Abruzzi mountains

     Last weekend The LeClair family joined several other families for a day amidst the Abruzzi mountains, (appx. 2hrs drive north-ish of Naples).  It was a beautiful day but we were prepared for the weather to be bitterly cold.  We all went up there to help clean up an olive tree orchard to get it ready for the growing season.  As the saying goes, "Many hands make light work" we were a living example of that! We got to work right away and not too long after, most of us shed our coats, hats, and scarves. It wasn't as cold as we had planned for-thankfully!

     We were up there on a mission to help the nuns who live in the abbey. They were very sweet ladies and it was wonderful to be able to help out.  I wish I had taken some 'before' and 'after' pictures of the orchard. A lot of trees were uncovered from brush, ivy, etc. and a lot of limbs were pruned. Then, many burn piles were started to clear up the debris.  At one point, Aaron was seen running from one burn pile to the next with a flaming branch to start a new burn pile.

Some pictures of us workers having a well earned lunch :-).  The white dogs are Abruzzi Sheepdogs. They are pretty cool dogs!

 I got a little bit of time with these cuties.

 Pictures of a few of the buildings on the property.

 I'm sad about the lack of quality of these pictures because the views were breathtaking! The picture above is of a little village atop the hillside; the pic. below is of a really cool looking castle.