Thank you. Yes I’m so glad my boys got to experience this. Every kid should !

Whole families, but neighbours help each other too, it’s a tight community but at this time of year they’re all incredibly busy with these jobs. They’re against the clock, if it rains they’re stuffed. I’ve actually accidentally deleted a paragraph that was about that. They have 2 types of pitch fork, a regular wooden one and a super long one with the prongs configured upwards in more of a basket shape. They use the butt of the long one rather like a pole-vaulter does, to flip the top of the fork up to the waiting wife/daughter. The people here aren’t tall, D towers above most of them, but yes, it’s always a woman up top and a man passing up. Mihai, in the pictures ( lovely guy!) is IMMENsELY strong, I’ve seen him chainsaw ( a drujebah…love that word!) tree trunks with one hand for hours on end. Holding an axe in the other hand to split logs. His wife is crazy strong too! But they spend a lifetime doing these jobs, milking cows, chopping wood, and they work ALL DAY. I was joking with them that while they were working like this ( Munca,munca!) I was munca-ing taking photos. Glad you enjoyed Italy, put on a few pounds?

Do households work together to harvest…or does each family tackle its own pasture? Does the tallest person (father) pass the pitchfork full up to the mom…and she reaches down to grab it? She is soooo high!

ps — we got back from Italy this past Monday evening. It was wonderful. More beautiful than I remembered. =)