Castagne Picking

This week a dastardly illness has ravaged the Paulisons.  I've been a busy bee getting ready for the arrival of my parents and for Finn's birthday on Monday!  Sickness has been slowing my buzz!  So I'll share with you our adventures last Saturday, before a mean monster invaded my sinuses.

We went chestnut picking!  How cool is that?!  I found myself right in the middle of a Christmas song riding along the backroads of our province out to pick chestnuts.  Italians roast chestnuts in the fall, and street vendors sell them on numerous street corners.  Swoon.  I love this place.

The view was more spectacular before the dreary mist set in.

Pulling up to the restaurant/picking grounds!

So our great friends from church Maria Grazia (MG as I affectionately call her) and her fiancé Filippo invited us to join them for castagne (cah-stawn-yay) picking.  Alex had offered earlier to take some engagement photos for them, so we combined the two events.  Engagement photos aren't popular here, but we assured them that American couples would die to have a photo shoot while picking chestnuts.  How fabulous.

So I was completely excited for this chestnut adventure, and had literally zero idea what to expect.  Where do chestnuts grow?  Field?  Hill?  What do they grow on?  Bush?  Tree?  Stalk?  What should I wear?  Lies.  I actually didn't think this last question which I later regretted.

Filippo and MG picked us up in his car, and we headed out to his coworker's family restaurant where they live and also have a castagne grove.  I don't know if that's the technical name.  We rode through the rolling hills of the Bologna province (similar to a county).  Finn screamed the entire way because he hasn't been in a carseat in many moons.

Finn not loving his carseat :(

This forgotten restriction was not welcomed.  We tried to calm him and soothe his cries while taking in the gorgeous changing leaves arching over us on narrow, winding roads.  We pulled up to a grand old Italian farmhouse that his family turned into a restaurant.  They have a small vineyard there and after we pulled up, his coworker greeted us with some hybrid strawberry grapes-de.lish.us.

A chestnut tree!

A chestnut in the wild!

We walked up a small hill behind the restaurant into the grove where the chestnut trees grow.  It was on this trek that I regretted my attire choice of chincey flats as my cold toes got covered in mud....

Proper/adorable footwear sported by MG.

Improper footwear sported by my freezing toes.

Under the castagne trees there are spiky hulls that hold the coveted chestnuts.  Some are cracked open, others are semi soft and easily broken when stepped on.  There were only a few small pokes as we retrieved the chestnuts.

The fallen spiky hulls filled with chestnuts.

As we gathered the the nuts, we watched the afternoon sun glisten on the valley and Alex snapped some beautiful photos of our precious and very photogenic friends.  Finn was passed out on my back nearly the entirety of the photos and picking.  But he woke up for some photo ops at the end.

Hunk husband and kid.  

The whole gang on our adventure!

We gathered about 6 kg of chestnuts and MG and Filippo took most to share and roast!  We took a few for fall decor (I've not yet ventured into roasting chestnuts myself).

Finn was joyful on the way home, and fun was had by all!

::Here's a sneak peak of the engagement shoot by Paulison Photography::