping to locate and
review my problems, come up with creative solutions, list the supplies I
will need for repair and even drive me to the hardware store to pick
them up. Of course, as he pointed out, the right answer is to redo the
roof, again.

My plan is much simpler than that, however, and a great deal cheaper.
(And I think he suspects it.) What I want to do is spread some cement
around, call it good, and get the heck out of here before the late
autumn rains start. Then it will be 6 - 9 months before I have to face
this again!

Local Hardware Store, Dateline Nerezisca

Say what you will, you gotta love it when a trip to the local hardware
store finds you wandering among 300 liter rubber and stainless steel
wine-making supplies.

Thanks for photo, help and ride, Slavko!!

Pies

Riding with Slavko today to Donji Humacs to pick up some stone slabs for
a job he is working on, I started
talking about fruit pies. Raspberry pie, plum pie, rhubarb pie,
strawberry pie, blackberry pie (marion, logan, himalayan, evergreen),
peach, apricot, blueberry, mulberry, apple, even lemon and lime. I went
on and on and on, surprising myself. And he must have thought I was
crazy, but Julia, please take note . . .

Wine-Making #4, Finale, Dateline Milna

First day of Autumn, the white grapes are ready for bottling. This
time we do things a little differently with the help of Spiro's
brother. Instead of transferring the new wine from the rubber vat by
hand, we hook up an old pump and plug it in. Magic!!!! A white wine
gusher. Sweet now, but it will dry out as it matures. Different, too,
is the fact that most of the wine will be stored in old glass wine jugs
rather than the stainless steel canister that we used for the red wine.

It's a beautiful and successful day, capped off with some succulent
meat, potatoes and carrots cooked under embers: peka. On the walk
home, I stop for my Dalmatian annual Equinox swim.

EQUINOX!!!!!!!!

The wise man keeps his head down and sticks to business.

Wine-Making #3, Dateline Murvica

Saturday, 9/19

Today's the day! A clear, sunny day. The good red grapes have been
sitting in a vat in Murvica, near Bol, for a week now, fermenting and
getting mashed and stirred daily by Ivo's neighbor/ wine master.

Now we open the spigot and watch the beautiful stuff gush out. This is
the easy part: we just transfer the new wine by hand from the rubber
vat to a stainless steel . . . ummm, canister (I'll have to find out the
correct term). Beautiful, beautiful. We fill the 320 liter canister
almost half way like this. (1)

Then the harder part. We assemble an old Yugoslavian wine press, pack
in some of the grape mash left behind in the rubber vat, screw down the
lid, and start crankin'. Ivo, Spiro and I take turns. When we are done
pressing and straining all the mash, the stainless container has about
300 liters of rich red wine. (2)

The stuff that's left in the press is incredibly dry and packed tight.
We break it apart and pack it back in the rubber bags that we used to
collect the grapes here. Spiro will take these and have rakija (brandy)
made this winter. (3)

We celebrate by drinking a little of the young wine. Yummy. It will be
ready to start drinking in earnest after Christmas.

After cleaning the equipment, I go for a pre-Equinox skinny-dip at the
beach below Ivo's little villa. I don't realize that this is a naturist
beach until I notice the couple at the other end and the boat of young
people approaching as I am leaving.

On the drive home, we stop by an old friend of Ivo's who also has a very
nice villa above the sea on this south part of the island. (This is
actually Alexa, the guy who sold me Bella Bijela a couple of years ago.
And I am with Spiro, the guy who purchased her from me this year.)
Sitting on his patio, under a grape arbor, and shaded by almond trees,
we eat fresh almonds, drink homemade brandy, and talk about tuna fishing
and hunting wild pigs on the mountain, Vidova Gora.

We return home by climbing a gravel road that relentlessly switches back
and forth right up the side of the mountain while the little vineyards
sloping to the sea disappear in the distance below us.

Now it's Monday, 9/21, and I am back to working on my roof. But
Equinox is a'comin' then time for a swim.

Mashin' Grapes

2 x's day x 7 days = vino

Wine Making #2, Dateline Milna

09/15/2009 --

It's 11:00 a.m. but I am already a little hot and tired, eating lunch.
Still, it feels wonderful sitting in the shade under a 150 year old
olive tree twisted sinuously behind me, with a nice glass of home-made
rakija in one hand, a sandwich of cheese and salami in the other, and a
cooling breeze blowing from the North. I am high on a hill, back
winding rock roads, with an expansive view of the Adriatic and the
mainland beyond.

We are back at Sutivan again, near Milna - Ivo, Spiro, and Spiro's wife,
Golga - this time picking the white grapes for white wine and rakija.
Of the 800 grape vines, the majority are white grapes and I can feel
it. (Funny, I think, how much grape picking and tile laying have in
common. A truth I can feel in my hands, and back and knees.) This is
the real thing villa rustica, small rock shack on agricultural land,
check out the photos for a view of the water collection system and you
will see what I mean (although you can't see the dead lizard next to the
water-in sieve.) The land is owned by a Polish woman who purchased it
as an investment and who did not understand that the grapes, figs, and
olives needed to be worked for them to survive fruitfully. So we are
working them to our benefit.

We get 14 bags of white grapes off the land. Maybe 300 liters of wine.
These buggers are heavy - I'd guess about 60 poundds or so - and remind
me of bucking hay bales, except the sweet, sticky juice is everywhere.
We also get a couple of baskets of figs and some grapes for eating.

Back at Spiro's, we mash the grapes, but discover to our distress that
he will have to add sugar to get them to a level for proper
fermentation. (See photo of Spiro and Golga peering anxiously at meter
reading.) This is a big no-no, as everyone speaks disparagingly of
those chemists adding sugar and water to stretch their wine. Still,
what must be, must be and we shrug philosophically.

Once again, we finish the day with a big feast of . . . meat. Some
onions, some wine, and meat. That's all it seems to take over here for
a good time.

After Finding a Big, Ugly Centipede in my Bedroom: An Inconsequential Memory

We were walking a loop
on Sam's father's land
admiring the way -
as I recall -
he had culled the firewood,
when
from the canopy of alder and of cedar
I felt a plop!
on the top
of my head.
Suppressing a shudder
I brushed away a plump
banana slug,
still grunting assent
to Sam's sililoquy
while thinking at every step of the way,
jee-sus key-rist/
jee-sus key-rist/
jee-sus key-rist.

September Wine-making, Dateline Milna

Up at six to hit the slopes. . . vineyard slopes, that is . . . with Ivo
and his brother-in-law, Spiro . . .one vineyard, secluded among the
hills not too far from our village, as a bonus had some plump and
delicious figs too. . . then down to the other end of the island, near
Bol, where the best wine grapes grow and where - down an ever narrowing
dirt road that clings to the hillside above the sea - Ivo has a small,
true, very wonderful 'villa rustica' that he is working on, complete
with a tiny vineyard sloping down to the sea and a horizon full of
sailboats and Hvar. There, with a little help from a knowledgeable
neighbor and his sons, we were able to complete the harvest and mash the
grapes for primary fermentation . . . (This is a big experiment, Ivo's
first time making wine, although his dad did routinely, of course. But,
as a small child trying to help, Ivo accidentally 'destroyed' a vine.
His father said, "No, Ivo, you must love the vine." and after that never
let him help.) . . . then back home for a carnivores delight feast of
grilled meat and inexpensive red wine in a carton from Macedonia . . .
This was a 'red wine' grape day; on Tuesday, we go back to the nearby
vineyard above Sutivan for the white wine grapes . . .

Villa Rustica, Dateline Milna

Well!!!! while everyone else is dealing with the opportunities and
problems in their lives, I have finished tiling our little Illyrian
summer home, or villa rustica, as I have taken to calling it. That was
back-breaking work. Now, a little clean-up, some roof repair and
contracting for back wall excavation, and maybe a week or two of hiking
and painting, if all goes well.
Maybe some wine-making too, we'll see!

Tile Status, Dateline Milna

Man, seven days into laying a 200 sq.ft. floor and I'm still not done!
(That doesn't count a few days prep.) Who knew?

The work is hard and I am slow (and achey. and slow.), and I did slack
off a couple of half-days and today (somehow) forgot to get more mastic,
it's Sunday, so I am forced into inaction. Well, there's a couple of
things I can still do . . .

Slavko tells me that I am taking 3 x's as long and using 3 x's the
mastic as is normal. Gotta glue those suckers down good.

Friends have helped . . . Ivo has loaned me some tools and came over on
the first day and laid tile for a couple of hours . . . plus he drops by
once a day, loudly announcing that "Control is here!" and inspects my
work, usually pointing out some sloppy work and asking "Why, John?
Why?" . . . Slavko has wisely stayed away for the most part once I got
started, but he taught me how to lay tile, drove me to hardware stores
looking for tile, helped me get supplies, showed me how to prep . . .
and has fed me twice in the last 3 days!!!!! (I actually had two meals
in one day on Thursday! I will get fat.)

Strangely ebough, I am really enjoying this but I need to finish this
this week so it doesn't interfere with our big wine-making plans. The
grapes are ready!

Tile Preparation

I chisel away with my 1/2"chisel, leveling all the old concrete in
preparation for tile laying. Julia says I need a bigger tool. Funny,
that's what all the spam I get everyday says too.

Anyway, I whack the chisel a couple of times. H-m-m-m-. Maybe a little
music would help. I put on Indexi, an old Yugoslav (Sarajevo) rock
band. Not bad. I hit it again. Huh, I think I need a little coffee.
Back again. Hit it. Don't I have a cigar stub somewhere? Yeah. Good
smoke. Hit it again. Where are Charles, Tim, Eliot, Spencer when i
REALLY need them? Hit it. I text a message to Almir, telling him how
much I really enjoy Indexi. Get a reply, and have to reply to him.
This is slow work. A couple of whacks. Hey, what's that dripping down
my chest? Sweat, by god. Better take it easy. i think I'll take a
picture of me working so hard. Take a drink of water. Jeeze this is
boring. Its getting hotter. Maybe I should finish tomorrow?

The things we don't do . . . tile floors, pack suitcases, sell shoes,
run projects . . . when all we really want to be doing is sailing the
Mediterranean with a fair breeze at our backs and some wine, olives,
figs and cheese in the larder . . .

Near Noon, Sacred Grove

What Do I Find?

I am chipping away at my concrete floor trying to level it with a 1/2"
chisel in preparation for laying some tile and what do I find but
'Leetle Henri. '

When Julia was Here

I was trying to get to the coffee one morning when I became aware that
Julia was describing something to me: "A little black crustacean . . ."

'What?" I said, 'Was that a dream?"

"No, it was on the patio. About so big," she spreads her thumb and
forefinger," and with a tail curved like this." she curls her finger
upwards."

"Oh, you mean a scorpion!" I say.

"What's a scorpion?" she asks.

No matter, since she had whisked him into her dustpan and tossed him out
into the grass, whatever he was.

I tell Almir this story as we are making our way home one night. We
both laugh as we enter my patio.
There in the middle under the light is a big, black cicada.

Almir, the city man, peers at it suspiciously and edges around it.

He looks at me. "Is that a scorpion?" he asks.

(Image from keepingupwith-kathy.blogspot.com)

Tonight

I eat garlic on the waterfront and feel very Mediterranean.

I am wearing the batik rag shirt that Julia bought in Indonesia 'cuz I
fancy it makes me look very artistic ex-pat, like maybe Robin Williams
or Nick Nolte.

Frane T.

Frane T. has a large stuffed owl on his living room wall. Its wings are
outspread a good couple of feet and its face is ferocious. Frane was a
hunter in his youth, although he is a little vague about where he
hunted. "We got on boats," he said, ". . . other islands . . ." Nor can
I quite tell what it was, besides owls, that he hunted. Wild pigs, at a
guess, which we still have on Brac, so he says.

To the left of the owl, which occupies pride of place as you enter the
room, are 4 medium sized paintings, hung on line. The first, which
darkly depicts a Mozart-like figure seated at a piano, is 400 years old,
he tells me. I prefer the third in line, some whimsical figures painted
more recently by a relative.

Frane is proud to show off his home. He even takes me into the bedroom,
opens a closet, and shows me blankets draped over two rather large
objects stacked together. 'Harmonica,' by which he means accordion, and
'clavier,' or piano. For besides being a hunter, Frane has also been a
musician, travelling from town to town in Europe, a fisherman, and – his
real occupation and that of his father before him – the town butcher.

Now he is 71 years old and retired. Each year, he rents a building on
the waterfront to the Albanian family that makes ice cream and also
rents them accommodation for the season. He rents the butcher shop too.

He is a large man - tall, broad-shouldered, barrel chested - with white hair who walks with a slow dignity,
ponderously, with his arms held stiffly, slightly bent at the elbow,
away from his body, shoulders forward. Almir pokes fun at him,
insinuating that he looks like a great seabird holding its wings up to
dry. And he does. But the gait, like much about Frane's life now, is
really a remnant of his youth, a Yugoslav "John Wayne' macho mannerism
from 40 years ago.

'Ah those girls from Belgrade," he remembers through Almir. 'They were
really liberal back then. You would go to the beach and, if they liked
you, they would come right up and within 10 minutes . . .' Almir assures
me it is true.

Frane has never married. He spends the days with his sister in her house
and sleeps at his own home in the village. It is a strong stone house,
with private patio shielded by grape vines from which he makes 'lozo', a
type of brandy. He has an open view of the village.

There is a story about Frane, about why he never married, about why he
is trapped in the past. It seems that in his youth he loved a girl from
a poor family. Frane's own family, being relatively wealthy in property
and higher position, forbad their marriage. One day Frane awoke to
discover that her family had taken her and had emigrated to Australia.
He never saw her nor heard from her again. And he has grieved his whole
life.

Tonight, we sit in his grape arbor and drink his homemade prosek, a
sweet sherry type of wine. "I can bring my ukelele and we can play some
music," I say. He looks at me mournfully for a moment. 'Ah yes, we
could,' he says,' but there are no women, so what would be the purpose?'

I light a cigar and pour more prosek in silence, having no good answer
for him.

Later we go down to the Riva for some pivo. There are plenty of women
present and kareoke loudly booms from nearby speakers, but Frane seems
no happier.

"Look at those three Swedish girls," he says. 'Here they are, sitting
alone, and no-one comes to charm them,' as if such a crime was unheard
of in his day.