Ladies Of The Fields April, 2018

  My last post here consisted of two short videos, in which I am doing one of my favorite things....sneaking around an old ruin in the fields.

  They are all over the place in our area of Umbria, as well as all over Italy, I assume. I've written about them before, including this post from 2016, and my favorite and first post about ruins, here.

  I refer to these decaying beauties as 'Ladies Of The Fields'. I am enchanted by them.

  Since people seemed to enjoy that last post, I thought I'd go ahead and  write this one, which I'd planned to do after we returned to the states.

  About two weeks ago, on a nice sunny day, we drove way over there, so Johnny could do some painting.  I always have my camera and my Kindle. On this day, it was way too pretty out to sit in the car and read, so I wanted to go explore a large ruin down the road. The wet and muddy road...

Isn't she wonderful?

  Johnny joined me at first, just to make sure it wasn't haunted by vampires, or badgers.

Hmmmm. Looks safe enough...

Anybody home in there?

  Right off the bat I noticed shrubs and vines growing in, out, and all about this place. I was especially  excited about a huge wisteria growing all through the windows, doors and through the now missing roof.

I just hope we can cruise back there before we leave to see
this wisteria in bloom...please! She's all budded up now.

Wisteria inside a room of this old gal.

  One thing I love about these Ladies, is they no longer have full roofs, so light pours into the various rooms and spaces that once were inhabited.

A wonderful staircase, now covered in vines.

  I know I should just stay away, but I can't help myself. This one was just begging me to come on in, baby.

  If there were any 'private property' or 'no trespassing' signs, I would never venture inside.

  Honest.

I mean, come on, how could I resist?
Isn't this amazing?

Check out that ceiling.

  This is a really large building, with another smaller building attached. I went around the whole property, peeking in here and there, and going inside when I felt it was safe...which, by the way, it never is.

  One of these days I'll get stung by bees, or bitten by some critter, or just chased off by the owner. Until then, I'm still going to explore as many as I can.

I love imagining what these rooms must have been like.

I like seeing remnants of the old wall paint.

A branch from a large fig tree growing inside the building.
I guess the fig wants out.

  The big surprise with this Lady, was the side building. 

  Evidently, it was an old tobacco drying barn, which are all over in this area. The drying racks, or beams, were still pretty much intact. So cool to see, and the light couldn't have been more perfect.

Old branches, strung together to form drying apparatus.
Gorgeousness, to me, anyway.

Just...wow.

This may be my favorite ruin yet. 

One last shot of this Lady.
I like the blue sky with the brick colors.

  I walked back down the way to where Johnny was set up painting, and noticed another Lady Of The Field down a side road nearby.

While Johnny does his thing, I do mine.

  He was going to be working there for some time, so I took off to check her out.

A much smaller ruin, but with the pine tree and all, I needed to get up close.

  That pine tree was all over this dear old gal. Wow.

I'd move out, too...!

  I saw some color up in the top room, which was really pretty. I especially loved seeing all the pine branches just everywhere here.

Not sure if that was a roof beam, a pine branch, or part of the wall structure.
I just thought it looked beautiful.

  There was no way to get inside this one, but I was able to get lots of interesting photos from outside.

  It was a good afternoon of adventure for me. 

  I don't ask for much...

Me and my Ladies. I'm happy.