On the farm, we are at the mercy of Nature. In more cooperative weather, we sit outside and shell almonds or pick grapes down in the field - but not today, for the fields are thick with mud in the spotty rain that beats down on the trulli. There is no work to be done, save for a quick rinsing of the grape harvest buckets that takes all of five minutes. What to do? No TV, no one else around (except for Jean, but he takes off on a walk early in the morning; Greg and Fiorella are out on work) - and to top it all off, we mistakenly leave our laptop outside the tent in the morning. We leave it under the fly, of course, but the dogs run by the tent and knock the peg out...so we decide that the best thing for it is to wait for a sunny day, leave the laptop out to dry, and only then attempt to boot it up again. Not that we would care much for television or computer diversions; it cheapens the experience, breaks through that tenuous fourth wall that separates this rustic enclave from the technological onslaught of modern society...
...so we poke around the kitchen a bit. As always, the first order of business is food - but the pantry is notably short on breakfast staples, so we eat a bit of cereal with latte crudo from a local masseria. You haven't truly had milk until you've had raw milk, which is impossible to find in North America without contacting a farmer directly. Supermarkets won't carry it; many regions ban its sale for health reasons, and so even smaller local markets shy away from tempting fate...
...cereal finished, we are still hungry. Fortunately, the many fig trees strewn about the property provide a near-endless supply of fresh figs. We set about to pick some, and venture out behind the trulli to search for unpicked trees - but our efforts are quickly thwarted by the dense mud that clings to our flip-flops, making it ever harder to walk. Dejected, we give up on our field excursion and opt instead to seek shelter from the inclement weather in the kitchen space. Looking through the bookshelves, we find some paper and markers; we spend some time separately drawing various figures and landscapes before trying our hand at collaborative surrealist art. We take turns drawing lines, and the result is "wild thumbumicus with grilled bacon" - a sort of vaguely Dali-inspired face looking through a thumb with a pulley system on its head and a pair of legs at the base, all made complete with the addition of a single slice of grilled bacon.
Enough drawing for now; we turn our attentions to the bookshelves scattered about the kitchen space. We find a copy of some country living compendium and learn about purchasing farmland and milking cows and growing all manner of vegetables; we find cards explaining the various identities within the 13 Moon Galactic Synchronometer, and look up the herbs corresponding to our identities in the herbal encyclopedia on the shelf; we find the first volume of the Cosmic History Chronicles, but discover that Greg's explanations of the system and its social principles are easier to follow; we find a random book called The Irish Game that we spend roughly an hour and a half reading to each other, using faux-Irish accents for all the characters (except the German ones, for which we of course employ German accents!)
By this time, we are more than tired of reading - but it is still raining on and off, bursts of rain exploding from the sky without warning...and so like the less-than-sensible cyclists we are, we set out on a walk along the road. The dogs dutifully follow us through the puddle-riddled muck, running ahead as we try to dodge the puddles in our flimsy flip-flops. It is raining, yes - but it feels great to be outside, out of that kitchen, doing something even passably active. We walk up the road a bit, turning down any lanes that remain unexplored...
...and our walk is cut short by an enormous puddle several metres long that completely blocks the road. Rather than soak our feet further by wading through, we opt to head back to the house to warm up over some tea. We have a small bite as well - even without real activity of any sort, our energy requirements remain closely tied to the hyper-driven cyclist metabolism. After that, we finally give in: there is nothing for it but to sleep, for we have exhausted all the diversions at our disposal and it is starting to get dark...