Today was the day for Heinz to try out the new machine they bought for cutting off the top of the grapes.
We missed Elsa and guessed that she had gone out to watch. After that, we enjoyed breakfast on the patio and then Verle rode Elsa's motor scooter out to watch Heinz at work.
We walked through the forests close to the street that is the bike trail to the cable car just south of town. Betti went along with us.
Elsa had reserved tickets. She bought Verle a hat while we waited for our ride. It has a brim that folds in half so it can be carried in a pocket or suitcase. It was so exciting to ride up and watch the valley grow smaller and to see more and more of the big picture of the area, with its mountains all the way around us. Finally, we were above many of the mountains looking down on the whole scene.
A plane came by several times pulling a glider. That must be quite a glider ride down in this gorgeous area!
We had a wonderful meal in all that beauty before we took our walk. The walk led to the north of the cable car landing. I used Elsa's ski poles, and they certainly make walking on the hills easier, even though I don't use them correctly. The mountain flowers are blooming beautifully, and Elsa explained several of them to us. Her favorite is a blue trumpet shaped flower. It is lovely. Red Alpine roses are blooming. They spread rapidly and displace the grass that the cows eat, so the village people come up to get rid of many of the plants.
We walked to the upper home and barn used by the team that watch and milk the cows on the high meadow. They will be driving them up from the middle cabin area next week. The milk is trucked from the middle area, but it is made into cheese from the higher level. The home there is lovely, and the cow barns have pipes for milk running through several rooms in which the cows are tied up and fed. The milkmen move among them, connecting the machines to the pipes above the cows.
Elsa is fearful riding in the cable car, but she is a great sport about it. We walked back home and had some ice cream. Heinz and Sonya came over and invited us to have pizza with them, but Elsa had planned to make spaghetti, so that's what we ate. Elsa brought out some of her crocheted doilies and let me pick one of them to take home. Heinz came back over and asked Verle to drive him in the car to get his motorcycle home. Elsa and I looked at all her garden. When the men came back, Sonya and Oliver came over and Elsa served us all more ice cream. As we finished, fireworks started to the west of us. Heinz said some Portuguese people were having a kind of a motorcycle show. We joked that the fireworks were for us. They were fun to watch. Oliver made a movie of them with their digital camera.
The more we are with Elsa, the more we realize what a remarkable woman she is. She works in the vineyard, taking pleasure in "making everything look tidy." She has a reverence toward the grape vines, and we can understand that feeling. It is wonderful when our work feels in harmony with God. We already knew that Elsa can speak many languages and enjoys people. We didn't know that she could play the accordion, keeps up on sports figures worldwide, enjoys and interacts with her two grown children and their families and her sisters and friends, takes care of her lovely flowers and home, does beautiful crochet and tapestry work, cooks wonderful meals with (seemingly) little effort. We are blessed to have been able to spend this time here with her and Heinz, Sonya, and Oliver.
No comments:
Post a Comment