Pontedera, Italy
The Stendardo family has been part of our Baha'i community in Vernier for
many years, but now that Luigi has retired as a librarian at the World Trade
Organization, they have bought a house in rural Tuscany near Pontedera,
between Florence and Pisa, with a big enclosed garden and swimming pool for
their severely autistic son Simon. This will become their new residence for
part of the year, since their upstairs apartment in Vernier has no garden
and Simon needs space. Their older son Nabil is at the Aspergers end of the
Autistic spectrum and very good at computer programming, with a M.Sc. from
the University of Geneva, so his needs are quite different. Taking care of
the two autistic adults is a great challenge, so I do what I can to help. I
made several trips to help them during the year.
In a six-day visit the first week of January, I did both garden work and
house repairs to help them begin settling in. This included cleaning
up many wheelbarrows of construction materials from around the garden and
organizing the useful bricks, building two bins for composting garden waste,
and constructing a garden workbench for potting. In the house, I
weatherstripped almost all the windows, and painted those that had
weathered, with a noticeable increase in heating efficiency. Vida's
sister-in-law and two of her children came to visit while we were there.
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The house and part of the large enclosed garden; a small part of the
garden and orchard seen from the house
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Two dinners with the Stendardos and visiting family
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Moving construction materials and waste to make space for composting;
hauling construction rubbish to clean up the garden
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Luigi and Vida inaugurating the two-bin compost pile
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The happiness of a place to compost; in the west of the garden;
working until after sunset
Since rain the first day leaked through the windows and flooded several
rooms, I weatherstripped almost all the windows and painted some window
frames that had weathered badly. The weatherstripping available locally was
too wide, so I had to cut all the strips in half lengthwise to fit the
window frames.
Nabil on his phone, me cutting weatherstripping; weatherstripping the
windows; painting a window frame while Simon is eating
The first week of April I returned to
help some more. Luigi's brother and sister-in-law were visiting, and Vida's
sister-in-law and two children came again.
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Family lunch in the garden; Simon at his own table; the barbeque;
Vida's nephew plays rugby
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Meals in the garden
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Relaxing on the lawn
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Simon loves being out in the garden, and swinging on the swing; Nabil
and Simon
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Breakfast before work; Luigi and me in the garden before my return to
Switzerland
In the house, I finished weatherstripping the rest of the windows, and
repaired tiles, sealed and waterproofed an upstairs terrace that was leaking
into the room below. There were also some dining room chairs to glue back
together.
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Sealing and waterproofing the terrace; gluing chairs back together
In the garden, the main project was painting a wrought-iron pergola, a
swing, 20 lamp posts and a clothesline, and restringing the clothesline and
laying a walkway underneath. There was also some time to plant some flower
seeds and to burn accumulated branches in the outdoor pizza oven which makes
an excellent incinerator since open fires are not allowed.
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Painting the pergola in the middle of the garden
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Newly painted swing and lamp post, one of 20 around the garden
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The house with lamp posts in the garden; remains of an old barn;
garden with fruit trees in blossom
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There are many fruit trees, and space for another orchard; the pizza
oven is also a convenient incinerator for uncompostable garden waste
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Views of the garden and trees from the house
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Front garden by the gate; mountains in the distance
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Vida raking grass, potting flowers at her bench; adding to the
compost pile, which I had to enlarge
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Nabil also helped occasionally; preparing a flower garden; the
clothes line
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In back of the garden is more space and an old water tank with a well
and pump for irrigation
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Many more trees can be planted here; an artichoke survivor in the old
vegetable garden
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Views of the garden
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I painted and completely restrung the clothes line
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With some extra cement tiles, I laid a walkway under the clothesline
Clothesline with new lines and paving
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A broken cuckoo clock became a bird house
In August, I accompanied another
friend, Jean-Paul Vader, with his pickup and trailer, to drive a load of
furniture down to Pontedera. We also bought some necessary items of
furniture at Ikea and assembled most of them before returning to
Switzerland.
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Arriving with a load of furniture: warm welcome; dinner out
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Breakfast; shopping and lunch at Ikea; dinner out
Relaxing before departure
In September, I spent another week in
Pontadera mostly helping in the garden. The Stendardos arranged for a number
of fruit trees and other plants to be delivered and planted while we were
there. There were invasive weeds with deep roots to dig out. The compost
pile I had built in January was overflowing with grass cuttings, so I tidied
up what I could. I built a ramp for their new tractor mower. Another Baha'i
friend, Gian-Franco Mazzoni, was also there that week helping in the garden.
We are gradually creating a little paradise for the Stendardos.
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Entrance gate and garden
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The house; living room; ruins of the old barn
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Gian-franco, me, Simon, Luigi, Vida; old barn from the house
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Garden workbench against the barn wall; burning branches in the
pizza oven; overflowing compost too dry to decompose
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Relaxing (not very often); dinner in the garden
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With newly-delivered trees; the old water tank
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Cutting out dead branches; newly-planted trees
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Spoiled with watermelon; getting ready to depart