Taco night at Nascondiglio di Bacco, italian license plate and earthquake damage

8 Aprile
Thanks to everyone who has contacted us by email and facebook to ask how we are doing after the tragic earthquakes in L'Aquila. As you can see from the photo, our known damage is very slight in contrast to the destruction in Abruzzo which has now claimed over 240 lives and left 15-25,000 without homes. One family lost 15 people, unbelievable! The italian people have come together in a show of solidarity with their central italian brothers and sisters with donations of money, food, free hotel rooms and other needed commodities. As far as proximity to us, if you walk up our hill a couple of hundred meters, you can see Gran Sasso, the tallest mountain in southern Italy and in the valley below this mt., you find L'Aquila, the capitol of Abruzzo. I drove past on the way to Rome on the autostrada, but didn't stop (which is the problem with all autostradas). Bacco and I slept through the big one and the next night's aftershock, although Raffaele was awakened and went outside at 0332 to see what was happening. I did feel the aftershock last night which will go down as my 1st sensed earthquake.
Yesterday morning was my latest effort at the license bureau and it seems the 20th time was the charm as I took away two italian plates, leaving my beautiful TBP 806 KS plate behind. Of course, my little car had the wrong adaptor on the back and no holes at all on the front, so off to BMW for the fix. I am now legal on the back, but need to return for front placement on Friday. They recommended I drill the holes myself, but I politely declined.
The weeds are now chest high in some rows of the vineyard and yesterday I hoed one row in 2 hours with Raffaele completing another in 2 3/4 hours. Aiii! I am pruning the Pecorino vines down to 2-3 buds, which is a good break from the hoeing and works other muscle groups.
Finally last night was Taco night here as I brought back some Chipotle Taco seasoning mix from Nueva Cocina and Raffaele bought some tortillas and salsa from that famous mexican, Uncle Ben. I experimented with frying and baking the tortillas to make more rigid shells - with mixed results, but all in all, I must say, we did alright. 2 corona beers completed the repast and I was content. Mexican food is one thing I miss while I am here and I invariably head out to dine at an authentic restaurant as soon as I hit US soil.
The pictures are from the tulips I planted last year which have bravely resurfaced framed by a beautiful sunset in the background, the results of an 18 month effort to get license plates for my car and a dog who was clean the day before, but did a bit of back country exploring yesterday.