footprints in the clay
Things have been moving so quickly this past week (something I’d never really expected to say) that I’m now having to do some catch-up blog posts on the activities.
Before we broke ground a couple of days ago, we met at the lot earlier this week to place the final stakes. A few months ago I’d helped to hammer in the very first stakes in the land which marked the outline of the property. This time, however, it was to mark the outline of the actual building. Since it’s a very spread out plan and not at all a straigt-forward, rectangle box, there were many stakes to place and it helped very much being able to see exactly which direction each wall and window faced. The views, luckily, are not limited to only one direction, although the lake by far is the star and behind it the hilltop town of Montepulciano, to another direction you can see Chianciano Terme and the Etruscan hill town of Chiusi with the mountains of Cetona and Amiata behind, then to the opposite side there is the local village not far up the road, and the neighboring farms and vineyards.
I walked the outline of each room, looked across from one side to another envisioning the walls, furniture and future home. I acted like I was opening up the front door, walking inside and turning into the living room. We walked up and down the existing slope of the land discussing how the levels will actually feel, and made notes about a few possible changes in window angles.
As I walked over the area, I looked down to see that I'd left my footprints in the thick clay below the dried grass. It felt good to see my mark on the land and made it feel even closer to the time that a larger mark would be made soon.